http status code 400 in middle east countries

Question

I have an iPad app which loads a plist from a server fine on a UIWebView but when I try to get it as response string from the server, it returns a http status code 400 with response string as Request Error (invalid_request).

It happens only in middle east countries. One user from United Arab Emirates confirmed about the issue to whom I sent an adhoc build for testing. App returns a status code of 400 but the plist loads fine on UIWebView.

I had been trying for 2 different servers - AWS server and another hosted in USA. For both the servers, it gives the same status code.

Can anyone give suggestions as to why it should happen?

Here's a part of the code:

  .....
    ASIHTTPRequest *request = [[[ASIHTTPRequest alloc] initWithURL:url] autorelease];
    [request addRequestHeader:@"Content-Type" value:@"text/xml; charset=utf-8"];
    [request addRequestHeader:@"Accept-Encoding" value:@"text/xml;charset=utf-8"];

    [request setRequestMethod:@"GET"];
    [request setDelegate:self];

    [request setDidFinishSelector: @selector(gotTheResponse:)];

    [request setDidFailSelector: @selector(requestFailed:)];
    [networkQueue addOperation: request];
    [networkQueue go];
....

An ISP controls what websites you can visit, if one of these countries you are referring to doesn't want the user going to lets say a .com website then you can not do anything about it it because they can just return a 400 without ever hitting your site. — Joe, Apr 28 '11 at 14:16
I've just edited my question. One user from UAE confirmed about the issue. — random, Apr 28 '11 at 14:26

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 29 '11 at 17:52

I'm not sure if this is the problem or not, but this line:

[request addRequestHeader:@"Accept-Encoding" value:@"text/xml;charset=utf-8"];

is setting an invalid value for the Accept-Encoding header I believe. More usual values would be "compress, gzip", and you shouldn't really need to set it yourself. If you want text/xml returned by the server, that should go into an "Accept" header - though you may not need it at all depending on the server setup.

It's also unusual to use a Content-Type header on a GET request, is there a reason you're adding that?

One final possibility would be if the URL contains unusual characters, potentially that could cause any proxy server to return an error.

http status code 400 in middle east countries

1 Answers1