Meetup API call response: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

[andy...@gmail.com]

A meetup api call worked fine for a year on my hosted server (smarterasp.net), but last week stopped working and started giving this error.

They say it appears that the meetup api is rejecting the message.

However, when I run from my local web server (identical web site), the meetup api command works fine.

Can you tell me why the call from one machine might come back as 403-Forbiddent, but the identical call from my server comes back ok?

Do you have a black-list of servers that you might be blocking?

Thanks!

[Doug Tangren]

Can you give me a sample comes back in the body of the response? 

 

Thanks!

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[andy...@gmail.com]

Hi Doug,

 

Thanks for the prompt response.

 

When I run this from the web app on my smarterasp.net web server, I get an error. When I run from my local web server, the request runs ok.

This has been working on smarterasp.net for more than a year, but a couple days ago, it stopped working. Nothing has changed in the code on the web site on the server. 

HTTP REQUEST: api.meetup.com/2/events?offset=0&format=json&limited_events=False&group_id=2996152&time=-6w%2C&page=20&fields=rsvp_rules&order=time&status=upcoming%2Ccancelled&desc=false&sig_id=81389352&sig=3cdd7cfeadfa0c3be367024ae4078f1000e8ba37

CURRENT HTTP RESPONSE TO THE SMARTER ASP.NET SERVER: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden. 

CURRENT HTTP RESPONSE to my development web server
HTTP/1.1 200 success
{"results": [{"utc_offset": -14400000,"venue": {"zip": "20005","country": "us","city": "Washington","address_1": "16th & I Street, NW","name": "-","lon": -77.03643,"id": 5891672,"state": "DC","lat": 38.909519,"repinned": false},"rsvp_limit": 39,"headcount": 0,"rsvp_rules": {"refund_policy": {"policies": ["member_cancellation","event_cancellation","event_rescheduled"],"days": 1,"notes": "Refund (minus $5 cancellation fee) if before 2 pm, the day before hike, you BOTH:
1.) Change RSVP to "No" -AND-
2.) Email request to xxxxxxxCAPITALHIKINGCLUB.ORG. List DATE YOU PAID and your FULL NAME."},"open_time": 1431216000000,"closed": 0,"guest_limit": 2,"waitlisting": "off"}, ...(etc.)

 

 

----------------------

 

Here's the code of how the web api is called. It is done through port 80.

 

 

Dim meetupApiKeyValue As String = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("MeetupApiKey")

 

Dim response As System.Net.HttpWebResponse = Nothing

 

Dim formattedUri As String = String.Format(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, _
"http://api.meetup.com/2/events?key={0}&group_id=2996152&status=upcoming,cancelled&time=-6w,&order=time&limited_events=False&desc=false&offset=0&format=json&page=20&fields=rsvp_rules", meetupApiKeyValue)

 

Dim webRequest As System.Net.WebRequest = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(formattedUri)

 

Dim myProxy As System.Net.WebProxy = New System.Net.WebProxy("myproxy", 80)
myProxy.BypassProxyOnLocal = True

webRequest.Proxy = myProxy

 

Try
  Dim request As System.Net.HttpWebRequest = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(formattedUri)
  response = request.GetResponse()
Catch ex As Exception
 output.AppendLine("No events were retrieved for display. Reason: " + ex.Message)   <==== WE ARE SEEING THIS ERROR OUT, AND THIS MESSAGE DISPLAYED ON THE WEB SITE
End Try

 

-------------------------------------

 

If you go to the site: http://capitalhikingclub.org, you'll see the "Reason: ..." displayed in the right side under "events and hikes".

 

 

-----------------------------------------------

[Doug Tangren]

I just see"Reason: The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden" is there a response body that comes back with the 403 and if so what does it contain?

[andy...@gmail.com]

I don't have physical access to the server, so I can't run a protocol monitor on it.  However, the code is:

Try
   Dim request As System.Net.HttpWebRequest = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(formattedUri)
     response = request.GetResponse()
   Catch ex As Exception
     output.AppendLine("No events were retrieved for display. Reason: " + ex.Message) <==== WE ARE SEEING THIS ERROR OUT, AND THIS MESSAGE DISPLAYED ON THE WEB SITE
End Try

 

And the exception is getting thrown, so there is no response that is valid from the request.GetResponse() call.  So I would have to say "no".

 

 

-------------

 

In looking up 403 error I found postings like this:

6. Contact your ISP if your still getting the 403 error, especially if you're pretty sure that the website in question is working for others right now.

It's possible that your public IP address, or your entire Internet Service Provider, has been blacklisted, a situation that could produce a 403 Forbidden error, usually on all pages on one or more sites.

Tip: See my How To Talk To Tech Support for some help on communicating this issue to your ISP.

 

Could the meetup api server have either my site or my hosting service blacklisted?

[andy...@gmail.com]

The IP address of the site is: 205.144.171.117.  Since it appears the meetup.com api server is sending the 403, would you have access to the meetup.com api server's log files to see if it contains any details of why it appears to be rejecting the request?

[andy...@gmail.com]

Hi Doug,

Any thought of what you'd suggest we can do next to get this resolved?

Thanks!

[andy...@gmail.com]

Hi Doug,

 

Our event registration system that we use through the meetup api on our production site is down because of this.  Any idea when you'll be able to look at the issue?

 

Thanks!

