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PayPal Pay Operation - error 81002

I'm not sure why this PayPal Pay operation is giving me this error even though I seem to have covered all the required fields:
Error Code: 81002 Severity: Error Message: Unspecified Method (Method Specified is not Supported)"
string postData = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(request);
value of postData:
"actionType=PAY
&currencyCode=USD
&cancelUrl=https%3a%2f%2fexample.com%2fcancel
&returnUrl=https%3a%2f%2fexample.com%2freturn
&requestenvelope.errorLanguage=en_US
&receiverList.receiver(0).email=recipientemail%40gmail.com
&receiverList.receiver(0).amount=0.05
&VERSION=94.0
&USER=bizemail-facilitator_api1.gmail.com
&PWD=xxxxx
&SIGNATURE=xxxxxxxxx"
Here's how I do the post:
SendRequest("https://api-3t.sandbox.paypal.com/nvp", postData);
public string SendRequest(string url, string postData)
{
var uri = new Uri(url);
var request = WebRequest.Create(uri);
var encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
var requestData = encoding.GetBytes(postData);
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.Method = "POST";
request.Timeout = (300*1000); //TODO: Move timeout to config
request.ContentLength = requestData.Length;
using (var stream = request.GetRequestStream()) {
stream.Write(requestData, 0, requestData.Length);
}
var response = request.GetResponse();
string result;
using (var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.ASCII)) {
result = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
return result;
}

The method PAY doesn't exist on the NVP api. Full list of methods supported by that API is found here.
The PAY method, however, is defined in the Adaptive Payments API. Depending on your needs, you have two options:
Change the endpoint to https://svcs.paypal.com/AdaptivePayments/PAY and modify your values
Use another method, like DoDirectPayment, but I'm not sure it does what you want to.

I assume the value of postData is before you serialize it to a JSON string, instead of after as you say, since it is clearly not a JSON string.
If so, then it is already x-www-form-urlencoded, and you do not need to serialize it to a JSON string at all.
Or if you do after all, then change just this: request.ContentType = "application/json";

HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() keeps getting timed out

i wrote a simple C# function to retrieve trade history from MtGox with following API call:
https://data.mtgox.com/api/1/BTCUSD/trades?since=<trade_id>
documented here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MtGox/API/HTTP/v1#Multi_currency_trades
here's the function:
string GetTradesOnline(Int64 tid)
{
Thread.Sleep(30000);
// communicate
string url = "https://data.mtgox.com/api/1/BTCUSD/trades?since=" + tid.ToString();
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
string json = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();
reader.Dispose();
response.Close();
return json;
}
i'm starting at tid=0 (trade id) to get the data (from the very beginning). for each request, i receive a response containing 1000 trade details. i always send the trade id from the previous response for the next request. it works fine for exactly 4 requests & responses. but after that, the following line throws a "System.Net.WebException", saying that "The operation has timed out":
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
here are the facts:
catching the exception and retying keeps causing the same exception
the default HttpWebRequest .Timeout and .ReadWriteTimeout are already high enough (over a minute)
changing HttpWebRequest.KeepAlive to false didn't solve anything either
it seems to always work in the browser even while the function is failing
it has no problems retrieveing the response from https://www.google.com
the amount of successful responses before the exceptions varies from day to day (but browser always works)
starting at the trade id that failed last time causes the exception immediately
calling this function from the main thread instead still caused the exception
running it on a different machine didn't work
running it from a different IP didn't work
increasing Thread.Sleep inbetween requests does not help
any ideas of what could be wrong?

I had the very same issue.
For me the fix was as simple as wrapping the HttpWebResponse code in using block.
using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse) request.GetResponse())
{
// Do your processings here....
}
Details: This issue usually happens when several requests are made to the same host, and WebResponse is not disposed properly. That is where using block will properly dispose the WebResponse object properly and thus solving the issue.

There are two kind of timeouts. Client timeout and server timeout. Have you tried doing something like this:
request.Timeout = Timeout.Infinite;
request.KeepAlive = true;
Try something like this...

