User not authorized to perform that action

[sywang]

Hi all, 

I'm trying to accept a course invitation using a post request listed in the Cavnas API documentation. The command I'm using is:

"curl http://<canvas>/api/v1/courses/:course_id/enrollments/:id/accept \                                                

  -X POST \

  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>'"

However, I'm getting an error that says:

{"status":"unauthorized","errors":[{"message":"user not authorized to perform that action"}]}

Does anyone know how to fix this? For your reference, I'm using a Canvas instance hosted on AWS and have admin access to it. 

Thanks in advance!!

[bbennett2 · Accepted solution]

Check two things:

1. Your API key is valid. Will a GET request work?

2. You actually have a pending course invitation for your account. The API call runs as you, so if you don't have a pending invite, you can't accept it. 

If you're trying to automate accepting course invites for other users, you can masquerade your API call to act on someone else's behalf.