StringContent is empty on Xamarin.Android

Question

We have an Azure WebApi service that can sometimes return a BadRequest like so

return BadRequest("{\"errors\":[{\"message\":\"MyBuddy not found!\",\"code\":9}]}");

The problem is that on Xamarin.Android, using the System.Net.Http.HttpClient, the response content that we receive is empty.

This is our code:

private static async Task<int> ReadErrorCodeAsync(HttpResponseMessage response)
    {
        var x = response.ReasonPhrase;
        var errorSerialized = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        var error = JObject.Parse(errorSerialized);

        return ((JArray)error["errors"])[0]["code"].Value<int>();
    }

But errorSerialized is always an empty string. We also use a Swagger UI and there the response content is what we expect, e.g.:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "MyBuddy not found!",
      "code": 9
    }
  ]
}

Is it normal that the Content of a BadRequest reponse is empty on Xamarin.Android? Is there anything I can do, e.g. configure the HttpClient differently, so that I receive the StringContent?

EDIT: we're using the AndroidClientHandler. For this we've added a text file to the Android project, set its BuildAction to AndroidResource and its content to XA_HTTP_CLIENT_HANDLER_TYPE=Xamarin.Android.Net.AndroidClientHandler

Sven-Michael Stübe Sven-Michael Stübe · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-20T19:21:50

This is a bug in the AndroidClientHandler. It isn't reading the error response properly. (see https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-android/blob/master/src/Mono.Android/Xamarin.Android.Net/AndroidClientHandler.cs#L308 )

I've fixed it. Let's hope they will merge it quickly :) https://github.com/xamarin/xamarin-android/pull/180

If you need to use it before Xamarin has merged and released it, you have to:

copy this folder in some folder in your android project
change the namespace in all files to Xamarin.Android.Net.Fix
delete or comment all Logger lines that cause compile errors
change the content of your environment file to XA_HTTP_CLIENT_HANDLER_TYPE=Xamarin.Android.Net.Fix.AndroidClientHandler,MyApp.Android (replace MyApp.Android with the assembly name of your Android app)

StringContent is empty on Xamarin.Android

1 Answers