I just had similar troubles calling a REST Service on a LINUX Server thru ssl. After trying many different configuration scenarios I found out that I had to send a UserAgent in the http head.
Here is my final method for calling the REST API.
private static string RunWebRequest(string url, string json)
{
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
// Header
request.ContentType = "application/json";
request.Method = "POST";
request.AllowAutoRedirect = false;
request.KeepAlive = false;
request.Timeout = 30000;
request.ReadWriteTimeout = 30000;
request.UserAgent = "test.net";
request.Accept = "application/json";
request.ProtocolVersion = HttpVersion.Version11;
request.Headers.Add("Accept-Language","de_DE");
ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls;
ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback = delegate { return true; };
byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json);
request.ContentLength = bytes.Length;
using (var writer = request.GetRequestStream())
{
writer.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
writer.Flush();
writer.Close();
}
var httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(httpResponse.GetResponseStream()))
{
var jsonReturn = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
return jsonReturn;
}
}

This is not a solution, but just an alternative:
These days i almost only use WebClient instead of HttpWebRequest. Especially WebClient.UploadString for POST and PUT and WebClient.DownloadString. These simply take and return strings. This way i don't have to deal with streams objects, except when i get a WebException. i can also set the content type with WebClient.Headers["Content-type"] if necessary. The using statement also makes life easier by calling Dispose for me.
Rarely for performance, i set System.Net.ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit high and instead use HttpClient with it's Async methods for simultaneous calls.
This is how i would do it now
string GetTradesOnline(Int64 tid)
{
using (var wc = new WebClient())
{
return wc.DownloadString("https://data.mtgox.com/api/1/BTCUSD/trades?since=" + tid.ToString());
}
}
2 more POST examples
// POST
string SubmitData(string data)
{
string response;
using (var wc = new WebClient())
{
wc.Headers["Content-type"] = "text/plain";
response = wc.UploadString("https://data.mtgox.com/api/1/BTCUSD/trades", "POST", data);
}
return response;
}
// POST: easily url encode multiple parameters
string SubmitForm(string project, string subject, string sender, string message)
{
// url encoded query
NameValueCollection query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty);
query.Add("project", project);
query.Add("subject", subject);
// url encoded data
NameValueCollection data = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(string.Empty);
data.Add("sender", sender);
data.Add("message", message);
string response;
using (var wc = new WebClient())
{
wc.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.ContentType] = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
response = wc.UploadString( "https://data.mtgox.com/api/1/BTCUSD/trades?"+query.ToString()
, WebRequestMethods.Http.Post
, data.ToString()
);
}
return response;
}
Error handling
try
{
Console.WriteLine(GetTradesOnline(0));
string data = File.ReadAllText(#"C:\mydata.txt");
Console.WriteLine(SubmitData(data));
Console.WriteLine(SubmitForm("The Big Project", "Progress", "John Smith", "almost done"));
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
string msg;
if (ex.Response != null)
{
// read response HTTP body
using (var sr = new StreamReader(ex.Response.GetResponseStream())) msg = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
else
{
msg = ex.Message;
}
Log(msg);
}

For what it's worth, I was experiencing the same issues with timeouts every time I used it, even though calls went through to the server I was calling. The problem in my case was that I had Expect set to application/json, when that wasn't what the server was returning.

WebRequest POST form containing XML?

I am trying to use .Net WebRequest to POST a form. The form contains fields that are XML. (Among other things) I have tried the following code:
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(ctx.SvcUrl);
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream(), System.Text.Encoding.ASCII))
{
string reqBody = "first=<bill/>&last=smith"; //(embedded <>) - 500 Internal Server Error
writer.Write(reqBody);
}
rsp = req.GetResponse();
var strm = rsp.GetResponseStream();
var rdr = new StreamReader(strm);
string input = rdr.ReadToEnd();
The <> in reqBody causes a 500 - Internal Server error.
What's the right way to encode this? Or are multi-part forms the answer??

