Android Froyo: Connection to https using trusting all socket factory results in target server failed to respond

Question

This time I am really trapped. I am developing Android app for Froyo (2.2.0). I need to connect to certain web services available through https. As for now trusting all certificates is the thing I want to do (I will fix that in the following days but now release is upon me). I have copy-pasted the code from this immensely helpful post. That's perfect I construct my client like that:

public class RestClient {
    private static final String LOG_TAG = "RestClient";

    private HttpClient httpClient;
    private Context context;

    public RestClient(Context context) {
        this.httpClient = CustomSSLSocketFactory.getCustomHttpClient();
        this.context = context;
    }

    public String post(String path, String requestBody,
        String optFieldOfInterest) {
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(getAddress() + path);
        httpPost.setEntity(prepareStringEntity(requestBody));
        Log.d(LOG_TAG, "Executing request:\n" + requestBody);
        return executeRequest(httpPost, optFieldOfInterest);
    }

    private StringEntity prepareStringEntity(String requestBody) {
        StringEntity entity = null;
        try {
            entity = new StringEntity(requestBody, "UTF-8");
            entity.setContentType("application/json");
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error while preparing request", e);
        }
        return entity;
    }

    private String executeRequest(HttpRequestBase request)
          throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        HttpResponse httpResponse = null;
        String responseString = null;
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request); // Exception line
        if (httpResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode() == HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
            String responseBody =
                IOHelper.parseStream(httpResponse.getEntity().getContent());
            Log.d(LOG_TAG, "Response body:\n" + responseBody);
            responseString = responseBody;
        } else {
            Log.w(LOG_TAG, "I am not passing through here my log shows it");
        }
        return responseString;
    }
}

However I run on the following error:

org.apache.http.NoHttpResponseException: The target server failed to respond
    at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultResponseParser.parseHead(DefaultResponseParser.java:85)
    at org.apache.http.impl.io.AbstractMessageParser.parse(AbstractMessageParser.java:174)
    at org.apache.http.impl.AbstractHttpClientConnection.receiveResponseHeader(AbstractHttpClientConnection.java:179)
    at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnection.receiveResponseHeader(DefaultClientConnection.java:235)
    at org.apache.http.impl.conn.AbstractClientConnAdapter.receiveResponseHeader(AbstractClientConnAdapter.java:259)
    at org.apache.http.protocol.HttpRequestExecutor.doReceiveResponse(HttpRequestExecutor.java:279)
    at org.apache.http.protocol.HttpRequestExecutor.execute(HttpRequestExecutor.java:121)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:421)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:555)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:487)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:465)
    at com.mycompany.myproject.ws.client.MySSLHttpClient.executeRequest(MySSLHttpClient.java:70)
    at com.mycompany.myproject.ws.client.MySSLHttpClient.post(MySSLHttpClient.java:120)
    at com.mycompany.myproject.ws.asynctasks.RegisterDeviceAsyncTask.doInBackground(RegisterDeviceAsyncTask.java:57)
    at com.mycompany.myproject.ws.asynctasks.RegisterDeviceAsyncTask.doInBackground(RegisterDeviceAsyncTask.java:1)
    at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:185)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:306)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)

I have seen that other people also stumbled upon similar problems. For example this post is listing two solutions, but neither worked for me. This thread also proposes one new solution, also not working for me. Most of the listed fixes didn't even change the exception I was getting.

As you can see I have tried many things. Hopefully somebody else run into such an issue and found yet another solution for it.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 06 '12 at 08:59

And now the issue was resolved.

The problem was not with the java / Android code but with the server configuration. The case was the following: I was trying to access the development environment server. However, it turned out our infrastructure engineer configured it with exactly the same certificate as the production server. This meant that the hostname in the certificate was erronous (matching the production environment).

Weird enough these web services were accessible through Firefox and Chrome, even with the wrong certificate, which caused all the confusion.

Hopefully describing my case here will help others in the future sort out the same problem.

Android Froyo: Connection to https using trusting all socket factory results in target server failed to respond

1 Answers1