I'm using WebBrowser control to navigate through a login page and download a file. Since I can't find a way to manage the download automatically with the control I'm using the WebClient class to try and achieve this.
Problem is that since the WebClient isn't in the same context/session as the browser all i'm downloading is the Security Error screen.
Any ideas on how I can pass the context of the WebBrowser session to the WebClient?
After one week googling a trying for a solution I found one that is so simple!
I you what to silently download a file in an HTTPS URL and a webbrowser control just do this.
1) Log in using the webbrowser 2) use this code to download.
//build de URL
string _url = "https://........."
//define a download file name and location
string _filename = @"C:\Users\John\Documents\somefile.pdf";
//create a webcliente
WebClient cliente = new WebClient();
//do some magic here (pass the webbrowser cokies to the webclient)
cliente.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.Cookie, webBrowser1.Document.Cookie);
//and just download the file
cliente.DownloadFile(_urlpdf, _filename);
It solved my problem
It should be simply a matter of emulating the cookies and headers in the WebBrowser session and re-using them to impersonate the session in WebClient, but it looks like you're already hot on that path.
Here's how I'd proceed.
Get cookies and headers from WebBrowser.
Cookies: You can get the cookies from your WebBrowser session by handling the DocumentCompleted event of the WebBrowser control and parsing the cookie set from DocumentCompleted event.
Headers: Use a proxy like Fiddler [www.fiddler2.com/] to read the headers so you'll know what's required by the server.
Utilize identity collected above for WebClient.
Headers: Iterate through all your collected headers and be sure they are added to the webclient using myWebClient.Headers.Add("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); for example
Cookies: See this post.