Try using:
string reqBody = string.Format("first={0}&last={1}", HttpUtility.HtmlEncode("<bill/>"), "smith");

You need to encode the request. Use the HttpEncoder class.
using System.Web.Util;
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(ctx.SvcUrl);
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream(),
System.Text.Encoding.ASCII))
{
var encoder = new HttpEncoder();
string reqBody = String.Format("first={0}&last={1}",
encoder.HtmlEncode("<bill/>"),
encoder.HtmlEncode("smith") );
writer.Write(reqBody);
}
rsp = req.GetResponse();
var strm = rsp.GetResponseStream();
var rdr = new StreamReader(strm);
string input = rdr.ReadToEnd();
I used String.Format() because I thought it looked nicer and made it clearer what I was doing, but it isn't necessary. You can build the string through string concatenation, too, as long as you pass it through HttpEncoder.HtmlEncode() first.

It turns out that UrlEncoding is being done automatically, so doing it myself can cause trouble. Also, the server I was connecting to couldn't handle any encoding. This muddied the water and made it difficult to see what was failing.
Bottom line solution was to get the server fixed to handle UrlEncoding.
As 'cheong00 on Microsoft's Forums' points out, to avoid the automatic, use TcpClient. But the encoding should be there.

GetRequestStream() is throwing time out exception when posting data to HTTPS url

I'm calling an API hosted on Apache server to post data. I'm using HttpWebRequest to perform POST in C#.
API has both normal HTTP and secure layer (HTTPS) PORT on the server. When I call HTTP URL it works perfectly fine. However, when I call HTTPS it gives me time-out exception (at GetRequestStream() function). Any insights? I'm using VS 2010, .Net framework 3.5 and C#. Here is the code block:
string json_value = jsonSerializer.Serialize(data);
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)System.Net.WebRequest.Create("https://server-url-xxxx.com");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ProtocolVersion = System.Net.HttpVersion.Version10;
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(json_value);
request.ContentLength = buffer.Length;
System.IO.Stream reqStream = request.GetRequestStream();
reqStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
reqStream.Close();
EDIT:
The console program suggested by Peter works fine. But when I add data (in JSON format) that needs to be posted to the API, it throws out operation timed out exception. Here is the code that I add to console based application and it throws error.
byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(json_value);
request.ContentLength = buffer.Length;

I ran into the same issue. It seems like it is solved for me. I went through all my code making sure to invoke webResponse.Close() and/or responseStream.Close() for all my HttpWebResponse objects. The documentation indicates that you can close the stream or the HttpWebResponse object. Calling both is not harmful, so I did. Not closing the responses may cause the application to run out of connections for reuse, and this seems to affect the HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream as far as I can observe in my code.

I don't know if this will help you with your specific problem but you should consider Disposing some of those objects when you are finished with them. I was doing something like this recently and wrapping stuff up in using statements seems to clean up a bunch of timeout exceptions for me.
using (var reqStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
if (reqStream == null)
{
return;
}
//do whatever
}
also check these things
Is the server serving https in your local dev environment?
Have you set up your bindings *.443 (https) properly?
Do you need to set credentials on the request?
Is it your application pool account accessing the https resources or is it your account being passed through?
Have you thought about using WebClient instead?
using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
{
using (Stream stream = client.OpenRead("https://server-url-xxxx.com"))
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
MessageBox.Show(reader.ReadToEnd());
}
}
EDIT:
make a request from console.
internal class Program
{
private static void Main(string[] args)
{
new Program().Run();
Console.ReadLine();
}
public void Run()
{
var request = (HttpWebRequest)System.Net.WebRequest.Create("https://server-url-xxxx.com");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ProtocolVersion = System.Net.HttpVersion.Version10;
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
using (var reqStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
using(var response = new StreamReader(reqStream )
{
Console.WriteLine(response.ReadToEnd());
}
}
}
}

Try this:
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create("https://server-url-xxxx.com");
req.Method = "POST";
string json_value = jsonSerializer.Serialize(data); //Body data
ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;
using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(req.GetRequestStream()))
{
streamWriter.Write(json_value);
streamWriter.Flush();
streamWriter.Close();
}
HttpWebResponse resp = req.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
Stream GETResponseStream = resp.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(GETResponseStream);
var response = sr.ReadToEnd(); //Response
resp.Close(); //Close response
sr.Close(); //Close StreamReader
And review the URI:
Reserved characters. Send reserved characters by the URI can bring
problems ! * ' ( ) ; : # & = + $ , / ? # [ ]
URI Length: You should not exceed 2000 characters

