Composer HTTP 400 Bad request when downloading Laravel

Question

I am getting an issue of 400 bad request connecting over http, and it seems the package only wants to be installed via http. I tried an override in composer.json as tried by others as workaround to force https - but that doesn't seem to work. I'm not behind a firewall. Mac OS 10.10.3

Issue :

composer diagnose
Checking composer.json: FAIL
the property name is required
the property description is required
No license specified, it is recommended to do so. For closed-source software you may use "proprietary" as license.
Checking platform settings: OK
Checking git settings: OK
Checking http connectivity to packagist: FAIL
[Composer\Downloader\TransportException] The "http://packagist.org/packages.json" file could not be downloaded (HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request)
Checking https connectivity to packagist: OK
Checking github.com rate limit: OK
Checking disk free space: OK
Checking composer version: OK

[Composer\Downloader\TransportException]    

The "http://packagist.org/p/provider-2013$c2596c5d04e7701561420666ba120ede9429a69c75b732a5a01b18ebb3d64e53.json" file could not be downloaded (HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request)    

Composer.json

{
"repositories": [
     { "packagist": false }
,

    {
         "type": "composer", 
         "url": "https://packagist.org"
    }
]
}

Composer version 1.0-dev (92faf1c7a83a73794fb914a990be435e1df373ca) 2015-07-14 12:37:15

Answer 1

For me quitting Forticlient (antivirus/web security app) removed the 400 bad request error and allowed me to download laravel via composer.

Maybe you have antivirus software or similar that is interfering.

I'm on Mac OS X 10.11