TwitteR, ROAuth and Windows: register OK, but certificate verify failed
I'm trying to get the number of followers of a large number of Twitter users with twitteR. Many of the other questions posted have been very useful in getting me this far, but none seem to be directly relevant to my problem, so far as I can see.
I can register my OAuth credentials to a twitter R session, but then I can't seem to do anything at all, I just get is this message:
Error in function (type, msg, asError = TRUE) :
SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify fail
When I use the twitteR functions without using OAuth they work fine with no errors or warnings, but I bump into limits and protected accounts, which I thought I could avoid with OAuth.
Here are the details:
library(twitteR)
library(ROAuth)
library(RCurl)
#
# Here's how I register my credentials
#
requestURL <- "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token"
accessURL = "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/access_token"
authURL = "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize"
consumerKey = "------------"
consumerSecret = "-----------"
twitCred <- OAuthFactory$new(consumerKey=consumerKey,
consumerSecret=consumerSecret,
requestURL=requestURL,
accessURL=accessURL,
authURL=authURL)
download.file(url="http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem",
destfile="cacert.pem")
twitCred$handshake(cainfo="cacert.pem")
To enable the connection, please direct your web browser to:
https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=xxxx
When complete, record the PIN given to you and provide it here: xxxxxx
registerTwitterOAuth(twitCred)
[1] TRUE
# so the OAuth bit appears to be ok...
#
# save it for a future sessions...
save(list="twitCred", file="twitteR_credentials")
# works, in future I can just
load("twitteR_credentials")
registerTwitterOAuth(twitCred)
#
# try to get follower numbers, here's where it goes south
me <- getUser("Rbloggers")
me$followersCount
Error in function (type, msg, asError = TRUE) :
SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
#
# another method, same problem
getUser("Rbloggers")$followersCount
Error in function (type, msg, asError = TRUE) :
SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
#
# Here are the packages and versions I'm using
sessionInfo()
R version 2.14.1 (2011-12-22)
Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_Australia.1252 LC_CTYPE=English_Australia.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_Australia.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_Australia.1252
attached base packages:
[1] stats4 stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
other attached packages:
[1] ROAuth_0.9.2 digest_0.5.1 twitteR_0.99.19 rjson_0.2.6 RCurl_1.91-1.1
[6] bitops_1.0-4.1 igraph_0.5.5-4 topicmodels_0.1-4 tm_0.5-7 slam_0.1-23
[11] modeltools_0.2-18 lasso2_1.2-12
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.14.1
How can I get the twitteR functions working after I register my credentials?
UPDATE: Trying @Btibert3's suggestion gives the same error:
> ## Authenticate with Twitter = this is an important peice of code
> registerTwitterOAuth(cred)
[1] TRUE
> ##########################################################################
> ## lets test out what our session limits look like
> ##########################################################################
> rate.limit <- getCurRateLimitInfo()
Error in function (type, msg, asError = TRUE) :
SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. Details:
error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
UPDATE following @flz's suggestion to add cainfo="cacert.pem" everywhere has fixed my problem:
rate.limit <- getCurRateLimitInfo( cainfo="cacert.pem")
rate.limit
resource limit remaining reset
1 /lists/subscribers 180 180 2013-03-27 09:35:37
2 /lists/list 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
3 /lists/memberships 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
4 /lists/ownerships 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
5 /lists/subscriptions 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
6 /lists/members 180 180 2013-03-27 09:35:37
7 /lists/subscribers/show 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
8 /lists/statuses 180 180 2013-03-27 09:35:37
9 /lists/show 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
10 /lists/members/show 15 15 2013-03-27 09:35:37
11 /application/rate_limit_status 180 179 2013-03-27 09:35:37 (etc)
Session Info:
sessionInfo()
R version 2.15.3 (2013-03-01)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252 LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
other attached packages:
[1] ROAuth_0.9.2 digest_0.6.3 twitteR_1.1.0 rjson_0.2.12 RCurl_1.95-4.1 bitops_1.0-5
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] tools_2.15.3
Answer
I had received the error you described above in the past, but this has worked for me.
#=======================================================================================
## ON windows, we need to dowload the certificate for OAUTH
## NOTE: you will need to setup an app on Twitter
## dev.twitter.com <- get your KEY/SECRET
#=======================================================================================
##########################################################################
## Load packages
##########################################################################
library(twitteR)
library(ROAuth)
## set the directory
setwd("~/your/directory/here")
## Windows users need to get this file
download.file(url="http://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem", destfile="cacert.pem")
##########################################################################
## Authenticate with Twitter
##########################################################################
## authenticate with the API
## requires that you have registered an app
KEY <- "KEY"
SECRET <-"SECRET"
## create an object that will save the authenticated onbject -- we can for later sessions
## will need to navigate to website and type in data to generate the file
## NOTE: Only need to do this part once!!!
cred <- OAuthFactory$new(consumerKey = KEY,
consumerSecret = SECRET,
requestURL = "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token",
accessURL = "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/access_token",
authURL = "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize")
cred$handshake(cainfo="cacert.pem")
## load the cred object in later sessions and simply pass to the registerTwitterOAuth
## After this file is saved, you only need to load the cred object back into memory
save(cred, file="twitter authentication.Rdata")
## Authenticate with Twitter = this is an important peice of code
registerTwitterOAuth(cred)
##########################################################################
## lets test out what our session limits look like
##########################################################################
rate.limit <- getCurRateLimitInfo()
## If return 350, Authenticated session = more API calls allowed / hour
rate.limit$hourlyLimit
rate.limit$remainingHits
rate.limit$resetTime