Is there any way to generate a new access token for an OAuth 2.0 access profile before an existing access token expires?
I've built an API Endpoint in Workato using OAuth 2.0 authentication and the developers of the application calling the API have reported intermittent HTTP 401 errors, which appear to be related to the OAuth 2.0 access token expiring. Their application is currently configured to refresh OAuth tokens on a recurring schedule. In this case, they've configured the tokens to refresh every 30 minutes, as Workato access tokens are valid for 1 hour according to the documentation (https://docs.workato.com/api-mgmt/oauth2.html#obtain-oauth-2-0-access-token). However, when the application requests another access token before a previous one has expired, the request to the access token URL returns the original token again with a reduced expires_in value, rather than returning a new token. This means that there are short intervals between their access token expiring and the scheduled refresh from their application, where they don't have a valid access token to authenticate requests to the API in Workato.
I've discussed some potential improvements they can make such as checking the validity of the access token in their code before sending any requests to the API in Workato.
However, I'd be interested to know if it's even possible to refresh an OAuth access token without having to wait for the previous one to expire first or if there are any documented best practices on managing the refreshing of access tokens, so I can advise other developers looking to call APIs in Workato on how to avoid similar issues in future.
If it's not possible to generate a new OAuth access token without waiting for the previous one to expire first, then I'd guess the approach of relying on a scheduled refresh of access tokens is probably not a good idea, as there'd always be short gaps between the previous token expiring and the new one being requested, where an application wouldn't have a valid token to use.
