Troubleshooting your Tally setup

When tallyr isn’t working, the cause is almost always one of a few things: no API key where tallyr looks for it, a wrong or expired key, or no internet connection. The package has two functions for telling these apart: tally_whoami() as a quick yes/no check, and tally_sitrep() for a full report.

The code in this vignette isn’t run at build time; the output shown illustrates what you’d see in each situation.

library(tallyr)

The quick check: tally_whoami()

tally_whoami() calls the Tally API and reports who you’re authenticated as. If it succeeds, your setup works:

tally_whoami()
#> ✔ Authenticated with Tally as Ada Lovelace (ada@example.com)

If it errors, move on to tally_sitrep().

The full report: tally_sitrep()

tally_sitrep() checks everything relevant to tallyr working: which accounts have keys available and which is active, whether the active account’s key was found (and where), whether it looks like a Tally key, whether you’re online, and whether the key actually authenticates. It ends with recommendations for fixing anything that’s wrong, and it never errors, whatever state your setup is in.

A healthy setup looks like this:

tally_sitrep()
#>
#> ── tallyr situation report ─────────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ── Accounts
#> ℹ Account with a key available: "default"
#> ℹ Active account: "default" (the default)
#>
#> ── API key
#> ✔ API key found
#> ℹ Source: Environment variable: TALLY_API_KEY
#> ✔ Key format looks valid (starts with "tly-")
#>
#> ── Connectivity
#> ✔ Internet: online
#> ✔ Authenticated as Ada Lovelace (ada@example.com)
#>
#> ── Recommendations
#> ✔ tallyr setup looks good!

The sections below walk through the situations it can catch.

No API key found

tally_sitrep()
#>
#> ── tallyr situation report ─────────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ── Accounts
#> ! No account keys found in environment variables
#> ℹ Active account: "default" (the default)
#>
#> ── API key
#> ✖ No API key found for account "default"
#>
#> ── Connectivity
#> ✔ Internet: online
#> ℹ Skipping API connection test
#>
#> ── Recommendations
#> • Create an API key at <https://tally.so/settings/api-keys>
#> • Set `TALLY_API_KEY` in your '.Renviron' (e.g. with
#> `usethis::edit_r_environ()`)

tallyr couldn’t find a key for the active account. To fix it, follow the recommendations: create a key at Tally Settings > API keys and set it in your .Renviron.

Two common traps when the key is in .Renviron but still isn’t found:

• R hasn’t been restarted. .Renviron is only read at startup, so restart R after editing it.
• The key is set for a different account. tallyr looks in TALLY_API_KEY for the default account, and in TALLY_API_KEY_<NAME> for the named account <NAME>. If the Accounts section shows a key available under another name, the report will suggest switching:

#> ── Recommendations
#> • Create an API key at <https://tally.so/settings/api-keys>
#> • Set `TALLY_API_KEY` in your '.Renviron' (e.g. with
#> `usethis::edit_r_environ()`)
#> • Or switch to an account with a key: `tally_use_account("work")`

See vignette("multiple-accounts") for how named accounts work.

Key found, but rejected by the API

tally_sitrep()
#>
#> ── tallyr situation report ─────────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ── Accounts
#> ℹ Account with a key available: "default"
#> ℹ Active account: "default" (the default)
#>
#> ── API key
#> ✔ API key found
#> ℹ Source: Environment variable: TALLY_API_KEY
#> ✔ Key format looks valid (starts with "tly-")
#>
#> ── Connectivity
#> ✔ Internet: online
#> ✖ Tally API connection failed: HTTP 401 Unauthorized.
#>
#> ── Recommendations
#> • Check your key is current, or regenerate it at
#> <https://tally.so/settings/api-keys>

A key was found and sent, but Tally refused it – typically because the key was revoked or mistyped. Compare the value in your .Renviron against the keys listed at Tally Settings > API keys, or generate a fresh one.

Relatedly, Tally API keys start with tly-. If yours doesn’t, the API key section warns that it may not be a Tally key at all – a hint that the wrong value (a key for some other service, say) ended up in the variable:

#> ── API key
#> ✔ API key found
#> ℹ Source: Environment variable: TALLY_API_KEY
#> ! Key does not start with "tly-", so may not be a Tally API key

Offline

#> ── Connectivity
#> ✖ Internet: offline
#> ℹ Skipping API connection test
#>
#> ── Recommendations
#> • Reconnect to the internet to use the Tally API

Nothing wrong with your tallyr setup – the API just can’t be reached.

Where tallyr looks for keys

For reference, when a tallyr function needs a key for the default account, it checks, in order:

1. The tallyr.api_key R option (useful for setting a key for a single session, with options(tallyr.api_key = "tly-...")).
2. The TALLY_API_KEY environment variable.

A named account’s key comes only from its TALLY_API_KEY_<NAME> environment variable; the option is never consulted. The Source line in tally_sitrep()’s API key section tells you which of these supplied the active key, which helps when a stale option or an unexpected environment variable is shadowing the key you meant to use.

If you can’t tell which account is even active, the Accounts section reports it, along with how it was chosen: the default, set by tally_use_account(), or passed as an account argument.