# My Token is less than 40 characters and causing me errors

**URL:** <https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747>\
**Category:** Beginners\
**Created:** [September 28, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747 "2025-09-28T22:29:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Elephants](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hellohellohello/user_avatar/discuss.huggingface.co/elephants/32/54363_2.png) [@Elephants](https://discuss.huggingface.co/u/Elephants)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747/1 "2025-09-28T22:29:19Z")

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I am generating API tokens, but they are only 34 characters long after hf\_ instead of 40. Example: hf\_USwGIbGxwaWeqZDUMTPCOgcvVKWlvBuzsM. This causes a 401 Unauthorized error in the API. Can you verify or regenerate a valid token? Thank you very much.

Je génère des tokens API, mais ils ne font que 34 caractères après hf\_ au lieu de 40. Exemple : hf\_USwGIbGxwaWeqZDUMTPCOgcvVKWlvBuzsM. Cela cause une erreur 401 Unauthorized dans l’API. Pouvez-vous vérifier ou régénérer un token valide ?  
Merci cordialement

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**Author:** ![John6666](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hellohellohello/user_avatar/discuss.huggingface.co/john6666/32/27664_2.png) [@John6666](https://discuss.huggingface.co/u/John6666)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747/2 "2025-09-29T00:28:43Z")

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I’ve never seen tokens of anything other than the typical length, but the token length seems to be variable.

Anyway, [you can check the token status using the following methods](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/how-do-you-use-the-whoami-endpoint/15830), so try one of them.

```py
from huggingface_hub import HfApi
api = HfApi()
me = api.whoami(token="hf_xxx") # raises on invalid tokens
print(me)

```

Or

```bash
# prints 200 if valid, 401 if not
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://huggingface.co/api/whoami-v2 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HF_TOKEN"

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Elephants](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hellohellohello/user_avatar/discuss.huggingface.co/elephants/32/54363_2.png) [@Elephants](https://discuss.huggingface.co/u/Elephants)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 8:43am UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747/3 "2025-09-29T08:43:22Z")

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Thanks John6666 4 your message, the meaning of my message is HOW to HAVE a valid token ? Because all the tokens I have are invalid thank you

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John6666](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hellohellohello/user_avatar/discuss.huggingface.co/john6666/32/27664_2.png) [@John6666](https://discuss.huggingface.co/u/John6666)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 9:51am UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/my-token-is-less-than-40-characters-and-causing-me-errors/168747/4 "2025-09-29T09:51:44Z")

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> all the tokens I have are invalid

Oh… @meganariley