C# – The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized IN SSRS

Start debugging, as soon as you've arrived at a breakpoint or used Debug > Break All, use Debug > Windows > Modules. You'll see a list of all the assemblies that are loaded into the process. Locate the one you want to get debug info for. Right-click it and select Symbol Load Information. You'll get a dialog that lists all the directories where it looked for the .pdb file for the assembly. Verify that list against the actual .pdb location. Make sure it doesn't find an old one.

In normal projects, the assembly and its .pdb file should always have been copied by the IDE into the same folder as your .exe, i.e. the bin\Debug folder of your project. Make sure you remove one from the GAC if you've been playing with it.

There are several ways to perform HTTP GET and POST requests:

Method A: HttpClient (Preferred)

Available in: .NET Framework 4.5+, .NET Standard 1.1+, .NET Core 1.0+ .

It is currently the preferred approach, and is asynchronous and high performance. Use the built-in version in most cases, but for very old platforms there is a NuGet package.

using System.Net.Http;

Setup

It is recommended to instantiate one HttpClient for your application's lifetime and share it unless you have a specific reason not to.

private static readonly HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

See HttpClientFactory for a dependency injection solution.

• POST

  var values = new Dictionary<string, string>
  {
      { "thing1", "hello" },
      { "thing2", "world" }
  };
  
  var content = new FormUrlEncodedContent(values);
  
  var response = await client.PostAsync("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx", content);
  
  var responseString = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
  

• GET

  var responseString = await client.GetStringAsync("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx");
  

Method B: Third-Party Libraries

RestSharp

• POST

   var client = new RestClient("http://example.com");
   // client.Authenticator = new HttpBasicAuthenticator(username, password);
   var request = new RestRequest("resource/{id}");
   request.AddParameter("thing1", "Hello");
   request.AddParameter("thing2", "world");
   request.AddHeader("header", "value");
   request.AddFile("file", path);
   var response = client.Post(request);
   var content = response.Content; // Raw content as string
   var response2 = client.Post<Person>(request);
   var name = response2.Data.Name;
  

Flurl.Http

It is a newer library sporting a fluent API, testing helpers, uses HttpClient under the hood, and is portable. It is available via NuGet.

    using Flurl.Http;

• POST

  var responseString = await "http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx"
      .PostUrlEncodedAsync(new { thing1 = "hello", thing2 = "world" })
      .ReceiveString();
  

• GET

  var responseString = await "http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx"
      .GetStringAsync();
  

Method C: HttpWebRequest (not recommended for new work)

Available in: .NET Framework 1.1+, .NET Standard 2.0+, .NET Core 1.0+. In .NET Core, it is mostly for compatibility -- it wraps HttpClient, is less performant, and won't get new features.

using System.Net;
using System.Text;  // For class Encoding
using System.IO;    // For StreamReader

• POST

  var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx");
  
  var postData = "thing1=" + Uri.EscapeDataString("hello");
      postData += "&thing2=" + Uri.EscapeDataString("world");
  var data = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(postData);
  
  request.Method = "POST";
  request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
  request.ContentLength = data.Length;
  
  using (var stream = request.GetRequestStream())
  {
      stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
  }
  
  var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
  
  var responseString = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
  

• GET

  var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx");
  
  var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
  
  var responseString = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();
  

Method D: WebClient (Not recommended for new work)

This is a wrapper around HttpWebRequest. Compare with HttpClient.

Available in: .NET Framework 1.1+, NET Standard 2.0+, .NET Core 2.0+

using System.Net;
using System.Collections.Specialized;

• POST

  using (var client = new WebClient())
  {
      var values = new NameValueCollection();
      values["thing1"] = "hello";
      values["thing2"] = "world";
  
      var response = client.UploadValues("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx", values);
  
      var responseString = Encoding.Default.GetString(response);
  }
  

• GET

  using (var client = new WebClient())
  {
      var responseString = client.DownloadString("http://www.example.com/recepticle.aspx");
  }