App Install Oauth redirect_uri pointing to Google

Shopify Apps

Topic summary

OAuth install flow for a Custom-distributed Shopify app failed with “Oauth error invalid_request: The redirect_uri is not whitelisted,” because the redirect_uri in the install link pointed to google.com instead of the app’s configured domain.

  • Symptom: The install URL contained redirect_uri=google.com/…; trying different browsers did not help.
  • Context: In OAuth, redirect_uri is the whitelisted callback URL the app provides to receive the authorization code; it must exactly match the app’s configured URLs in Shopify.

Root cause and fix:

  • The app was hosted on DigitalOcean, and the server’s host environment variable was left at its default value (google.com).
  • This misconfiguration caused the app to generate a Google redirect_uri during the install flow.
  • Updating the host/environment variable to the correct app domain resolved the issue.

Outcome: Resolved. No Shopify-side change; the issue was an app-side configuration error. Action: Ensure host/app URL env vars (e.g., HOST/APP_URL) match the whitelisted callback URLs.

Summarized with AI on January 16. AI used: gpt-5.
2

Found the issue in my case. Maybe useful to others.
I’m hosting the app on Digital Ocean, and the host environment variable was still pointing to the default google.com in this case. ??‍ :male_sign: