how to fix "NoCredentialsError" with Boto3 for DynamoDB

April 20, 2022

I’m currently creating a webapp using Flask and DynamoDB.

However, I ran into a really strange error currently that I hope someone might be able to assist me with.

Currently when I run the web app in Pycharm, everything works fine.
I’m able to request data from DynamoDB without any issues or errors.

However, the moment I run the exact same file on Ubuntu with Python3, I suddenly encounter a "NoCredentialsError".
The exact same file works fine when I run it on Pycharm, but for some reason it’s giving me this error only when I try and test it in Ubuntu.

The function that’s resulting in this error is simply this:


def selectItem(PK, SK):

    dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb', region_name="us-east-1")
    
    table = dynamodb.Table('testDB')

    response = table.get_item(
        Key={
            'PK': PK,
            'SK': SK
        }
    )
    return response

I have the table and region coded in simply for the sake of context and to keep things simple while testing.

Here is the full Traceback for additional details:

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2095, in call
return self.wsgi_app(environ, start_response)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2080, in wsgi_app
response = self.handle_exception(e)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2077, in wsgi_app
response = self.full_dispatch_request()

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1525, in full_dispatch_request
rv = self.handle_user_exception(e)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1523, in full_dispatch_request
rv = self.dispatch_request()

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1509, in dispatch_request
return self.ensure_sync(self.view_functions[rule.endpoint])(**req.view_args)

File "/mnt/c/Users/Test/Desktop/Coding/TestCode/mainapp/webapp.py", line 139, in login
session["farm"] = DynamoDB.selectItem("Users", session["email"])

File "/mnt/c/Users/Test/Desktop/Coding/TestCode/mainapp/DataBase/DynamoDB.py", line 147, in selectItem
response = table.get_item(

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/boto3/resources/factory.py", line 580, in do_action
response = action(self, *args, **kwargs)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/boto3/resources/action.py", line 88, in call
response = getattr(parent.meta.client, operation_name)(*args, **params)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/client.py", line 415, in _api_call
return self._make_api_call(operation_name, kwargs)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/client.py", line 731, in _make_api_call
http, parsed_response = self._make_request(

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/client.py", line 751, in _make_request
return self._endpoint.make_request(operation_model, request_dict)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/endpoint.py", line 107, in make_request
return self._send_request(request_dict, operation_model)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/endpoint.py", line 180, in _send_request
request = self.create_request(request_dict, operation_model)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/endpoint.py", line 120, in create_request
self._event_emitter.emit(event_name, request=request,

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/hooks.py", line 358, in emit
return self._emitter.emit(aliased_event_name, **kwargs)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/hooks.py", line 229, in emit
return self._emit(event_name, kwargs)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/hooks.py", line 212, in _emit
response = handler(**kwargs)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/signers.py", line 95, in handler
return self.sign(operation_name, request)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/signers.py", line 167, in sign
auth.add_auth(request)

File "/home/testcode/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/botocore/auth.py", line 401, in add_auth
raise NoCredentialsError()
botocore.exceptions.NoCredentialsError: Unable to locate credentials