Question

Unsupported Browser when trying to screen scrape C#

Asked by: copyPasteGhost

Hello experts!

I'm trying to scrape this page:
string orginalPull = ScreenScrape("http://www.postescanada.ca//cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber?trackingNumber=7146410000045107&trackingType=on&LOCALE=en");

Here is my method:

private static string ScreenScrape(string url) {
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(url);
StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
string strLine;
while ((strLine = stream.ReadLine()) != null) {
if (strLine.Length > 0)
sb.Append(strLine);
}
stream.Close();
return sb.ToString();
}

When I try to scrape the page I'm getting an error from the web page I'm trying to scrape:

Unsupported Browser
It appears that you are viewing this page with an unsupported web browser. This website works best with one of the following supported browsers:

Any idea how I can get around this?

Ghost

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Asked On: 2009-04-27 at 10:06:44ID24358946
Topics: Microsoft Visual C#.Net
,; Programming for ASP.NET
Participating Experts: 2
Points: 500
Comments: 19

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Answers

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 10:46:05ID: 24243957

webRequestObject.Headers.Add ("user-agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)");

by: tillgeffkenPosted on 2009-04-27 at 10:52:34ID: 24244007

Use HttpWebRequest and set the UserAgent property to something your target site likes.

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 10:54:10ID: 24244016

when doing this:

WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(url);
req.Headers.Add ("user-agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)");
StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

I get this error:

System.ArgumentException was unhandled by user code
Message="This header must be modified using the appropriate property.\r\nParameter name: name"
Source="System"
ParamName="name"
StackTrace:
at System.Net.WebHeaderCollection.ThrowOnRestrictedHeader(String headerName)
at System.Net.WebHeaderCollection.Add(String name, String value)
at WiHCP.ScreenScrape(String url) in d:\Inetpub\wwwroot\WiBot\WiHCP.aspx.cs:line 65
at WiHCP.btnScrap_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) in d:\Inetpub\wwwroot\WiBot\WiHCP.aspx.cs:line 30
at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)
at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)
at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument)
at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)
InnerException:

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 10:58:53ID: 24244059

tried this:

HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
req.UserAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)";
//req.Headers.Add ("user-agent", "");
StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
string strLine;
while ((strLine = stream.ReadLine()) != null) {
if (strLine.Length > 0)
sb.Append(strLine);
}
stream.Close();
return sb.ToString();

I didn't get an error...but I didn't get the page either....

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:04:26ID: 24244101

is it a page that redirects? is it a page we can use from here to test?

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:06:06ID: 24244116

you can access the page:

http://www.postescanada.ca//cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber?trackingNumber=7146410000045107&trackingType=on&LOCALE=en

this is the one I want scraped.

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:19:08ID: 24244223

if you notice its redirecting (with a check cookie page ... thats your problem) ...

Have you looked at whats being returned?

Cheers,

Greg

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:21:19ID: 24244247

this is what I get:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd" ><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=/cpotools/mc/content/error/cookieDisabled.jsf" /></html>

So I guess I need to feed it a cookie :)

can I do that with the request object? also how do I know what to put in the cookie that I give to the page?

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:29:42ID: 24244320

yes you can ... there is a cookie collection on the request object ...

you can also tell the request object to follow redirects like this which can be useful.

Cheers,

Greg

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:38:34ID: 24244395

ok cool but the question is still how can I find out what you actually put in the cookie?

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 11:55:40ID: 24244576

the page they redirect to probably sets up a cookie ... which will be in response.cookies ... then you copy it to your next request's request.cookies.

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 12:02:55ID: 24244647

ok cool I'm here:

private string ScreenScrape(string url) {
HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
req.UserAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)";
//req.Headers.Add ("user-agent", "");
req.AllowAutoRedirect = true;
foreach (Cookie oCookie in Response.Cookies) {
req.CookieContainer.Add(oCookie);
}
StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
string strLine;
while ((strLine = stream.ReadLine()) != null) {
if (strLine.Length > 0)
sb.Append(strLine);
}
stream.Close();
return sb.ToString();
}

It's still not working...what did I do wrong?

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 12:31:58ID: 24244911

class Program
{
private static readonly CookieContainer Cookies = new CookieContainer();
private static string ScreenScrape(string url)
{
var req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
req.UserAgent = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)";
req.AllowAutoRedirect = true;
req.CookieContainer = Cookies;
StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());

var sb = new StringBuilder();
string strLine;
while ((strLine = stream.ReadLine()) != null)
{
if (strLine.Length > 0)
sb.Append(strLine);
}
stream.Close();
return sb.ToString();
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
string s =
ScreenScrape(
"http://www.postescanada.ca//cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber?trackingNumber=7146410000045107&trackingType=on&LOCALE=en");
string s2 =
ScreenScrape(
"http://www.postescanada.ca//cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber?trackingNumber=7146410000045107&trackingType=on&LOCALE=en");
}
}

The first call through sets up the cookie properly ... it gets returned the meta-refresh ... the second call works properly (because the cookie is in the Cookies container when it does the call).

Cheers,

Greg

by: tillgeffkenPosted on 2009-04-27 at 12:58:41ID: 24245120

I found this challenging and hacked something together that actually parses the meta refresh tag.

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
 
namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
	class Program
	{
		static void Main(string[] args)
		{
			string urlBase = "http://www.postescanada.ca";
			string urlPath = "/cpotools/apps/track/personal/findByTrackNumber?trackingNumber=7146410000045107&trackingType=on&LOCALE=en";
			string result = SreenScrape(urlBase, urlPath);
			Console.WriteLine(result);
			Console.ReadLine();
		}
 
		public static string SreenScrape(string urlBase, string urlPath)
		{
			CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
			HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(urlBase + urlPath);
			httpWebRequest.CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
			httpWebRequest.UserAgent = "Mozilla/6.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 7.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.9 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)";
			WebResponse webResponse = httpWebRequest.GetResponse();
			string result = new System.IO.StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.Default).ReadToEnd();
			webResponse.Close();
 
			if (result.Contains("META HTTP-EQUIV=\"Refresh\""))
			{
				Regex metaregex = new Regex(@".?<meta http-equiv=""refresh"" content=""0;url=(?<url>[^""'<> ]+)""", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture);
				foreach (Match match in metaregex.Matches(result))
				{
					HttpWebRequest redirectHttpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(urlBase + match.Groups["url"]);
					redirectHttpWebRequest.CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
					webResponse = redirectHttpWebRequest.GetResponse();
					string redirectResponse = new System.IO.StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.Default).ReadToEnd();
					webResponse.Close();
					return redirectResponse;
				}
 
			}
 
			return result;
 
		}
	}
}

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by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-27 at 13:01:56ID: 24245141

cool I'll test and our and get back to you guys tomorrow.

Thanks,
Ghost

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-04-27 at 13:03:25ID: 24245152

both should be working ... I would go with the second code though as it bothers to handle any refresh ... I was just showing the concept for you.

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-28 at 11:37:47ID: 24253727

oops my

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-04-28 at 11:38:27ID: 31575055

Thanks for your help for this matter.

by: copyPasteGhostPosted on 2009-05-25 at 11:11:44ID: 24467879

Hey guys....it turns out this is still not working...

I posted another question...here:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/.NET/Visual_CSharp/Q_24436235.html

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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Unsupported Browser when trying to screen scrape C#

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Microsoft Visual C#.Net

Programming for ASP.NET

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