php soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. ---> Sequence contains no elements

Question

I need to send an XML as soap request using CURL. I have created xml using

 $xml = "<?xml .............." blah blah

That looks like

  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?><soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema' xmlns:soap='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'><soap:Body><extLoginData xmlns='http://www.JOI.com/schemas/ViaSub.WMS/'><ThreePLKey>4dfdf34</ThreePLKey><Login>abv</Login><Password>abc</Password><FacilityID>1ee</FacilityID><CustomerID>xfs</CustomerID></extLoginData><orders xmlns='http://www.JOI.com/schemas/ViaSub.WMS/'><Order><TransInfo><ReferenceNum>Test</ReferenceNum><PONum>12345</PONum></TransInfo><ShipTo><Name></Name><CompanyName>Peter's Test</CompanyName><Address><Address1>7301 Lennox Ave Unit E3</Address1><Address2></Address2><City>Los Angeles</City><State>CA</State><Zip>90010</Zip><Country>US</Country></Address><PhoneNumber1>858-449-8022</PhoneNumber1><EmailAddress1>lshaules@mercatismedia.com</EmailAddress1><CustomerName>Elizabeth Shaules</CustomerName></ShipTo><ShippingInstructions><Carrier>USPS</Carrier><Mode>First Class Mail</Mode><BillingCode>Prepaid</BillingCode></ShippingInstructions><OrderLineItems><OrderLineItem><SKU>947</SKU><Qualifier>XXX</Qualifier><Qty>1</Qty></OrderLineItem></OrderLineItems></Order></orders></soap:Body></soap:Envelope>

And I am using following code to send CURL request

    $url = 'http://someurl.com/Contracts.asmx';
    $curl = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 120);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, 'gzip');

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
        'SOAPAction:"http://www.example.com/ViaSub.WMS/CreateOrders"',
        'Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8',
    ));

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $orderXml);

    $result = curl_exec($curl);

But I am getting

soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. ---> Sequence contains no elements

I have searched but haven't found any thing related to it. Can you please let me know what I am doing wrong and how I do it?

Check out this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7120586/soap-request-in-php-with-curl, maybe compare the headers? Also what happens if you call the SOAPAction URL directly in the browser? Or maybe some extra authentication is needed? — sanderbee, Aug 28 '15 at 11:05
@AwaisQarni Did you ever figure this out? I'm running into exactly the same thing (probably on the exact same web service, based on your URLs). — David Jones, Jun 16 '16 at 03:24
Why not using [SoapServer](http://php.net/manual/en/class.soapserver.php) ? — matiaslauriti, Jun 19 '16 at 01:17
@DavidJones You should check the namespace, as getting namespace incorrect will trigger this kind of message. I this case, www.JOI.com appears dead so the namespace can't be verified. https://secure-wms.com/webserviceexternal/contracts.asmx — Robbie, Jun 21 '16 at 08:20

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 21 '16 at 16:46

This looks like a schema validation error. You don't provide a link to the definition, but a quick search showed me this documentation page. If this is the one you need take a look at the WSDL: https://secure-wms.com/webserviceexternal/contracts.asmx?WSDL

Look for instance the element PalletCount within Order. You see it has minOccurs="1", meaning it's mandatory. But in the xml string you copy there's no such element. That's indeed a sequence with missing elements. (There may be some other schema inconsistencies, have a close look).

Also, consider using the SoapClient PHP class

$WSDL = 'https://secure-wms.com/webserviceexternal/contracts.asmx?WSDL';

$options = [
    'trace' => true,
    'cache' => WSDL_CACHE_NONE,
    'exceptions' => true
];

$client = new SoapClient($WSDL, $options);

$payload = [
    'extLoginData' => [
        'ThreePLKey' => '4dfdf34',
        'Login' => 'abv',
        'Password' => 'abc',
        'FacilityID' => '1ee',
        'CustomerID' => 'xfs'
    ],
    'orders' => [
        'Order' => [
           // etc...
        ]
    ]
]);

$response = $client->CreateOrders($payload);

This way the client handles the schema validation, headers setting (you can set additional headers, though), the namespacing, and the array to xml conversion.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '16 at 19:14

Use this

$xml = "<?xml ..............</soap:Envelope>";

$headers = array(
            "Content-type: text/xml;charset=\"utf-8\"",
            "Accept: text/xml",
            "Cache-Control: no-cache",
            "Pragma: no-cache",
            "SOAPAction: http://www.example.com/ViaSub.WMS/CreateOrders", 
            "Content-length: ".strlen($xml),
        ); //SOAPAction: your op URL

$url = 'http://someurl.com/Contracts.asmx';

// PHP cURL  for https connection with auth
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_ANY);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $xml); // the SOAP request
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);

// converting
$response = curl_exec($ch); 
curl_close($ch);

var_dump($response);

php soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. ---> Sequence contains no elements

2 Answers2