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Differences between using C# HttpClient API and the postman testing? Client call works on postman, but not C# httpClient getAsync

I am testing a REST API post, and it works well when I try it on Postman. However, in some scenario (related to the posting XML data) if I post with HttpClient API, I would receive the following error:
Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
But the same XML content works fine on Postman with status OK and proper response.
What is the differences between using the C# HttpClient API and the postman testing? How can I configure my API call to match with the behavior on postman?
Here I attached the source code, and the Postman screenshot
public void createLoan()
{
string baseCreateLoanUrl = #"https://serverhost/create?key=";
var strUCDExport = XDocument.Load(#"C:\CreateLoan_testcase.xml");
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
var content = new StringContent(strUCDExport.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, Mediatype);
string createLoanApi = string.Concat(baseCreateLoanUrl, APIKey);
try
{
var response = client.PostAsync(createLoanApi, content).Result;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show("Error Happened here...");
throw;
}
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
// Access variables from the returned JSON object
string responseString = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
JObject jObj = JObject.Parse(responseString);
if (jObj.SelectToken("failure") == null)
{
// First get the authToken
string LoanID = jObj["loanStatus"]["id"].ToString();
MessageBox.Show("Loan ID: " + LoanID);
}
else
{
string getTokenErrorMsg = string.Empty;
JArray errorOjbs = (JArray) jObj["failure"]["errors"];
foreach (var errorObj in errorOjbs)
{
getTokenErrorMsg += errorObj["message"].ToString() + Environment.NewLine;
}
getTokenErrorMsg.Dump();
}
}
}

Thanks for Nard's comment, after comparing the header, I found the issue my client header has this:
Expect: 100-continue
While postman doesn't has.
Once I removed this by using the ServicePointManager:
ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;
Everything seems fine now. Thanks all the input!

My gut tells me it's something simple. First, we know the API works, so I'm thinking it's down to how you are using the HttpClient.
First things first, try as suggested by this SO answer, creating it as a singleton and drop the using statement altogether since the consensus is that HttpClient doesn't need to be disposed:
private static readonly HttpClient HttpClient = new HttpClient();
I would think it would be either there or an issue with your content encoding line that is causing issues with the API. Is there something you are missing that it doesn't like, I bet there is a difference in the requests in Postman vs here. Maybe try sending it as JSON ala:
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(strUCDExport.ToString());
var content = new StringContent(json, Encoding.UTF8, Mediatype);
Maybe the header from Postman vs yours will show something missing, I think the real answer will be there. Have fiddler running in the background, send it via Postman, check it, then run your code and recheck. Pay close attention to all the attribute tags on the header from Postman, the API works so something is missing. Fiddler will tell you.

I was struggling with this for 2 days when I stumbled over Fiddler which lets you record the traffic to the service. After comparing the calls I saw that I had missed a header in my code.

Not able to download file using C# from a web api which works using postman

I have recently started working with web api's.
I need to download a file in C# project from a web api, which works fine when I hit the web api using postman's send and download option. Refer to the image, also please check the response in header's tab. This way, I am able to directly download the file to my computer.
I want to do the same from my C# project, I found following two links which shows how to download a file from web api.
https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HttpClient-Downloading-to-4cc138fd
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/henrikn/archive/2012/02/16/downloading-a-google-map-to-local-file.aspx
I am using the following code in C# project to get the response:
private static async Task FileDownloadAsync()
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Accept", "text/html");
try
{
// _address is exactly same which I use from postman
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(_address);
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
}
else
{
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
throw;
}
}
}
However I am not getting the response at all (before I can start to convert the response to a file), please check the error message coming:
What am I missing here, any help would be appreciated.

As the (500s) error says - it's the Server that rejects the request. The only thing I see that could cause an issues is the charset encoding. Yours is the default UTF-8. You could try with other encodings.