 

Andy

[Doug Tangren]

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 9:39 AM, <andy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Doug,

 

Our event registration system that we use through the meetup api on our production site is down because of this.  Any idea when you'll be able to look at the issue?

Sorry for the delay. I'll check in with our systems team today.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Andy

On Wednesday, May 13, 2015 at 7:36:38 PM UTC-4, andy...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Doug,

Any thought of what you'd suggest we can do next to get this resolved?

Thanks!

On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 8:18:56 AM UTC-4, andy...@gmail.com wrote:

The IP address of the site is: 205.144.171.117.  Since it appears the meetup.com api server is sending the 403, would you have access to the meetup.com api server's log files to see if it contains any details of why it appears to be rejecting the request?

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 11:38:44 PM UTC-4, andy...@gmail.com wrote:

A meetup api call worked fine for a year on my hosted server (smarterasp.net), but last week stopped working and started giving this error.

They say it appears that the meetup api is rejecting the message.

However, when I run from my local web server (identical web site), the meetup api command works fine.

Can you tell me why the call from one machine might come back as 403-Forbiddent, but the identical call from my server comes back ok?

Do you have a black-list of servers that you might be blocking?

Thanks!

--

[Doug Tangren]

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Doug Tangren <do...@meetup.com> wrote:

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 9:39 AM, <andy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Doug,

 

Our event registration system that we use through the meetup api on our production site is down because of this.  Any idea when you'll be able to look at the issue?

Sorry for the delay. I'll check in with our systems team today.

I talked to our systems team and they confirmed we not blocking these requests, at our http proxy layer ( cloudflare ) for this ip address. 

You'd mentioned your developer server is working but production server is not. Is it possible you're credentials changed. If you contact me personally at do...@meetup.com I change lookup your credentials by client id and see if they are still valid and look deeper in to the issue. Also we typically add response bodies to error requests pointing to a potential source of a problem with request. It would be helpful to maybe get a sample of one or more of those for debugging purposes.

[andy...@gmail.com]

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the response.

I gave you the IP address of my site.  It appears I gave you the wrong IP:  I should have given you the IP of the server used for API communication.  My web site host provider says this is: "Our server outgoing ip is 205.144.171.12 which is different from your site static ip."  Can you check if this IP is being blocked?

I'm having trouble getting my web site hoster to get me the response body for he 403 for the request to meetup.com api.

The web site hoster has checked access to the meetup API from a different server in their network, and it does work.  So the strongest theory right now is that the meetup api server is blocking this IP.   Here's the signed url that we've used for the test: https://api.meetup.com/2/events?offset=0&format=json&limited_events=False&group_id=2996152&time=-6w%2C&page=20&fields=rsvp_rules&order=time&status=upcoming%2Ccancelled&desc=false&sig_id=12014433&sig=bdc99ee02297847a024519a293d08ba65296fadb    Does this give you what you need to test?

Thanks

Andy

[andy...@gmail.com]

The hosting provider just moved my site to another server (with a different IP address, I believe, to communicate to the meetup api), and it seems to work fine now.

 

He said his servers are identical...just a different IP address.  So whatever was causing the meetup.asp to return a 403 don't seem to be a problem from this other server.

 

So I guess I'm ok just closing this...and if it comes up again, then we'll have to dig again into why the meetup.com seems to be returning hte 403.

 

Regards,

 

Andy

[andy...@gmail.com]

Hi Doug,

I tried guessing your email from the fragment you put in the post, but my guesses all come back as failed-to-send-email.

So here's the content of the email.

Hi Doug,

You suggested sending and email directly.

Here's the URL I'm using (that works ok from the development server, but gets 403 from production server):   https://api.meetup.com/2/events?offset=0&format=json&limited_events=False&group_id=2996152&time=-6w%2C&page=20&fields=rsvp_rules&order=time&status=upcoming%2Ccancelled&desc=false&sig_id=12014433&sig=bdc99ee02297847a024519a293d08ba65296fadb

I also have the variant of this call with the key embedded (instead of signature hash), and get the same result.

As I mentioned in the post, Since I don't have access to the hosted server, I'm having difficulty getting my hosting company to put a communications monitor/firewall log/etc. to fetch the 403 whole response body.  I've tried many times, and failed for them to respond to getting me this, so I'm not sure when/if I can get this from them.

The test url for the problem is at: http://capitalhikingclub.org/default.aspx.  From here, it will display all details of the 403 error that I can access via ASP.NET code.  If the call is successful, it will display "SUCCESS".

I didn't really understand what you desired from "Is it possible you're credentials changed. If you contact me personally at do...@meetup.com I change lookup your credentials by client id and see if they are still valid and look deeper in to the issue.", but let me know what information you want, and I'll get it for you right away.

As I mentioned, our production site is down because of this, so I really need to find a solution soon...

Thanks for your help.

Andy

[Doug Tangren]

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 1:29 PM, <andy...@gmail.com> wrote:

The hosting provider just moved my site to another server (with a different IP address, I believe, to communicate to the meetup api), and it seems to work fine now.

 

He said his servers are identical...just a different IP address.  So whatever was causing the meetup.asp to return a 403 don't seem to be a problem from this other server.

 

So I guess I'm ok just closing this...and if it comes up again, then we'll have to dig again into why the meetup.com seems to be returning hte 403.

Okay. Please let us know if this problem persists.