HttpWebRequest Failing, Can't Figure out Why - windows-phone-7

Question

I have a WP7 app where I'm trying to reconstruct an HTTPWebRequest that I have successfully written elsewhere using the synchronous methods (pasted at end) but which doesn't work in WP7, I assume because I'm doing something wrong with the Asynchronous versions of these methods.
I believe the issue stems from the fact that the non-working code on the Compact Framework can only send a bytearray[] - I don't have the option of sending the json string. If I send a bytearray in the code that works, I get an error there too. Is there a different option?
Here is my code - this does not work. The exception is thrown on the 2nd line of the last method - "Using(var respons ...)":
public void CreateUser()
{
var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://staging.cloudapp.net:8080/api/users/");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "text/json; charset=utf-8";
request.BeginGetRequestStream(new AsyncCallback(RequestCallback), request);
}
private static void RequestCallback(IAsyncResult result)
{
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)result.AsyncState;
using (Stream postStream = request.EndGetRequestStream(result))
{
User user = new User("Windows", "Phone", "USCA");
Formatting formatting = new Formatting();
JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
settings.ReferenceLoopHandling = ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(user, formatting, settings);
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json);
postStream.Write(byteArray, 0, json.Length);
}
request.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(ResponseCallback), request);
}
private static void ResponseCallback(IAsyncResult result)
{
var request = (HttpWebRequest)result.AsyncState;
using (var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.EndGetResponse(result))
{
using (Stream streamResponse = response.GetResponseStream())
{
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(streamResponse);
string responseString = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();
}
}
}
This code works (non-compact framework version of the same request):
HttpWebRequest request = HttpWebRequest.Create("http://staging.cloudapp.net/api/users/") as HttpWebRequest;
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "text/json";
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream()))
{
User user = new user("Other", "Guy", "USWC");
Formatting formatting = new Formatting();
JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
settings.ReferenceLoopHandling = ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(user, formatting, settings);
writer.Write(json);
}
var response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;
using (var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
var responseText = reader.ReadToEnd();
return responseText;
}
thanks for any help!

Answer 1

looks like the server is responding with a "404 not found". Does the resource you are requesting exist at the server?

Answer 2

Does your JSON contain any non 7-bit ASCII characters, as you are currently doing:
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(json);
postStream.Write(byteArray, 0, json.Length);
The number of bytes might not be identical to the number of characters in your string, which could lead to a malformed request.
It would be worthwhile using something like Fiddler to verify what is actually going over the wire from the emulator or phone (there are instructions on the Fiddler website for how to do this)

Answer 3

Well - I'm not sure why this problem went away. I liked #RowlandShaw's suggestion, but I didn't actually change anything in the json. Wish I could give a better solution.