Ajax calls to TFS 15 Rest Api stopped working after upgrade - tfs

Question

In TFS 2015 Update 3 everything was working without issues. I used to consume all apis using the npm package request without any problems.
Using jquery the following call also would always complete correctly:
//this used to work in 2015 Update 3
var request = {
url: "https://my_server/tfs/DefaultCollection/_apis/projects?api-version=2.0",
type:'GET',
contentType: "application/json",
accepts: "application/json",
dataType: 'json',
data: JSON.stringify(data),
beforeSend: function (xhr) {
xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa("my_username:my_password"));
}
};
$.ajax(request);
After upgrading to TFS 15 RC2 the above mechanism is not working anymore. The server always returns a 401 - Unauthorized error.
Testing the same call via curl, everything worked out well:
//this works well
curl -u my_username:my_password https://my_server/tfs/DefaultCollectiopis/projects?api-version=2.0
But again failed when I tried to send the credentials in the header, something like this:
//this will fail
curl https://my_server/tfs/DefaultCollection/_apis/projects?api-version=2.0 \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Basic eNjPllEmF1emEuYmFuNppOUlOnVuZGVmaW5lZA=="
Same 401 - Unauthorized error.
I tried to set up my Personal Access token, since it is included in TFS 15 RC2, and do a test as indicated here
$( document ).ready(function() {
$.ajax({
url: 'https://my_server/defaultcollection/_apis/projects?api-version=2.0',
dataType: 'json',
headers: {
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + btoa("" + ":" + myPatToken)
}
}).done(function( results ) {
console.log( results.value[0].id + " " + results.value[0].name );
});
});
and it also fails. However, after replacing myPatToken for my actual password and passing my username as well, then the request completed successfully:
//everything works correctly with the headers like this
headers: {
'Authorization': 'Basic ' + btoa("my_username:my_password")
}
In the nutshell, something is going wrong when I setup the header like this (using jquery):
//this fails
beforeSend: function (xhr) {
xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa("my_username:my_password"));
}
And looks like the package npm request, which is the one I'm using, also probably uses the beforeSend property or similar and it's failing.
//this used to work with 2015 Update 3, not anymore after upgrading to 15 RC2
var options = {
url: 'https://my_server/defaultcollection/_apis/projects?api-version=2.0',
method:'GET',
headers: {
'Authorization': "Basic " + btoa("my_username:my_password")
},
json: data
};
request(options, (error, response, body) => {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
console.log(response);
} else {
console.log(error);
}
});
It makes me think it is probably something in the IIS configuration but Basic Authentication is properly configured. Is there a way to get this working using the package request?
Something changed in the IIS configuration after the upgrade?

Answer 1

The problems got solved after restarting the server, so I guess my case was an isolated situation, not related with TFS it self.
Now sending the request using the request package seems to work well.
However, it is strange that testing it in the browser using jquery still fails. I noticed that
var username = "my_username",
password = "my_password";
btoa(my_username + ":" + my_password); //generates wrong encoded string
generates a different encoded string then simply
btoa("my_username:my_password") //generates right encoded string
The right one is a few characters shorter, this is an example:
eXVuaWQuYmZGV12lpmaW5lZA== //wrong
eXVuaWQuYmZGVsbEAxMw== //correct
No idea why, though.