Method:API Q&A

Re: Problems with Web Service API Call

DaveS — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:48:28 GMT

Hi David

Thank you for both of your replies on my Forum posting about problems with Web Service APIs calls. Very helpful. I have passed them on to my IT staff and we'll follow your instructions and suggestions and try to get the problems resolved. I'll let you know if I have other findings or questions.

Dave Sakamoto

Re: Problems with Web Service API Call

Method_David — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:41:43 GMT

HI DaveS

Following up a little more on this, we should also point out that we have no other users reporting this. We also use the API on a regular basis for many of our applications and internal functions and have never encountered this problem, nor have we had to resort to implementing Microsoft’s certificate policy code above. So, while the above solution may work for you, the source of the problem may have been just a corrupt cache on your browser (out of our control), corrupt cache of certificates at your ISP or firewall level (out of our control), or a corrupt web reference by your app in visual studio (worth removing the reference entirely, and re-adding it from scratch with a new name).

Dave

Re: Problems with Web Service API Call

Method_David — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:39:43 GMT

Hi DaveS,

"1 Method API documentation suggests using HTTPS, is that still true?"

Yes

"2. Is there a limit to the # of API calls such as 1000 per day/ week/ month?"

No there is not....as long as your login credentials are valid use away

"3. Why are the Method API calls not working and what can we do to get them to work reliably."

This one is a little trickier....what it comes down to is there may be a problem with your application trusting our ssl certificate. When you browse the web and you get this issue you, you get a prompt asking you something like "Do you want to accept/trust the cert, etc.". You don't get this prompt in a webservice call.

For this specific issue, what you need to do is create your own Certificate policy class that implements the ICertificatePolicy interface.

I'll post the examples from the following article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823177 You can also find out more by doing a google search for "The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship with remote server"

Imports System.Net
Imports System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates
Public Class MyPolicy
Implements ICertificatePolicy

Public Function CheckValidationResult(ByVal srvPoint As ServicePoint, _
                ByVal cert As X509Certificate, ByVal request As WebRequest, _
                ByVal certificateProblem As Integer) _
            As Boolean Implements ICertificatePolicy.CheckValidationResult
    'Return True to force the certificate to be accepted.
    Return True
End Function
End Class

using System.Net;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

public class MyPolicy : ICertificatePolicy {
    public bool CheckValidationResult(
          ServicePoint srvPoint
        , X509Certificate certificate
        , WebRequest request
        , int certificateProblem) {

//Return True to force the certificate to be accepted.
return true;

} // end CheckValidationResult
} // class MyPolicy

Before the webservice call is invoked you need to execute the following

System.Net.ServicePointManager.CertificatePolicy = New MyPolicy()

System.Net.ServicePointManager.CertificatePolicy = new MyPolicy();

Dave

Problems with Web Service API Call

DaveS — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:53:56 GMT

Our Method Integration API calls are not always working. It sometimes works for about 24 hours, then stops working. It returns the following error message.

"The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship with remote server.The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship with remote server.0Therre was an error with the methods API call."

We have used both HTTP and HTTPS, and one of the other sometimes work.
We are using Visual Studios 2005, ASP.Net

These are the urls we use to get to the Web Services directory:
https://www.methodintegration.com/MethodAPI/service.asmx
http://www.methodintegration.com/MethodAPI/service.asmx

The code that we use for the API calls are shown below.

Questions:
1    Method API documentation suggests using HTTPS, is that still true?
2.   Is there a limit to the # of API calls such as 1000 per day/ week/ month?
3.   Why are the Method API calls not working and what can we do to get them to work reliably.

    Dave
----------------------------------------

Dim wbsMethodAPI As New com.methodintegration.www.Service 'MethodAPI.Service
Dim sResult As String 'tells us Success or error
Dim datResponse As Data.DataSet = Nothing
Dim sCompanyAccount As String
Dim sUserName As String
Dim sPassword As String
sCompanyAccount = Session("mlogon")
sUserName = Session("muname")
sPassword = Session("mpw")
Dim sSelectFields As String
Dim sSelectFrom As String
Dim sSelectWhere As String
Dim sSelectGroupBy As String
Dim sSelectHaving As String
Dim sSelectOrderBy As String

sSelectFields = "account,accounttxn,txntype,accountnumber,txnrecordid,ispostedtoaccounting,amount,txndate,txndetailrecordid"
sSelectFrom = "transaction"

sSelectWhere = "account='" & saccount & "' and ispostedtoaccounting =1 and txndate >= '" & Session("Fstartdate") & " 12:00:00 AM' and txndate <= '" & Session("Ftodate") & " 11:59:59 PM'"
'txndate >= '" & mydate & " 12:00:00 AM' and txndate <= '" & mydate2 & " 11:59:59 PM'"

sSelectGroupBy = ""
sSelectHaving = ""
sSelectOrderBy = ""
'Call the MethodAPI to get the dataset
sResult = wbsMethodAPI.MethodAPISelect_DataSet(sCompanyAccount, sUserName, sPassword, _
datResponse, sSelectFrom, sSelectFields, sSelectWhere, sSelectGroupBy, sSelectHaving, sSelectOrderBy)
wbsMethodAPI = Nothing
If sResult.Trim.ToUpper.StartsWith("Success".ToUpper) = False Then
'failed, give a message
Response.Write(sResult)
merror = 1
Exit Sub
End If