Want to stay logged in when WebRequest

[mahmood]

I have a desktop application with a webbrowser control on it.

If I open a web page using Navigate method every thing is OK and I am logged in to a certain website but when I use WebRequest and WebResponse I am logged out.

How can I stay logged in when I use webrequest?

 

[JohnH]

It is probably due to cookies, try assigning a new CookieContainer instance to the CookieContainer property before you make the first request, for subsequent requests assign the same CookieContainer instance.
HttpWebRequest.CookieContainer Property (System.Net)

 

[mahmood]

Thanks for reply

This is what MS says:

Dim instance As HttpWebRequest
Dim value As CookieContainer
instance.CookieContainer = value

Where do I get the value to assing instance.CookieContainer to? (I mean for the first time because one subsequent requests I would get it from HttpWebResponse, I guess)



.

 

[JohnH]

You create a new class instance with the New keyword to invoke a constructor. Here's the general idea I tried to transmit in prevous post:

Dim cc As [B]New [/B]CookieContainer 

dim first as httpwebrequest = *create*
first.CookieContainer = cc
'...
dim second as httpwebrequest = *create*
second.CookieContainer = cc
'''

 

[mahmood]

Thanks for the reply

I did that, I created the CookieContainer and assigned it, but I am still logged out which makes sense to me because I think I have to send a value or something to the remote host. These newly created cookies are empty, how is the remote supposed to know who I am then?

As I mentioned if I navigate to the url inside a webbrowser control I am logged it but when reading a page using httpwebrequest I am not.

 

[JohnH]

There could be various methods to login with a request, try searching the web for "httpwebrequest login".

 

[mahmood]

There could be various methods to login with a request, try searching the web for "httpwebrequest login".

Actually this is where I started from and ended up comming here to ask for help.
I tried every single suggestion out there and not worked. This one looked very promissing, it is supposed to submit a login form but didn't get any results - I mean didn't log in - :

           Dim LOGIN_URL As String = "http://xxxx/Signin.aspx"
        Dim MyWebRequest As HttpWebRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL)

        Dim responseReader = New StreamReader(MyWebRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
        Dim responseData As String = responseReader.ReadToEnd


        responseReader.Close()

        Dim viewState As String = ExtractViewState(responseData)
        Dim postData As String = String.Format("__VIEWSTATE={0}&TxtUsername={1}&TxtPassword={2}&btnLogin=Login", viewState, "MyUsername", "mypass")

        Dim encoding As New System.Text.ASCIIEncoding()
        Dim by As Byte() = encoding.GetBytes(postData)


        Dim cookies As CookieContainer = New CookieContainer()


        MyWebRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL)
        MyWebRequest.Method = "POST"
        MyWebRequest.ContentLength = by.Length
        '  responseReader = New StreamReader(MyWebRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())

        ' responseData = responseReader.ReadToEnd()

        MyWebRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

        MyWebRequest.CookieContainer = cookies


        Dim requestWriter As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(MyWebRequest.GetRequestStream())
        requestWriter.Write(postData)
        requestWriter.Close()


        MyWebRequest.GetResponse().Close()

        MyWebRequest = WebRequest.Create(LOGIN_URL)
        MyWebRequest.CookieContainer = cookies
        responseReader = New StreamReader(MyWebRequest.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())

        responseData = responseReader.ReadToEnd()
        responseReader.Close()