XMLHttpRequest fails basic authentication

Question

Any idea why XMLHttpRequest with correct credentials in Pebble JS Framework fails basic authentication on Android but works in iOS?

Exactly the same code, along the lines of:

var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.open(method, url, true, user, pass);
req.send(data);
req.onreadystatechange = function() { ... }

Returns 401 in from Android Pebble app, but authenticates correctly in iOS.

Wane

Downvoters unite :) or at least 'splain yourselves. Is it "what havr you tried" ? Or "show your effort/code"? I will gladly listen. – Wane

@JakeGould unfortunately it doesn't apply to me. JS part of Pebble app work correctly on iOS already. And always fails in Android Pebble JS framework - even with correct credentials – Wane

@JakeGould this code runs not inside of WebView I don't think it applies either. – Wane

Answer 1

I found a workaround that worked for me on Android.

Don’t know why but direct authenticated request:

    req.open(method, fullurl, true, user, pass);
    req.send(data);

didn’t work for me – it always returned 401. So Instead I tried to set basic authentication via header:

    req.open(method, fullurl, true);
    req.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + Base64.encode(user + ":" + pass)); 
    req.send(data);

(where Base64 is taken from here: https://mcmap.net/q/42154/-how-can-you-encode-a-string-to-base64-in-javascript) – and it worked! Perhaps there’s a bug in XmlHttpRequest implementation on android.

Wane

Why not try btoa? is javascript pure.. ¬.¬ a try req.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa(user + ":" + pass)); – Vicennial

btoa is ASCII only – Froebel

Answer 2

If the request is authenticated via cookie/headers, we can set headers and make that request withCredentials value as false.

withCredentials attribute must to false in IOS otherwise, you may be getting 401 responses from the server.

Note:- In Android and web platforms works without 'withCredentials' property also

 req.open(method, fullurl, true);
 req.setRequestHeader("Cookie", "CookieInfo")); 
 req.send(data);    
 request.withCredentials = false;

Dysentery