dynobase-icon
Dynobase

Error: dynamodb botocore.exceptions.nocredentialserror unable to locate credentials

Rafal Wilinski

Answered by Rafal Wilinski

Last updated: October 23rd, 2026

Solution

The credential provider chain did not find usable AWS credentials. This happens before DynamoDB can evaluate table permissions; adding a table policy does not supply credentials to the process.

  1. Select the intended AWS profile and verify it with aws sts get-caller-identity --profile work.
  2. For IAM Identity Center, run aws sso login --profile work and retry.
  3. In Lambda, ECS or EC2, use the runtime's IAM role and check that the process can obtain its temporary credentials.
  4. Check for stale environment credentials overriding the profile. Temporary credentials require a session token as well as the access-key pair.

Keep credentials out of source code. A successful CLI command does not prove a different SDK process uses the same profile or configuration files. For Python, explicitly select the intended profile with boto3.Session(profile_name="work"). See boto3 credential providers and SSO profiles in Dynobase.

Dynobase is a Professional GUI Client for DynamoDB

Start your 7-day free trial today

Product Features

Download
/
Pricing
/
Member Portal
/
Privacy
/
EULA
/
Twitter
© 2026 Dynobase
+
Still using AWS DynamoDB Console?
Try Dynobase to accelerate your DynamoDB workflow. Start your 7-day free trial today.