401 InvalidAuthenticationToken after token refresh

Question

I am using the msgraph-sdk-javascript and have implemented a custom getAccessToken handler. This handler checks whether the user's access token has expired, and if so, posts to the MSGraph /token endpoint to get a new access_token, refresh_token, and expires_in time.

In another function (doWork), I attempt to process a request to the graph api up to 3 times. If the request fails 3 times, I end the user's connection and log some information for debugging. However, if a user's access token is expired when doWork is called, there appears to be a chance that the response to the endpoint is a 401 InvalidAuthenticationToken which triggers doWork to be called again and loops until it fails with the same error 3 times.

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What have I already investigated:

1. I have verified to the best of my ability that the refresh token is valid. If I were to change it manually to make it invalid, I get an error about the refresh token being invalid when posting to /token.
2. As far as I can tell, the call to /token does not fail - I have it wrapped in a try/catch and never get in the catch block.
3. I have verified that the middleware (aka my custom getAccessToken) is being called via the sdk client whenever this error is thrown.
4. I have verified that if I let a user do a fresh authentication (for a new access_token) and manually change the token to one I know is expired after a couple requests, my handler properly refreshes the token and continues without erroring in the doWork loop.

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Seeing as how this is an error that is inconsistent (it only appears for users sometimes), and I can tell my handlers are being called, what would be the next steps in how to resolve this issue? Is there anything else that could cause a 401 I should be looking at?

Possible related issue: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1290165/401-invalidauthenticationtoken-access-token-has-ex

// error thrown in doWork() 3 times
{
	statusCode: 401, 
	code: 'InvalidAuthenticationToken', 
	body: '{"code":"InvalidAuthenticationToken","message":"Access token has expired or is not yet valid"}'
}

Answer 1

Hi Luke,

Thanks for reaching out. For Graph SDK related issues I would suggest posting the issue on the respective Graph SDK Github forum.

Thanks.