DropBox tokens expire after 4 hours

[YouveGotMeowxy]

@sebastianfeldmann

Any chance of getting this fixed pretty soon? The key expires every 4 hours now, meaning adding to a daily cron job always fails, because the key has expired. Then in order to get it working again the user has to go back to their dbox app page, regen an 4hr key, and replace them all in their .json config. For me right now that's 9 locations in the configs. :)

btw, just wanted to add, this is one of the greatest apps ever, lol. Once it's all setup and running smooth, it's soo awesome.

Originally posted by @YouveGotMeowxy in #356 (comment)

[sebastianfeldmann]

thanks @YouveGotMeowxy :)

To be honest, I'm not sure how fast I can fix this.
I would need to get into this refresh token thing and implement the logic to reissue valid tokens and so on.

I hope I can start looking into it maybe end of next week but I really can't make any promises :/

Plan so far:

1. Make refresh token configurable
2. Make sure to retrieve valid token before the sync
3. Execute the actual sync

[YouveGotMeowxy]

@sebastianfeldmann ok, thank you for any work on it. :)

I don't really know if this will help you out any, but I was just looking around about how to get a permanent token and came across this; maybe it might help ya out as well.

https://www.codemzy.com/blog/dropbox-long-lived-access-refresh-token

[YouveGotMeowxy]

4 months since this issue; any forward-movement happening? :)

[jmcdougal]

I came across this post as I was having the same issue as I use Dropbox as well for my backups. I resolved it by getting the application access code as mentioned here: https://www.codemzy.com/blog/dropbox-long-lived-access-refresh-token. Using CURL, I retrieved the long lived refresh token using the application access code with a grant type of "authorization_code". I then created another CURL request to Dropbox asking for the short lived access token that I store in a MySQL database. To do that, you use the long lived refresh token from the first CURL request with the grant type of "refresh_token".

An additional PHP script programmatically rebuilds the phpbu.xml file inserting the current refresh token into the line of <option name="token" value="<YOUR_CURRENT_SHORT_LIVED_ACCESS_TOKEN"/> . Using file_put_contents at the end of this script, the previous phpbu.xml file is replaced with a copy that has the newly updated token.

The backup runs twice daily using multiple cron jobs. The first gets the updated short lived access token. The second updates the phpbu.xml script and the third runs the backup. Each cron job is separated by five minutes. This could be simplified to one cron job and script, but works fine as is and I have moved on to other projects.

Anyway, thought this might be helpful as you navigate this issue. Overall, PHPBU is an excellent tool. Great job Sebastian!

[sebastianfeldmann]

With version 6.0.26 the Dropbox integration was fixed.

You need to create an App in your Dropbox AppConsole.
Generate an Access Token and provide token, appKey and appSecret in the phpbu configuration file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sync type="dropbox">
  <!-- mandatory -->
  <option name="token" value="mycrazylongapitokenthatigotfromdropbox" />

  <!-- mandatory -->
  <option name="appKey" value="myAppKey" />

  <!-- mandatory -->
  <option name="appSecret" value="myAppSecret" />

  <!-- mandatory -->
  <option name="path" value="/some/dir" />
</sync>

[YouveGotMeowxy]

yaayy! thank you!

I just tried to add those 2 new key:values and try with 6.0.26, and I get this error though?

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'o020000' (T_STRING), expecting ';' in phar:///home/user/public_html/dbbackup/phpbu/phpbu-6.0.26.phar/lib/sebastian-environment/Console.php on line 115

The previous version 5.2.10 was working with the exception of the expiring token (IIRC) and the only things I've added now are the appkey and appsecret. It now looks like this:

      "syncs": [
        {
          "type": "dropbox",
          "options": {
            "token": "sl.superlongtoken",
            "app key": "shortertoken",
            "app secret": "anothershortoken",
            "path": "/Backups/DB/A2/MyServer"
          }
        }
      ]

My PHP versions is 7.4.33

Any idea?

[sebastianfeldmann]

Yes, version 6 requires php 8

I think the dependencies are PHP 8 only but I can check and try to back port the feature to the 5.0 release version.
But I'm not sure that's possible.

[YouveGotMeowxy]

ok! I was able to change to PHP 8.3 and got it to run. I'm getting a sync error now, but gonna look into it!

[YouveGotMeowxy]

My fault, I got it and it's working great! You just made my whole day, lol. thank you so much! <3

[YouveGotMeowxy]

:(

I guess I spoke too soon. It worked after I had generated the new superlongtoken, but then overnight when my cronjob ran the same command-line I woke up to the same error that token expired.

            "class": "phpbu\\App\\Backup\\Sync\\Exception",
            "message": "{\"error_summary\": \"expired_access_token\/...\", \"error\": {\".tag\": \"expired_access_token\"}}",
            "file": "phar:\/\/\/home\/user\/public_html\/dbbackup\/phpbu\/phpbu-6.0.26.phar\/Backup\/Sync\/Dropbox.php",
            "line": 138

I don't know which specific info you may need from me to help out, just let me know.

[sebastianfeldmann]

I think I have found a way with refresh tokens.
I will test it again tomorrow, if it works I will release a new version and a guide how to obtain a refresh token for your app.