How to avoid "Incorrect padding" error while Base64 Decoding this string in Python

Question

I have the following string and I want to use Python to Base64 decode it.

eyJqa3UiOiJodHRwczovL2U5N2I4YTlkNjcyZTRjZTQ4NDVlYzY5NDdjZDY2ZWY2LXNiLmJhYXMubmludGVuZG8uY29tLzEuMC4wL2NlcnRpZmljYXRlcyIsImtpZCI6ImZlOWRiYmZmLTQ3MGItNDZjOC04YmFmLTFiNzY5OGRlZTViZSIsImFsZyI6IlJTMjU2In0.eyJpc3MiOiJodHRwczovL2U5N2I4YTlkNjcyZTRjZTQ4NDVlYzY5NDdjZDY2ZWY2LXNiLmJhYXMubmludGVuZG8uY29tIiwiZXhwIjoxNTQ1MTg1NDk2LCJ0eXAiOiJpZF90b2tlbiIsImF1ZCI6IjhkOTc1NTllNjNlY2NkNTYiLCJiczpkaWQiOiI2NjJhZTQwOWYwNTQyYTBjIiwic3ViIjoiOTNkYmYwNDdiYTI3NzQ5NSIsImp0aSI6IjY1NDg4ZjJmLTI1NzAtNDBkYy04ODQ3LTMzODNlZWIxMGJiYiIsIm5pbnRlbmRvIjp7ImFpIjoiMDEwMGY4MDAwMDQ5MjAwMCIsImF2IjoiMDAwMCIsImVkaSI6ImJjNTdiYmM3MTZlMDA1MGFmOWRhN2NkYTIzMWRjZDgyIiwiYXQiOjE1NDUxNzQ2OTZ9LCJpYXQiOjE1NDUxNzQ2OTZ9.ZMUIt3wYrbfhXnnDh4WraGlKrZy0YuL5prluY70sU_-0W5XvWIB-xmTrLz7LJWHEGwTskcWf81_HBq_mSb75rMfTAEBwBmOJ4ITmhdnXksz8w7EDOWuPPSEft5XLMNOMD16ztEOYe5ddU_iqNEbT56L7fcAJEXv0FWy6H_OutxOglYpDaNkcj6CWJ7dpA0JbqerR9dEszaLwyn1ZBDPVD0YeAIm5bEr61imeedzMb0amxlTl4R87mqK6epsFUnRy6p6Klr27_DlTLQ-gej09W7NeNzONCj4thHgCr9szAiaN28krfTc2fobz3qFCoC_eQghiIIZBe_-Lksng3Eg6tw

When I go to this https://www.base64decode.org/ and plop it in, I can see that the first portion of the decoded string is readable plain-text:

However when I try to use Python to decode it, it fails:

>>> import base64
>>> x = "eyJ......"
>>> base64.b64decode(x)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/base64.py", line 76, in b64decode
    raise TypeError(msg)
TypeError: Incorrect padding

I tried this remedy. But it didn't change the resulting error. How do I get around this problem? Why won't it decode like that website does it?

Answer 1

Well, it looks like the message is split by . into three parts. The first two parts are base64 encoded, while the last one is not:

import base64

res = "eyJqa3UiOiJodHRwczovL2U5N2I4YTlkNjcyZTRjZTQ4NDVlYzY5NDdjZDY2ZWY2LXNiLmJhYXMubmludGVuZG8uY29tLzEuMC4wL2NlcnRpZmljYXRlcyIsImtpZCI6ImZlOWRiYmZmLTQ3MGItNDZjOC04YmFmLTFiNzY5OGRlZTViZSIsImFsZyI6IlJTMjU2In0.eyJpc3MiOiJodHRwczovL2U5N2I4YTlkNjcyZTRjZTQ4NDVlYzY5NDdjZDY2ZWY2LXNiLmJhYXMubmludGVuZG8uY29tIiwiZXhwIjoxNTQ1MTg1NDk2LCJ0eXAiOiJpZF90b2tlbiIsImF1ZCI6IjhkOTc1NTllNjNlY2NkNTYiLCJiczpkaWQiOiI2NjJhZTQwOWYwNTQyYTBjIiwic3ViIjoiOTNkYmYwNDdiYTI3NzQ5NSIsImp0aSI6IjY1NDg4ZjJmLTI1NzAtNDBkYy04ODQ3LTMzODNlZWIxMGJiYiIsIm5pbnRlbmRvIjp7ImFpIjoiMDEwMGY4MDAwMDQ5MjAwMCIsImF2IjoiMDAwMCIsImVkaSI6ImJjNTdiYmM3MTZlMDA1MGFmOWRhN2NkYTIzMWRjZDgyIiwiYXQiOjE1NDUxNzQ2OTZ9LCJpYXQiOjE1NDUxNzQ2OTZ9.ZMUIt3wYrbfhXnnDh4WraGlKrZy0YuL5prluY70sU_-0W5XvWIB-xmTrLz7LJWHEGwTskcWf81_HBq_mSb75rMfTAEBwBmOJ4ITmhdnXksz8w7EDOWuPPSEft5XLMNOMD16ztEOYe5ddU_iqNEbT56L7fcAJEXv0FWy6H_OutxOglYpDaNkcj6CWJ7dpA0JbqerR9dEszaLwyn1ZBDPVD0YeAIm5bEr61imeedzMb0amxlTl4R87mqK6epsFUnRy6p6Klr27_DlTLQ-gej09W7NeNzONCj4thHgCr9szAiaN28krfTc2fobz3qFCoC_eQghiIIZBe_-Lksng3Eg6tw"

for i in res.split("."):
    print(base64.b64decode(i + '=' * (-len(i) % 4)))

I guess the last one is a signature, which is used to validate the first two parts. Do you get this string from a cookie? Or from a submitted form?

Edit

So for anyone sees this answer, the given string is a JWT string.