slack bot token invalid_auth after app reinstall

Not specified by the original author.

Fix Slack invalid_auth after reinstalling the app

TL;DR

Reinstalling a Slack app rotates its tokens: the old bot token stored in the deployment is now dead, which is why every API call returns invalidauth. Copy the new bot token from the app's OAuth page into the deployment configuration and restart the app. Treat every reinstall as a token rotation, and add an invalidauth alert so the next one pages instead of failing silently.

The error

{"ok": false, "error": "invalid_auth"}
Every Slack Web API call fails immediately after the app was reinstalled

Use this skill

Agent? Search Vectle for this error:

curl -s "https://vectle.com/api/v1/search?q=slack%20bot%20token%20invalid_auth%20after%20app%20reinstall"

Fix it

Step 1: Copy the current bot token from the app page

Open api.slack.com/apps / [app] / OAuth and Permissions and copy the Bot User OAuth Token (starts with xoxb-).

Expected: a value different from what is deployed. That difference is the whole problem.

Step 2: Update the token everywhere it is stored

Write the new token into the deployment's secret store or environment variables - every environment, not just production.

Expected: no environment still holds the old value. Staging forgotten is the classic repeat outage.

Step 3: Restart so the new value loads

Restart the app and background workers so they pick up the new configuration.

Expected: no cached old token remains in any process.

Step 4: Verify with auth.test

curl -s -X POST https://slack.com/api/auth.test -H "your auth header bot token value]" | head -c 200

Expected: a JSON response with ok true. If it still fails, the token was copied wrong or the wrong app's page was used.

Step 5: Add a reinstall checklist and alerting

Add "rotate the stored Slack token" to the app-reinstall runbook, and alert on invalid_auth responses so the next rotation pages immediately.

Expected: the next reinstall is a routine step, not an outage.

When this applies

• invalid_auth on all calls right after a reinstall
• The token in the deployment differs from the app page
• One environment works while another fails

When it doesn't

• invalid_auth without any reinstall (token revoked by admin or leaked and revoked)
• Calls fail with missing_scope (permission issue, not token issue)
• Only some calls fail (endpoint-specific problem)

Compatibility

Slack Web API, OAuth v2 bot tokens (xoxb-). Same mechanics for user tokens (xoxp-).

Variant phrasings

slack api invalid_auth token revoked

If no reinstall happened, check whether an admin revoked the token or Slack revoked it for a leak.

slack bot token stopped working after reinstall

Same fix. Reinstall always rotates; there is no "keep my token" option.

Why it happens

Slack invalidates prior tokens when an app is reinstalled, as a security measure: a reinstall implies the trust relationship was re-established, so old credentials must die. The deployed configuration still holds the dead token, so every call fails auth. The failure is total and immediate, which is actually the helpful signature - partial failures would point elsewhere.

Edge cases

• User tokens rotate too; check both if the integration uses them
• Each workspace installation has its own token; multi-workspace apps rotate per workspace
• Tokens in logs must be redacted; grep the codebase for the old value to find every copy

If it still fails

• Capture the exact timestamp, the username, and the full error from the system log before changing anything else.
• Reproduce with a single test user so you are not debugging a crowd.
• If it worked before, diff the config against the last known good, then open a vendor ticket with the timestamp and request id. Never send secrets or private keys.

Prevention

• Track credential and certificate expiry with alerts, not memory.
• Run a synthetic check per app daily so breakage pages you, not a user.
• Document mappings, URLs, and runbook steps where the next admin will find them.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_p3dIIYcnsbV7GFRj4qiFdQ

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_p3dIIYcnsbV7GFRj4qiFdQ

Thread query: slack bot token invalid_auth after app reinstall

TL;DR: Reinstalling a Slack app rotates its tokens: the old bot token stored in the deployment is now dead, which is why every API call returns invalidauth. Copy the new bot token from the app's OAuth page into the deployment configuration and restart the app. Treat every reinstall as a token rotation, and add an invalidauth alert so the next one pages instead of failing silently.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

For "invalid_auth": a Bolt (Socket Mode) Slack bot works perfectly in the developer's own workspace but does not respond to commands after being installed in other workspaces, even though installation succeeds and all permissions are accepted.

invalid_auth

Steps

1. A Bolt (Socket Mode) Slack bot works perfectly in the developer's own workspace but does not respond to commands after being installed in other workspaces, even though installation succeeds and all permissions are accepted. The app surfaces a generic invalid_auth error from auth.test with no useful detail. The behavior is consistent: fine at home, broken everywhere else.
2. The cause was IP restrictions enabled on the app's OAuth & Permissions settings page: requests originating from IPs outside the allowlist fail with invalid_auth ('the request originates from an IP address disallowed from making the request'). That explains why it works from your own network/workspace but not elsewhere. Fix: remove or widen the IP allowlist in your Slack app's OAuth & Permissions settings. The maintainer confirmed this was the resolution.

Expected: The maintainer confirmed this was the resolution.

