urllib.request.urlopen(URL) not working in python3

Question

I am trying to access JSON using urllib.request.urlopen. It works fine when I use urllib2 in python2, but not urllib.request.urlopen.

URL = 'https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest'

f = urllib.request.urlopen(URL)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 1316, in do_open
    encode_chunked=req.has_header('Transfer-encoding'))
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 1229, in request
    self._send_request(method, url, body, headers, encode_chunked)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 1275, in _send_request
    self.endheaders(body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 1224, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 1016, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 956, in send
    self.connect()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/http/client.py", line 1391, in connect
    server_hostname=server_hostname)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/ssl.py", line 415, in wrap_socket
    _session=session
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/ssl.py", line 826, in __init__
    self.do_handshake()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/ssl.py", line 1080, in do_handshake
    self._sslobj.do_handshake()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/ssl.py", line 701, in do_handshake
    self._sslobj.do_handshake()
ssl.SSLCertVerificationError: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:864)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "a1.py", line 19, in <module>
    print(getLatestRates())
  File "a1.py", line 15, in getLatestRates
    f = urllib.request.urlopen(URL)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 222, in urlopen
    return opener.open(url, data, timeout)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 525, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 543, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 503, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 1359, in https_open
    context=self._context, check_hostname=self._check_hostname)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/urllib/request.py", line 1318, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
urllib.error.URLError: <urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:864)>

Are you behind some firewall or using a public wifi with "captive" screen? — Ouss, Aug 21 '19 at 17:38
Are you on windows or mac? Do you have the root certificates installed with Python3.7? maybe you should read this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44649449/brew-installation-of-python-3-6-1-ssl-certificate-verify-failed-certificate — Ouss, Aug 21 '19 at 17:42
[This](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27835619/urllib-and-ssl-certificate-verify-failed-error) is likely the problem. — ssp, Dec 30 '20 at 00:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 09 '19 at 20:17

1

This is what I used and it worked:

from urllib.request import urlopen

URL = 'https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest'
f = urlopen(URL)

I hope this works for you!

answered Dec 09 '19 at 20:17

Jade Cacho

691
6
9

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 21 '19 at 17:57

0

you can try to disable the ssl verification

import urllib3
urllib3.disable_warnings(urllib3.exceptions.InsecureRequestWarning)

answered Aug 21 '19 at 17:57

Roushan

4,074
3
21
38

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 31 '20 at 10:28

0

In my case there was an issue with error in request.py:

_load_windows_store_certs caused MemoryError

Fixed by updating python from version 3.7.4 to 3.8.1

Hope this help

answered Jan 31 '20 at 10:28

Taraskin

561
9
15

urllib.request.urlopen(URL) not working in python3

3 Answers3