'Unable to Authenticate' when trying to connect to Azure DevOps Artifacts feed through npm; I get an E401 error

Question

I'm trying to connect to a Azure DevOps Artifacts feed, but I keep getting an E401 error.

I've tried on a different computer and it connected just fine. I've uninstalled, and reinstalled my Node.js, and I still got the error.

Below is the error I get when I run 'npm install'

npm ERR! code E401 npm ERR! Unable to authenticate, need: Bearer authorization_uri=https://login.windows.net/*********, Basic realm="https://pkgsprodcus1.pkgs.visualstudio.com/", TFS-Federated 

Below is what was added to the .npmrc file

registry=https://[org].pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/[feed].Npm/npm/registry //pkgs.dev.azure.com/[org]/_packaging/[feed].Npm/npm/registry/:_authToken=[token] //pkgs.dev.azure.com/[org]/_packaging/[feed].Npm/npm/:_authToken=[token] 

I expected to be connected to the feed after adding my info to the .npmrc file, and running 'npm install'

Answer 1

I had an issue where I couldn't connect, even though I had the same .npmrc as other repos on the same machine. Running vsts-npm-auth -config .npmrc just exited, presumably happy with the cached credentials.

However, the credentials it had seemed to be bad. The solution was to force refreshing the token: vsts-npm-auth -config .npmrc -force

Answer 2

This usually happens when you've recently changed your password. To fix this problem, I ran this command within VS Code's Powershell terminal (any terminal will work)

vsts-npm-auth -config .npmrc 

With doing so, a GUI popped-up where I was able to select the account I wanted to use to authenticate.

I hope this helps!