Why I can't send a push notification using the Appcelerator REST API in C#?

Question

I'm trying to send a notify alert to all the devices subscribed to my channel through the RestSharp API for C#. This is how my code looks like:

    public void SendPush()
    {
        try
        {

            var client = new RestClient(" https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com");
            var request = new RestRequest("/v1/push_notification/notify.json?key=appkey", Method.POST)
            {
                RequestFormat = DataFormat.Json,
            };
            request.AddBody(new
            {
                channel = "alert", payload = new { title = "notificación", badge = 1, alert = "alerta: proximo arribo de sismo a la ciudad de mexico", sound = "default" }
            });
            var response = client.Execute(request);
            var content = response.Content;
            Debug.WriteLine(content);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Message " + ex.Message + " \n Inner Exception " + ex.InnerException + " \n Stack Trace" + ex.StackTrace);
        }
    }

The response I get is the following:

{
  "meta": {
    "status": "fail",
    "code": 401,
   "cc_code": 1000,
   "message": "You need to sign in or sign up before continuing."
  }
}

Why is it asking me to login? All what I'm trying to do is to send a notify message to the devices.

Any help will be appreciated.

EDIT

I was able to login, store the connection information into a CookieContainer and send the notification request, but I can't send the payload parameter as an object.

This is how my new Login function looks like:

    public void Login()
    {
        client = new RestClient("https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com");
        client.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();
        request = new RestRequest("/v1/users/login.json?key={appkey}", Method.POST)
        {
            RequestFormat = DataFormat.Json
        };
        request.AddUrlSegment("appkey", "key");
        request.AddBody(new
        {
            login = "user",
            password = "pass"
        });
        var response = client.Execute(request);
        var content = response.Content;
        Debug.WriteLine(content);
        SendPush();
    }

This is how my SendPush function looks like now:

    public void SendPush()
    {
        try
        {
            client.BaseUrl = "https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com";
            request.Resource = "/v1/push_notification/notify.json?key={appkey}";
            request.Method = Method.POST;
            request.AddUrlSegment("appkey", "key");


            request.AddParameter("channel", "alert");
            request.AddParameter("payload", new
                {
                  title = "notification", 
                  badge = 1, 
                  alert = "Warning", 
                  sound = "default" 
                });
            var response = client.Execute(request);
            var content = response.Content;
            Debug.WriteLine(content);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Message " + ex.Message + " \n Inner Exception " + ex.InnerException + " \n Stack Trace" + ex.StackTrace);
        }
    }

I'm trying to send an object as a parameter but it doesn't seem to be valid, I don't know why. If I just try to send something like this:

            request.AddParameter("payload", "Warning");

I get a response from the Appcelerator API, but not the behavior I want to in the mobile app, since the payload is missing several properties.

How should I send that object as a parameter with RestSharp? Or RestSharp doesn't allow that? What are my options?

Answer 1

I found the way to do this. First I have to login and save the session in a CookieContainer like this:

    public void Login()
    {
        client = new RestClient("https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com");
        client.CookieContainer = new System.Net.CookieContainer();
        request = new RestRequest("/v1/users/login.json?key={appkey}", Method.POST)
        {
            RequestFormat = DataFormat.Json,
        };
        request.AddUrlSegment("appkey", "key");
        request.AddBody(new
        {
            login = "user",
            password = "pass"
        });
        var response = client.Execute(request);
        SendPush();
    }

Then I make a call to my SendPush method which looks like this now:

    public void SendPush()
    {
        try
        {
            client.BaseUrl = "https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com";
            request.Resource = "/v1/push_notification/notify.json?key={appkey}";
            request.Method = Method.POST;
            request.AddUrlSegment("appkey", "key");

            request.AddParameter("channel", "alert");
            request.AddParameter("payload", "{ \"title\" : \"notificación\", \"badge\" : 1, \"alert\" : \"alerta: Sismo detectado en: " + direccion + " proximo arribo de sismo a la ciudad de mexico\", \"sound\" : \"default\"}");
            var response = client.Execute(request);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Message " + ex.Message + " \n Inner Exception " + ex.InnerException + " \n Stack Trace" + ex.StackTrace);
        }
    }

I was having trouble sending the payload object in the AddBody method, so I decided to send it as a string with AddParameter and it worked with no problem, this can be done too using the JavaScriptSerializer or JsonConverter from JSON.NET. Hope it helps other people.