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uber-api

Uber API issue with CORS


First time asking a question here. I'm a beginner at this, but i'm truly stumped at the problem i'm facing.

Browsers in use:

  • Safari and Firefox (both on Mac OS Sierra)
  • Firefox (Linux - Ubuntu 16.04.2)

I am registered as an Uber Developer and have registered an App in the Dashboard. I'm only using the Server Token for authentication at the moment. In the Dashboard, I have set the following entries in the "Authorizations" tab of the App for CORS (Optional URI for CORS Support):

http://localhost:8000                  <-- web server in my PC
https://subdomain.mydomain.com         <--- remote web server

A few months ago i created a web app using HTML, CSS and JS (with Jquery v2.2.4) to play around with the Ride Estimates API and was able to get it to report data for many locations in my area successfully. Somehow it no longer works. I'm trying to fix that and improve the functionality. However, i just can't get past the initial query to the API because of CORS issues that were not existent before.

My API URL is:

https://api.uber.com/v1/estimates/price?start_latitude=8.969145&start_longitude=-79.5177675&end_latitude=8.984104&end_longitude=-79.517467&server_token={*********SERVER*TOKEN**********}

When i paste that in the address bar of the browser i get valid JSON:

{"prices":[{"localized_display_name":"uberX","distance":1.58,"display_name":"uberX","product_id":"811c3224-5554-4d29-98ae-c4366882011f","high_estimate":3,"surge_multiplier":1.0,"minimum":2,"low_estimate":2,"duration":420,"estimate":"2-3\u00a0$","currency_code":"USD"},{"localized_display_name":"X English","distance":1.58,"display_name":"X English","product_id":"8fe2c122-a4f0-43cc-97e0-ca5ef8b57fbc","high_estimate":4,"surge_multiplier":1.0,"minimum":3,"low_estimate":3,"duration":420,"estimate":"3-4\u00a0$","currency_code":"USD"},{"localized_display_name":"uberXL","distance":1.58,"display_name":"uberXL","product_id":"eb454d82-dcef-4d56-97ca-04cb11844ff2","high_estimate":4,"surge_multiplier":1.0,"minimum":3,"low_estimate":3,"duration":420,"estimate":"3-4\u00a0$","currency_code":"USD"},{"localized_display_name":"Uber Black","distance":1.58,"display_name":"Uber Black","product_id":"ba49000c-3b04-4f54-8d50-f7ae0e20e867","high_estimate":6,"surge_multiplier":1.0,"minimum":4,"low_estimate":4,"duration":420,"estimate":"4-6\u00a0$","currency_code":"USD"},{"localized_display_name":"Uber SUV","distance":1.58,"display_name":"Uber SUV","product_id":"65aaf0c2-655a-437d-bf72-5d935cf95ec9","high_estimate":7,"surge_multiplier":1.0,"minimum":5,"low_estimate":5,"duration":420,"estimate":"5-7\u00a0$","currency_code":"USD"}]}

I then proceed to set up JS (w/ JQuery) code in webpage...

var url = "https://api.uber.com/v1/estimates/price?start_latitude=8.969145&start_longitude=-79.5177675&end_latitude=8.984104&end_longitude=-79.517467&server_token={*********SERVER*TOKEN**********}";

$.getJSON(url, function(result){
    console.log(result);
});

Uploading the HTML and JS to my remote web server and then loading the webpage in any of my browsers yields a 200 status from Uber API. However, the console log shows CORS blocking my request (PROBLEM #1):

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at https://api.uber.com/v1/estimates/price?start_latitude=8.969145&start_longitude=-79.5177675&end_latitude=8.984104&end_longitude=-79.517467&server_token={*********SERVER*TOKEN**********}. (Reason: CORS header ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ missing).

Then, in the Inspector view of both Mac Browsers, under the Network / Resources areas, i see the 200 Status message from the GET request. However, along with the Response message (PROBLEM #2):

SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected end of data at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

The Request Headers are:

GET /v1/estimates/price?start_latitude=8.969145&start_longitude=-79.5177675&end_latitude=8.984104&end_longitude=-79.517467&server_token={*********SERVER*TOKEN**********} HTTP/1.1
Host: api.uber.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
Accept: application/json, text/javascript, */*; q=0.01
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Referer: https://subdomain.domain.com/Uber/index.html
Origin: https://subdomain.domain.com
Connection: keep-alive

The Response Headers are:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2017 22:26:31 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Geo-System: wgs-84
Content-Language: en
X-Rate-Limit-Limit: 2000
X-Rate-Limit-Remaining: 1998
X-Rate-Limit-Reset: 1489964400
X-Uber-App: uberex-nonsandbox, optimus, migrator-uberex-optimus
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=604800
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Content-Encoding: gzip

In Firefox for Linux i sometimes don't get the Syntax Error; i always seem to get it on the Mac Browsers. In Linux, when i do get that error, then clicking on the "Edit and Resend" Headers button (resending the Headers but without really editing the Headers), the Syntax Error disappears and the Response text actually shows the Uber API Object that is supposed to be there... but i still get the CORS Blocked message on the Console Log. I really don't understand why this is, but it seems contradictory. In the end, i am unable to get to use the API data that, using the same method months ago, i could get for several dozens of locations.

I have looked for answers in similar questions but so far have found none that apply to my case. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Getting really frustrated... really stuck here.


Solution

  • This issue was caused by the API not including the header correctly. This issue is resolved and the api is now working as expected. Also, the allow origin header will only be returned in a response if an origin is specified in the request.