Below method uses:
SSL certificate (comment out code for cert, if you don't use it)
Custom api header for additional layer of security (comment out Custom_Header_If_You_Need code, if you don't need that)
EnsureSuccessStatusCode will throw an error, when response is not 200. This error will be caught in and converted to a human readable string format to show on your screen (if you need to). Again, comment it out if you don't need that.
private byte[] DownloadMediaMethod(string mediaId)
{
var cert = new X509Certificate2("Keystore/p12_keystore.p12", "p12_keystore_password");
var handler = new WebRequestHandler { ClientCertificates = { cert } };
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler))
{
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Custom_Header_If_You_Need", "Value_For_Custom_Header");
var httpResponse = client.GetAsync(new Uri($"https://my_api.my_company.com/api/v1/my_media_controller/{mediaId}")).Result;
//Below one line is most relevant to this question, and will address your problem. Other code in this example if just to show the solution as a whole.
var result = httpResponse.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().Result;
try
{
httpResponse.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
if (result == null || result.Length == 0) throw;
using (var ms = new MemoryStream(result))
{
var sr = new StreamReader(ms);
throw new Exception(sr.ReadToEnd(), ex);
}
}
return result;
}
}
Once you have your http response 200, you can use the received bytes[] as under to save them in a file:
using (var fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write))
{
fs.Write(content, 0, content.Length);
}

Your request header says that you accept HTML responses only. That could be a problem.

How do I get the destination URL of a shortened URL?

I have an API (https://www.readability.com/developers/api/parser#idm386426118064) to extract the contents of the webapges, but on passing a shortened url or an url that redirects to other, it gives error.
I am developing windows phone 8.1 (xaml) app. Is there any way to get the destination url in c# or any work around?
eg url - http://www.bing.com/r/2/BB7Q4J4?a=1&m=EN-IN

You could intercept the Location header value before the HttpClient follows it like this:
using (var handler = new HttpClientHandler())
{
handler.AllowAutoRedirect = false;
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler))
{
var response = await client.GetAsync("shortUrl");
var longUrl = response.Headers.Location.ToString();
}
}
This solution will always be the most efficient because it only issue one request.
It is possible however, that the short url will reference another short url and consequently cause this method to fail.
An alternative solution would be to allow the HttpClient to follow the Location header value and observe the destination:
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
var response = client.GetAsync("shortUrl").Result;
var longUrl = response.RequestMessage.RequestUri;
}
This method is both terser and more reliable than the first.
The drawback is that this code will issue two requests instead of one.

You can get the ResponseUri from GetResponse():
string redirectedURL = WebRequest.Create("http://www.bing.com/r/2/BB7Q4J4?a=1&m=EN-IN")
.GetResponse()
.ResponseUri
.ToString();
Interesting article, by the way.

You need to inspect the headers returned from the URL.
If you get HTTP return codes 301 or 302, then you are being notified that the page is redirecting you to another URL.
See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/HTRESP.html for more details about HTTP return codes.

How to use credentials in HttpClient in c#?

I am facing some problems when using the HttpClient class to access to a Delicious API. I have the following code:
try
{
const string uriSources = "https://api.del.icio.us/v1/tags/bundles/all?private={myKey}";
using (var handler = new HttpClientHandler { Credentials = new
NetworkCredential("MyUSER", "MyPASS") })
{
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler))
{
var result = await client.GetStringAsync(uriSources);
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "ERROR...", MessageBoxButton.OK);
}
When running the code above I am getting the following: Response status code does not indicate success: 401 (Unauthorized).
So, how could I get this work? Is it possible?
Thanks in advance
Regards!

I had the exact same problem myself. It seems the HttpClient just disregards the credentials set in the HttpClientHandler.
The following shall work however:
using System.Net.Http.Headers; // For AuthenticationHeaderValue
const string uri = "https://example.com/path?params=1";
using (var client = new HttpClient()) {
var byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("MyUSER:MyPASS");
var header = new AuthenticationHeaderValue(
"Basic", Convert.ToBase64String(byteArray));
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = header;
var result = await client.GetStringAsync(uri);
}
No need for the handler.
Source: http://www.snip2code.com/Snippet/13895/Simple-C---NET-4-5-HTTPClient-Request-Us

This is an old post but thought to add my reply for someone facing similar issue and browsing answers...
I faced similar issue. In my case, setting Domain property for NetworkCredentials worked. You can try setting Domain.

