Question

I have written a c# app to migrate my data from Blinksale to Freeagent. This is all working fine and I am making the various web service calls suitably however when I run the process as a batch it gets to the 3rd invoice on the import and times out. On a like like

            Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream ();

Now I’ve contacted the API provider (Freeagent), who are very good, and they have checked the logs, and the first 2 attempts are made (which consist of 3 individual calls each) but there is no sign of the 3rd request. This would make it about the 8th request to this web service, but there may have been quite a few using similar code prior to this to get the data.

Therefore I am assuming it is something to do with my .net code.

Its hard for me to share any snippets as there is so much going on, but essentially I am doing the same thing as this multiple times.

N.B. I have checked and it isnt the data in the 3rd request thats in question (I skipped it with same result)

// Create a request using a URL that can receive a post. 
            WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create ("http://www.contoso.com/PostAccepter.aspx ");
            // Set the Method property of the request to POST.
            request.Method = "POST";
            // Create POST data and convert it to a byte array.
            string postData = "This is a test that posts this string to a Web server.";
            byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes (postData);
            // Set the ContentType property of the WebRequest.
            request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
            // Set the ContentLength property of the WebRequest.
            request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
            // Get the request stream.
            Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream ();
            // Write the data to the request stream.
            dataStream.Write (byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
            // Close the Stream object.
            dataStream.Close ();
            // Get the response.
            WebResponse response = request.GetResponse ();
            // Display the status.
            Console.WriteLine (((HttpWebResponse)response).StatusDescription);
            // Get the stream containing content returned by the server.
            dataStream = response.GetResponseStream ();
            // Open the stream using a StreamReader for easy access.
            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader (dataStream);
            // Read the content.
            string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd ();
            // Display the content.
            Console.WriteLine (responseFromServer);
            // Clean up the streams.
            reader.Close ();
            dataStream.Close ();
            response.Close ();

Answer 1

Wow, so much code. Try this:

using (var client = new WebClient())
{
    var values = new NameValueCollection
    {
        { "key", "This is a test that posts this string to a Web server." }
    };
    string url = "http://www.contoso.com/PostAccepter.aspx";
    byte[] result = client.UploadValues(url, values);
    Console.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(result));
}

If this doesn’t work it’s a network and/or server problem. You could also activate logs on the client by putting the following in your app/web.config to know exactly what’s happening on the HTTP stack:

<system.diagnostics>
  <sources>
    <source name="System.Net" tracemode="protocolonly">
      <listeners>
        <add name="System.Net" type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener" initializeData="network.log" />
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>

  <switches>
    <add name="System.Net" value="Verbose"/>
  </switches>

  <trace autoflush="true" />
</system.diagnostics>