Question

So in my C# application I am downloading an XML file as a string, then doing something with it. Some files are downloaded correctly, but for some files I get gibberish. The weird thing is that when I open those files with my browser (Firefox) I get the data as I should, and not the gibberish.

This is my code to download the data:

public static string Read(string Address)
{
    return new WebClient().DownloadString(Address);
}

And this is an example of a file I get gibberish when downloading: http://thetvdb.com/api/C40F55BF6975A295/series/80379/default/5/16/en.xml

So how can I get the data for these files?

Answer 1

I think you are downloading the gzipped version of the xml file. Firefox decompresses that automatically for you.

Have a look at Uncompressing gzip response from WebClient to do the same with WebClient.