java.io.IOException: Received authentication challenge is null in ICS 4.0.3

Question

I'm trying to logoff from the server. But it returns "0" response code with this exception. I'm using GET verb to do this.

LogCat

10-17 14:54:13.261: W/System.err(868): java.io.IOException: Received authentication challenge is null
10-17 14:54:13.284: W/System.err(868):  at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.processAuthHeader(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:397)
10-17 14:54:13.284: W/System.err(868):  at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.processResponseHeaders(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:345)
10-17 14:54:13.304: W/System.err(868):  at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponse(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:276)
10-17 14:54:13.324: W/System.err(868):  at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponseCode(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:479)
10-17 14:54:13.324: W/System.err(868):  at com.remote.synchronizer.haris.CustomHttpClient.executeGet(CustomHttpClient.java:131)
10-17 14:54:13.354: W/System.err(868):  at com.remote.synchronizer.haris.OptionsActivity$1$3$1.run(OptionsActivity.java:87)
10-17 14:54:13.364: W/System.err(868):  at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:605)
10-17 14:54:13.384: W/System.err(868):  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
10-17 14:54:13.384: W/System.err(868):  at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
10-17 14:54:13.404: W/System.err(868):  at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4424)
10-17 14:54:13.424: W/System.err(868):  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
10-17 14:54:13.424: W/System.err(868):  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
10-17 14:54:13.454: W/System.err(868):  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:784)
10-17 14:54:13.474: W/System.err(868):  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:551)
10-17 14:54:13.474: W/System.err(868):  at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
10-17 14:54:13.484: E/HTTP Response(868): java.io.IOException: Received authentication challenge is null

CustomHttpClient.java

public class CustomHttpClient {

    static HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
    static HttpURLConnection connection = null; 

    public static int executePost(String url, String postParameters)
    {
        int response=0;

        OutputStream output = null;
        try
        {
            connection = (HttpURLConnection)new URL(url).openConnection();
            System.setProperty("http.keepAlive", "false");
            connection.setDoOutput(true);
            connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
            connection.setRequestProperty("Accept-Charset", "UTF-8");
            connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8");

            connection.connect();

            output = connection.getOutputStream();
            output.write(postParameters.getBytes("UTF-8"));

            response=connection.getResponseCode();
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            Log.e("HTTP Response", e.toString());
        }
        finally {
            if(connection != null) {
                //  connection.disconnect(); 
                if (output != null) 
                    try { output.close(); } 
                catch (IOException logOrIgnore) {}
            }
        }

        return response;
    }

    public static int executeGet(String url)
    {
        int response=0;

        //HttpURLConnection connection = null;
        try
        {
            connection = (HttpURLConnection) new URL(url).openConnection();
            System.setProperty("http.keepAlive", "false");
            //connection.setRequestProperty("Accept-Charset", "UTF-8");
            connection.setDoInput(true);
            connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
            connection.connect();
            response=connection.getResponseCode();
        } 
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            Log.e("HTTP Response", e.toString());
        }
        finally {
            if(connection != null) {
                //  connection.disconnect();
            }
        }
        return response;
    }

}

Before this I'm using DefaultHTTPClient in Gingerbird 2.3 its working perfectly but in ICS DefaultHTTPClient is not working so I need to use HttpURLConnection. POST verb is working fine.

Answer 1

You can get the response code after an exception if you call .getResponseCode() a second time on the connection object. This is because the first time you call .getResponseCode() an internal state is set that enables .getResponseCode() to return without throwing an exception.

Example:

HttpURLConnection connection = ...;
try {
    // Will throw IOException if server responds with 401.
    connection.getResponseCode(); 
} catch (IOException e) {
    // Will return 401, because now connection has the correct internal state.
    int responsecode = connection.getResponseCode(); 
}

I have also answered this question here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15972969/816017

Answer 2

HttpURLConnection.getResponseCode() throws java.io.IOException: Received authentication challenge is null when it encounters malformed HTTP 401 header. Do you receive WWW-Authenticate and Content-Length headers from server in addition to HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized header? See IOException: "Received authentication challenge is null" (Apache Harmony/Android)

If you can't make changes to server, then you can catch that exception (thanks https://stackoverflow.com/a/10904318/262462)

try {
    response=connection.getResponseCode();
}
catch (java.io.IOException e) {
    if (e.getMessage().contains("authentication challenge")) {
        response = HttpsURLConnection.HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED;
    } else { throw e; }
}