In early 2025, one of my clients reached out with a familiar issue:
“Our UPS tracking just stopped working… completely.”
No recent code changes. No obvious server issues. So what happened?
🔍 The Problem: UPS Deprecated Basic Auth
After digging into UPS documentation, it became clear — UPS has officially deprecated basic authentication (i.e., sending a username and password in the request). Instead, they now require all integrations to use OAuth 2.0, a more secure and modern authorization method.
For many developers, this means legacy systems that once worked fine are now broken.
📽️ Here’s a quick video walkthrough of the problem and how I fixed it:
🛠️ The Fix: Migrating to OAuth 2.0
To restore UPS tracking, I had to:
- Register a new OAuth application in the UPS developer portal
- Replace legacy login code with token-based authentication
- Handle token refresh logic to avoid downtime
- Update API requests to include the new Bearer token
- Test thoroughly to make sure all UPS endpoints worked again
After deployment, tracking resumed instantly — no more errors, and the integration was future-proofed.
🚧 Why This Matters: It’s Not Just UPS
What happened here is not unique. Many API providers (Google, Meta, GitHub, and now UPS) are phasing out basic auth in favor of OAuth 2.0. If your system still relies on usernames and passwords to call external services — it’s time to update.
Ignoring these changes can lead to:
- Broken features
- Poor user experience
- Security vulnerabilities
- Emergency debugging sessions 😅
✅ What You Can Do
If your API integrations haven’t been updated in the past year or two, chances are something might break soon. I recommend:
- Auditing your current integrations
- Checking if your providers are moving to OAuth or other modern standards
- Refactoring your codebase to handle token-based authentication
- Testing proactively instead of waiting for failures
👨💻 Need Help?
Whether it’s UPS, Stripe, Google, or another service — I specialize in modernizing and fixing API integrations. If something in your system has recently stopped working (or you’re worried it might), feel free to reach out.
