Authentication to the Shopify Admin API using Basic Auth (API key:password in the URL) works in a browser but fails in Power BI with a “We couldn’t authenticate” error.
Recent update: Shopify has automatically converted private apps to custom apps. This change deprecates Basic Auth (username/password) for the Admin API and likely causes the Power BI authentication failure.
Recommended approach: Use header-based authentication with Admin app access tokens (Bearer tokens) as detailed in Shopify’s developer docs. In practice, Power BI should be configured to send the access token in request headers rather than relying on Basic Auth.
Key terms: Private apps used API key/password; Custom apps require access tokens. “Headers” are metadata sent with HTTP requests, where the token is provided (e.g., Authorization: Bearer ).
Outcome/status: No Power BI-specific steps were provided, but links to the changelog and authentication docs were shared. The discussion points to migrating to token-based header authentication; resolution depends on implementing this in Power BI.
Hello,
I have successfully connected to the API with the format of: https://{apikey}:{password}@{hostname}/admin/api/2021-10/orders.json and when I open that in Chrome I get results.
It seems the directions are to use that format URL in Power BI and choose Basic Authentication, and then use the API Key as your username and the API Password as your password, but I get a “We couldn’t authenticate with that username and password” error.
Anyone successfully done this and can help?
Hi @reedsutton
If you were using a private app’s key to access your store with basic authentication and it recently stopped working, it’s most likely that your private app has been converted to a custom app.
We also have detailed instructions on how to authenticate API requests with headers in our developer documentation.
Hope that helps!