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actionscript-3flashapache-flexairflex4

Flash UrlLoader - prevent or suppress authentication dialog box

I have a rssfeed application made in Adobe AIR. It uses the UrlLoader to read the feeds. I need the application to never prompt the user to enter password for a website or accept a certificate of a website if is no longer valid. I prefer to have it fail instead.

I have setup the event listeners for IO+Error and Security_ERROR but that is not enough

Sample urls(this may not work in future)

http://www.dawnanddrew.com/rss2.xml (asks for user and pass atm)

I had another issue with a feed that even if it was a http url the website redirected the loader to https and then the certificate validation failed and the user was asked to accept the certificate. I need this to fail (I mark failed feeds and the user can check them when they want to find the issue and fix them or remove them)

Solution

  • Using AIR (which you are), you can actually tell the application to NOT handle authentication.

    var request:URLRequest =new URLRequest("http://www.dawnanddrew.com/rss2.xml");
request.authenticate = false; //default is true, so you need to tell your request to not handle authentication

    Then it will fail with an IO error instead of prompting for credentials.

    Documentation

    Note however, this will only work in AIR and is not a supported property for flash player.