I ran into this, too. I wanted to simulate hundreds of users with a Console app. When simulating only one user, everything was fine. But with more users came the Timeout exception all the time.
Timeout occurs because by default the ConnectionLimit=2 to a ServicePoint (aka website).
Very good article to read: https://venkateshnarayanan.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/httpwebrequest-reuse-of-tcp-connections/
What you can do is:
1) make more ConnectionGroups within a servicePoint, because ConnectionLimit is per ConnectionGroups.
2) or you just simply increase the connection limit.
See my solution:
private HttpWebRequest CreateHttpWebRequest<U>(string userSessionID, string method, string fullUrl, U uploadData)
{
HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(fullUrl);
req.Method = method; // GET PUT POST DELETE
req.ConnectionGroupName = userSessionID; // We make separate connection-groups for each user session. Within a group connections can be reused.
req.ServicePoint.ConnectionLimit = 10; // The default value of 2 within a ConnectionGroup caused me always a "Timeout exception" because a user's 1-3 concurrent WebRequests within a second.
req.ServicePoint.MaxIdleTime = 5 * 1000; // (5 sec) default was 100000 (100 sec). Max idle time for a connection within a ConnectionGroup for reuse before closing
Log("Statistics: The sum of connections of all connectiongroups within the ServicePoint: " + req.ServicePoint.CurrentConnections; // just for statistics
if (uploadData != null)
{
req.ContentType = "application/json";
SerializeToJson(uploadData, req.GetRequestStream());
}
return req;
}
/// <summary>Serializes and writes obj to the requestStream and closes the stream. Uses JSON serialization from System.Runtime.Serialization.</summary>
public void SerializeToJson(object obj, Stream requestStream)
{
DataContractJsonSerializer json = new DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
json.WriteObject(requestStream, obj);
requestStream.Close();
}

You may want to set timeout property, check it here http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/69637/Setting-timeout-property-for-System-Net-WebClient

WebRequest to connect to the Wikipedia API

This may be a pathetically simple problem, but I cannot seem to format the post webrequest/response to get data from the Wikipedia API. I have posted my code below if anyone can help me see my problem.
string pgTitle = txtPageTitle.Text;
Uri address = new Uri("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php");
HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(address) as HttpWebRequest;
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
string action = "query";
string query = pgTitle;
StringBuilder data = new StringBuilder();
data.Append("action=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(action));
data.Append("&query=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(query));
byte[] byteData = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(data.ToString());
request.ContentLength = byteData.Length;
using (Stream postStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
postStream.Write(byteData, 0, byteData.Length);
}
using (HttpWebResponse response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse)
{
// Get the response stream.
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
divWikiData.InnerText = reader.ReadToEnd();
}

You might want to try a GET request first because it's a little simpler (you will only need to POST for wikipedia login). For example, try to simulate this request:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=images&titles=Main%20Page
Here's the code:
HttpWebRequest myRequest =
(HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=images&titles=Main%20Page");
using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)myRequest.GetResponse())
{
string ResponseText;
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
ResponseText = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
Edit: The other problem he was experiencing on the POST request was, The exception is : The remote server returned an error: (417) Expectation failed. It can be solved by setting:
System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;
(This is from: HTTP POST Returns Error: 417 "Expectation Failed.")

I'm currently in the final stages of implementing an C# MediaWiki API which allows the easy scripting of most MediaWiki viewing and editing actions.
The main API is here: http://o2platform.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/O2%20-%20All%20Active%20Projects/O2_XRules_Database/_Rules/APIs/OwaspAPI.cs and here is an example of the API in use:
var wiki = new O2MediaWikiAPI("http://www.o2platform.com/api.php");
wiki.login(userName, password);
var page = "Test"; // "Main_Page";
wiki.editPage(page,"Test content2");
var rawWikiText = wiki.raw(page);
var htmlText = wiki.html(page);
return rawWikiText.line().line() + htmlText;

You seem to be pushing the input data on HTTP POST, but it seems you should use HTTP GET.
From the MediaWiki API docs:
The API takes its input through
parameters in the query string. Every
module (and every action=query
submodule) has its own set of
parameters, which is listed in the
documentation and in action=help, and
can be retrieved through
action=paraminfo.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Data_formats