IBM Watson WebSocket connection failure: "HTTP Authentication failed; no valid credentials available" - websocket

Question

I'm doing the tutorial for IBM Watson Speech-to-text. In the section "Using the WebSocket interface", subsection "Opening a connection and passing credentials", I copied the following code:
var token = watsonToken;
console.log(token); // token looks good
var wsURI = 'wss://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?watson-token=' +
token + '&model=es-ES_BroadbandModel';
var websocket = new WebSocket(wsURI);
websocket.onopen = function(evt) { onOpen(evt) };
websocket.onclose = function(evt) { onClose(evt) };
websocket.onmessage = function(evt) { onMessage(evt) };
websocket.onerror = function(evt) { onError(evt) };
I'm using Angular so I made a value for the token:
app.value('watsonToken', 'Ln%2FV...');
I get back an error message:
WebSocket connection to 'wss://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?watson-toke...&model=es-ES_BroadbandModel' failed: HTTP Authentication failed; no valid credentials available
I tried hardcoding the token:
var wsURI = 'wss://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api/v1/recognize?watson-token=Ln%2FV2...&model=es-ES_BroadbandModel';
Same error message.
IBM's documentation on tokens says that an expired or invalid token will return a 401 error, which I didn't get, so I presume that my token is neither expired nor invalid. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I think you can see the Official Example from IBM Developers here.
The error is because the authentication does not work fine before you send the request to recognize, try to follow the same step inside this repository, like:
const QUERY_PARAMS_ALLOWED = ['model', 'X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out', 'watson-token', 'customization_id'];
/**
* pipe()-able Node.js Readable/Writeable stream - accepts binary audio and emits text in it's `data` events.
* Also emits `results` events with interim results and other data.
* Uses WebSockets under the hood. For audio with no recognizable speech, no `data` events are emitted.
* #param {Object} options
* #constructor
*/
function RecognizeStream(options) {
Duplex.call(this, options);
this.options = options;
this.listening = false;
this.initialized = false;
}
util.inherits(RecognizeStream, Duplex);
RecognizeStream.prototype.initialize = function() {
const options = this.options;
if (options.token && !options['watson-token']) {
options['watson-token'] = options.token;
}
if (options.content_type && !options['content-type']) {
options['content-type'] = options.content_type;
}
if (options['X-WDC-PL-OPT-OUT'] && !options['X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out']) {
options['X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out'] = options['X-WDC-PL-OPT-OUT'];
}
const queryParams = extend({ model: 'en-US_BroadbandModel' }, pick(options, QUERY_PARAMS_ALLOWED));
const queryString = Object.keys(queryParams)
.map(function(key) {
return key + '=' + (key === 'watson-token' ? queryParams[key] : encodeURIComponent(queryParams[key])); // our server chokes if the token is correctly url-encoded
})
.join('&');
const url = (options.url || 'wss://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api').replace(/^http/, 'ws') + '/v1/recognize?' + queryString;
const openingMessage = extend(
{
action: 'start',
'content-type': 'audio/wav',
continuous: true,
interim_results: true,
word_confidence: true,
timestamps: true,
max_alternatives: 3,
inactivity_timeout: 600
},
pick(options, OPENING_MESSAGE_PARAMS_ALLOWED)
);
This code is from IBM Developers and for my project I'm using and works perfectly.
You can see in the code line #53, set the listening to true, otherwise it will eventually timeout and close automatically with inactivity_timeout applies when you're sending audio with no speech in it, not when you aren't sending any data at all.
Have another example, see this example from IBM Watson - Watson Developer Cloud using Javascript for Speech to Text.

Answer 2

Elementary, my dear Watson! There are three or four things to pay attention to with IBM Watson tokens.
First, you won't get a token if you use your IBMid and password. You have to use the username and password that were provided for a project. That username is a string of letters and numbers with hyphens.
Second, the documentation for tokens gives you code for getting a token:
curl -X GET --user {username}:{password}
--output token
"https://stream.watsonplatform.net/authorization/api/v1/token?url=https://stream.watsonplatform.net/text-to-speech/api"
Part of that code is hidden on the webpage, specifically the part that says /text-to-speech/. You need to change that to the Watson product or service you want to use, e.g., /speech-to-text/. Tokens are for specific projects and specific services.
Third, tokens expire in one hour.
Lastly, I had to put in backslashes to get the code to run in my terminal:
curl -X GET --user s0921i-s002d-dh9328d9-hd923:wy928ye98e \
--output token \
"https://stream.watsonplatform.net/authorization/api/v1/token?url=https://stream.watsonplatform.net/speech-to-text/api"