The code you are showing works for me against an authenticated resource. I suspect Delicious is doing something weird.
Considering you are on Windows Phone, it is a pain to debug with Fiddler, so what I suggest is getting a Runscope account. Install this message handler which will redirect your request via the RunScope debugger. Once you do this, I suggest you look at the www-authenticate header and examine what that is returning.
If all else fails you can always set the Authentication header directly with basic auth credentials. You don't need to use the Credentials class.

JSON Data posted by Silverlight is not reaching the server

I have a web client I'm creating in Silverlight. I am trying to get it to communicate it with my web services on my server through GET and POST requests and JSON. The GET requests work fine and I'm able to parse the JSON on the Silverlight end. The POST requests however dont seem to work. The server reads that there is a POST request, but the POST array is empty.
Ive tried two pieces of code to send the POST requests, but both are resulting in the same response - an empty array.
The first Silverlight code I tried was:
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(new Uri("http://www.dipzo.com/game/services.php"));
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "application/json";
request.BeginGetRequestStream(new AsyncCallback(OnGetRequestStreamCompleted), request);
}
private void OnGetRequestStreamCompleted(IAsyncResult ar)
{
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)ar.AsyncState;
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(request.EndGetRequestStream(ar)))
{
writer.Write("name=david");
}
request.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(OnGetResponseCompleted), request);
}
private void OnGetResponseCompleted(IAsyncResult ar)
{
//this.GetResponseCoimpleted.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
// Complete the Flickr request and marshal to the UI thread
using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)((HttpWebRequest)ar.AsyncState).EndGetResponse(ar))
{
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
string results = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
The second piece I tried was:
private void WebClient_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
Test t1 = new Test() { Name = "Civics", Marks = 100 };
DataContractJsonSerializer jsondata = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Test));
MemoryStream mem = new MemoryStream();
jsondata.WriteObject(mem, t1);
string josnserdata = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(mem.ToArray(), 0, (int)mem.Length);
WebClient cnt = new WebClient();
cnt.UploadStringCompleted += new UploadStringCompletedEventHandler(cnt_UploadStringCompleted);
cnt.Headers["Content-type"] = "application/json";
cnt.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;
cnt.UploadStringAsync(new Uri("http://www.dipzo.com/game/services.php"), "POST", josnserdata);
}
void cnt_UploadStringCompleted(object sender, UploadStringCompletedEventArgs e)
{
var x = e;
}
The code on the server to consume the service is in PHP and is essentially:
var_dump($_POST)
This should output whatever is coming into the post array. I've tested it with a simple PHP client and it works. Just can't get it to work in silverlight. In silverlight I just keep getting an empty array.

You should change the Content-type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded and not application/json which is not a known type yet.

Not that I think anyone is still paying attention tot his old question, but I'm betting that the problem was that it actually WAS getting to the server, but that the server routed the result back to the SL application. This is the behavior I'm seeing with a similar situation from SL5 usingWebClient.UploadStringAsync.
I'm about to implement/test a technique I ran across yesterday which uses a dynamically built, "real" page post from SL; I'll report my findings shortly.
UPDATE -- THIS SOLUTION WORKS:
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/392435/Using-HTTP-Form-POST-method-to-pass-parameters-fro
I've just tested it in my application (SL5 inside MVC) and it works just fine. Make sure you check the HttpContext.Request.Form["fieldname"] to get the value(s) that you want. I used this technique to submit JSON and was able to return a generated Word document for the user.
Once I implemented this I was able to get rid of the unnecessary WebClient that I was attempting to use before.