Client error: No mode specified

[allah_sulu]

A few days ago, I started to get the "Client error: No mode specified" when I tried to post to LJ using my client. Sometimes it would work, and sometimes it wouldn't. (If it failed, I just tried again and it usually worked on the second attempt.) Now I'm getting it every time I try to post. Is there a problem with the LJ flat interface? I recall

Comments

[pauamma]

I just checked the repo and the code that fixed http://community.livejournal.com/lj_dev/827531.html looks unchanged. Can you provide more information? Sanitized protocol trace, telnet session transcript, or whatever? (But it's not just you - see http://community.livejournal.com/lj_releases/60169.html?thread=3627273#t3627273)

[allah_sulu]

Any progress?

[pauamma]

Only info I have is dnewhall's comment at http://community.livejournal.com/lj_dev/834863.html?thread=9057327#t9057327 and the information in the support requests linked from the entry. I asked dnewhell whether the changes may have caused your problem as well. You may want to subscribe to that thread or to comments on the entry.

[allah_sulu]

Just looked back at my code and saw what might help answer the question.

For some reason, I had trouble getting Delphi to implement the challenge-response protocol, so my client is still using &password= with MD5 hashing of the password. Could that be related to the problem?

[homo_nudus]

I'm the developer of LiveJournal Addons. The extension uses the flat protocol for many purposes (friend history tracking, journal export, batch posts edition etc). Lately all these functions have been broken.

I test flat protocol with these awesome extensions: Poster for posting and Live HTTP Headers for HTTP monitoring.

In the Poster I set the additional header "X-LJ-Auth" as "cookie" and post to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/flat such a bodies:

mode=getdaycounts&user=homo_nudus&auth_method=cookie&ver=1

mode=getevents&user=homo_nudus&auth_method=cookie&ver=1&selecttype=day&year=2010&month=08&day=10

mode=getfriends&user=homo_nudus&auth_method=cookie&ver=1&includefriendof=1

All of them occasionally return this answer:

errmsg
Client error: No mode specified.
success
FAIL

Here the Live HTTP Headers reports for some failed requests:

http://www.livejournal.com/interface/flat... )

[homo_nudus]

This function is also broken:

mode=getusertags&auth_method=cookie&ver=1&user=homo_nudus

[gregstoll]

That problem is that the authentication now returns a HTTP 200 error code instead of the 401 that it used to do. Now my client looks for that string and does the authentication even if a 200 is returned.

[homo_nudus]

I have found a solution: if the "Content-Type" header is "application/x-www-form-urlencoded", all the functions work properly. Previously the "text/plain" header did the right thing, now only "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" one does. May be this new restriction is a sad hindrance for some web services, standalone clients and browser extensions.

[allah_sulu]

Doesn't seem to make a difference for me.

[homo_nudus]

What client do you use? Is it possible to change the http headers in it?

[allah_sulu]

I use a client of my own creation, written in Borland Delphi. I added "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" to the headers, and still got the error.

[donmarmur]

Still seeing the "no mode specified" error on flat requests. Is there any solution for this?