# Invalid Polygon credentials

**URL:** <https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/invalid-polygon-credentials/1280>\
**Category:** Alpaca Account Troubleshooting\
**Created:** [April 24, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/invalid-polygon-credentials/1280 "2020-04-24T16:25:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Danniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Danniel](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Danniel)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/invalid-polygon-credentials/1280/1 "2020-04-24T16:25:45Z")

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Hi.  
I used the code from [https://github.com/alpacahq/example-hftish\tick\_taker.py](https://github.com/alpacahq/example-hftish%5Ctick_taker.py)

I created key\_id and secret\_key on Alpaca Dashboard.  
I don’t have live trading account.

…  
args.key\_id = ‘PKKZYL5NHY81YGMFDP53’  
args.secret\_key = ‘HeuDduUJt8kG2UqFrETG7a7N3T7K1Tp5Rzw2UdKg’  
args.base\_url = ‘[https://paper-api.alpaca.markets](https://paper-api.alpaca.markets/)’  
…

Error is like below:  
ValueError: Invalid Polygon credentials, Failed to authenticate: {‘ev’: ‘status’, ‘status’: ‘auth\_failed’, ‘message’: ‘authentication failed’}

Any help is appreciated.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zheng\_Wang](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/zheng_wang/32/418_2.png) [@Zheng\_Wang](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Zheng_Wang)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/invalid-polygon-credentials/1280/2 "2020-04-25T18:30:55Z")

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Is there an error trace in your output? Can you post that?

I would suggest try these

1. Double check your api key and secret
2. argparse is supposed to be used as command line input. In you terminal/console, you may want to run this  
python tick\_taker.py --key\_id \<your\_api\_key\> --secret\_key \<your\_api\_secret\> --base\_url [https://paper-api.alpaca.markets](https://paper-api.alpaca.markets)