How to send text from Windows Phone 8.1 via HttpWebRequest / POST? - post

Question

I have a web service that expects (unicode UTF-8 encoded) text data as an HTTP POST message.
I'd like to use it from a Windows Phone 8.1 runtime client.
I created the client, but it does not invoke the web URI.
Here's the code I use on the client:
Can anyone tell what am I missing?
Thanks,
B
{
...
SendText("http://192.168.1.107:58709/UploadText.aspx"); // The IP belongs to the web server, port is correct. I can invoke it from a browser.
...
}
string StringToSend = "This is a test string uploaded via HTTP POST from WP8";
private void SendText(string Url)
{
System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = (System.Net.HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(Url);
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.Method = "POST";
request.BeginGetRequestStream(new AsyncCallback(UploadText_GetRequestStreamCallback), request);
}
public void UploadText_GetRequestStreamCallback(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
{
System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = (System.Net.HttpWebRequest)asyncResult.AsyncState;
Stream postStream = request.EndGetRequestStream(asyncResult);
byte[] postDataAsBytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(StringToSend);
postStream.Write(postDataAsBytes, 0, postDataAsBytes.Length);
postStream.Flush();
// postStream.Close(); // Close is not available in Windows Phone 8.1 runtime project.
// request.ContentLength = postDataAsBytes.ToString(); // request.ContentLength is not available in Windows Phone 8.1 runtime project.
request.Headers["Content-length"] = postDataAsBytes.ToString();
request.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(GetResponseCallback), request);
}

Answer 1

OK, it seems the code was correct...
Problem was, that the phone emulator could not connect to the development server (IIS Express). I searched the web over, tried a number of solutions, but I could not make it happen. In the meantime I trashed my wifi connection, had to remove and reinstall Hyper-V to make it work again.
The workaround was to publish the test web app to the local IIS (make sure it is the Debug version that is published) then attach to it from the debugger, call from WP8.1 emulator - and it works.