When to use

You are seeing this: The app surfaces a generic invalid\auth error from auth.test with no useful detail. Use this skill when you run into "Slack bot works in my workspace but doesn't respond when installed elsewhere (invalidauth)".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Question asked in the thread: A Bolt (Socket Mode) Slack bot works perfectly in the developer's own workspace but does not respond to commands after being installed in other workspaces, even though installation succeeds and all permissions are accepted. The app surfaces a generic invalid_auth error from auth.test with no useful detail. The behavior is consistent: fine at home, broken everywhere else.

Verified answer: The cause was IP restrictions enabled on the app's OAuth & Permissions settings page: requests originating from IPs outside the allowlist fail with invalid_auth ('the request originates from an IP address disallowed from making the request'). That explains why it works from your own network/workspace but not elsewhere. Fix: remove or widen the IP allowlist in your Slack app's OAuth & Permissions settings. The maintainer confirmed this was the resolution. Source: https://github.com/slackapi/bolt-js/issues/2075

Thread: https://vectle.com/threads/thr_KYTjnmw8-ZYNPEPbX6eMjA

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

Reinstall and reauthorise the status page Slack app in that channel or workspace, because app_uninstalled means the app was removed and no incident update can post to the channel until it is back. Prove it on one test incident before rolling it to the rest of the affected status page, because this fault repeats identically wherever the same condition holds and a fleet-wide or batch-wide first attempt multiplies the damage when the diagnosis is wrong.

status page Slack app uninstalled itself: "app_uninstalled" error stops incident updates in channel

Use this when

• You see this exact error or symptom: status page Slack app uninstalled itself: "app_uninstalled" error stops incident updates in channel.
• The failure is in the status page provider named in the title, and it repeats on the same action rather than happening once and clearing.
• Other items on the same path are working, so the path itself is up and this specific condition is the blocker.

Not for this skill when

• A different error code, message, or tool is involved. Work that error's own skill, because the fix here targets this specific condition.
• The whole service or platform is down. Restore the service first; this skill fixes the named condition, not an outage.
• You cannot identify one affected item to test on. Find one first, because an untested fix rolled out broadly is how this fault gets worse.

Steps

1. Confirm the fault on one test incident first and capture the evidence before changing anything: check the provider's admin console error and activity log for the page, plus the public page as a logged-out visitor sees it, and record the exact error text, the record or host involved, and the time it happened. Verify: you can point to the exact error and the exact item it belongs to, not just the symptom
2. Reinstall and reauthorise the status page Slack app in that channel or workspace, because app_uninstalled means the app was removed and no incident update can post to the channel until it is back. Verify: the specific fault named in the title no longer occurs on that item when you repeat the action that produced it
3. Record the before and after state for this fix (the exact setting, record, or file changed) so the change can be reverted cleanly if the symptom returns in a different form. Verify: the guard or check is in place and is visible in the run, log, or configuration you changed
4. Retest end to end: repeat the failed action on a test incident or draft and confirm the public page reflects it without notifying subscribers unintentionally. Verify: the retest completes without the original error and the resulting state matches what a manual check shows
5. Roll the fix out to the rest of the affected status page in the same way, watching the first few for the same error, and note the root cause and the change in the run or incident record. Verify: the remaining items complete without the error recurring, or the ones that still fail are listed individually with their own evidence

Variant phrasings

app_uninstalled fix

The verbatim error or code phrasing for this fault in the status page provider named in the title; the fix is the same one in the steps above.

status page Slack app uninstalled itself: "app_uninstalled" error stops

The full symptom phrasing as it appears in the console, log, or report where this failure surfaces.

how to fix status page Slack app uninstalled itself

The how-to phrasing for the same fault; start with the TL;DR fix, then work the steps in order.

Compatibility: Atlassian Statuspage, Instatus, Better Stack, Cachet, Status.io, Hund, Freshstatus, Statuspal, UptimeRobot, StatusCake, All Quiet, FireHydrant, Squadcast, xMatters, Grafana Incident and PagerDuty as named in the title.

Why it happens

This fault happens because the fault sits at a boundary between two systems, each of which reports its own side as healthy, so the evidence has to be lined up on both sides to see it. In this case the condition is the one named in the title, in the status page provider named in the title: the receiving or acting side reports the failure faithfully, but the underlying state (a record, a setting, a credential, a file, or a mapping) does not match what that action assumes. Fixing the state, as in step 2, clears it; retrying the action without changing the state returns the same error every time, which is why this failure looks stubborn until the state itself is corrected.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_J2x4C1BpF2ACUaEZPNsmrw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_J2x4C1BpF2ACUaEZPNsmrw

Thread query: status page Slack app uninstalled itself: "app_uninstalled" error stops incident updates in channel

TL;DR: Reinstall and reauthorise the status page Slack app in that channel or workspace, because app_uninstalled means the app was removed and no incident update can post to the channel until it is back. Prove it on one test incident before rolling it to the rest of the affected status page, because this fault repeats identically wherever the same condition holds and a fleet-wide or batch-wide first attempt multiplies the damage when the diagnosis is wrong.