Http Status Code 401 Even Though I'm Sending Credentials in the Request

HTTP status code 401 even though I’m sending credentials in the request

You need to configure the server to not require authorization for OPTIONS requests (that is, the server the request is being sent to — not the one serving your frontend code).

That’s because what’s happening is this:

1. Your code tells your browser it wants to send a request with the Authorization header.
2. Your browser says, OK, requests with the Authorization header require me to do a CORS preflight OPTIONS to ensure the server allows requests with the Authorization header.
3. Your browser sends the OPTIONS request without the Authorization header, because the whole purpose of the OPTIONS check is to see if it’s OK to include that header.
4. Your server sees the OPTIONS request but rejects it with a 401 since it lacks the header.
5. Your browser expects a 200 or 204 response for the CORS preflight but instead gets that 401. So your browser stops right there and never tries the POST request from your code.

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Further details:

The Access-Control-Request-Headers and Access-Control-Request-Method request headers show in the question indicate the browser’s doing a CORS preflight OPTIONS request.

And the presence of the Authorization and Content-Type: application/json request headers in your request are what trigger your browser do that CORS preflight — by sending an OPTIONS request to the server before trying the POST request in your code. And because that OPTIONS preflight fails, the browser stops right there and never attempts the POST.

So you must figure out what part of the server-side code on the server the request is being sent to causes it to require authorization for OPTIONS requests, and change that so it instead responds to OPTIONS with a 200 or 204 success response without requiring authorization.

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For specific help on OPTIONS-enabling a Spring server in particular, see the following answers:

• Disable Spring Security for OPTIONS Http Method
• Spring CorsFilter does not seem to work still receiving a 401 on preflight requests
• Response for preflight has invalid HTTP status code 401 - Spring
• AngularJS & Spring Security with ROLE_ANONYMOUS still returns 401

403 Forbidden vs 401 Unauthorized HTTP responses

A clear explanation from Daniel Irvine ^{[original link]}:

There's a problem with 401 Unauthorized, the HTTP status code for authentication errors. And that’s just it: it’s for authentication, not authorization.
Receiving a 401 response is the server telling you, “you aren’t
authenticated–either not authenticated at all or authenticated
incorrectly–but please reauthenticate and try again.” To help you out,
it will always include a WWW-Authenticate header that describes how
to authenticate.

This is a response generally returned by your web server, not your web
application.

It’s also something very temporary; the server is asking you to try
again.

So, for authorization I use the 403 Forbidden response. It’s
permanent, it’s tied to my application logic, and it’s a more concrete
response than a 401.

Receiving a 403 response is the server telling you, “I’m sorry. I know
who you are–I believe who you say you are–but you just don’t have
permission to access this resource. Maybe if you ask the system
administrator nicely, you’ll get permission. But please don’t bother
me again until your predicament changes.”

In summary, a 401 Unauthorized response should be used for missing
or bad authentication, and a 403 Forbidden response should be used
afterwards, when the user is authenticated but isn’t authorized to
perform the requested operation on the given resource.

Another nice pictorial format of how http status codes should be used.

401 error when performing GET request w/ axios

The site is returning a 401 which means you are not authorised to access the URL.

Normally, this means you need to send credentials.

Now, you've said credentials: "include", but that's a property recognised by fetch, not axios. The axios equivalent is withCredentials: true, so set that instead.

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You've also said mode: "no-cors", which is another property recognised by fetch, not axios. You don't want it anyway. Sending credentials requires permission via CORS, so by rejecting CORS, reject the possibility to get permission to send the credentials.

Remove that property.

401 Unauthorized Error On GET Request, Is It CORS Problem

I am having 401 Unauthorized error when sending get request.

No, you aren't. Read the error message more carefully.

It says that you are making an OPTIONS request, not a GET request.

The browser is making a preflight OPTIONS request because you are trying to make a cross-origin request with an authorization header.

The server appears to be testing for authorization for the OPTIONS request. This fails because the browser has not been given permission to send a cross-origin Ajax request with credentials.

Response for preflight has invalid HTTP status code 401 - Spring

avoid filtering and set status 200 when http method is OPTIONS

if("OPTIONS".equalsIgnoreCase(request.getMethod())) {
    response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_OK);
} else {
    chain.doFilter(req, res);
}

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