C# HttpClient An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

I'm working on an integration with Alternative Payments using their hosted page integration. Their C# SDK does not have this integration available at the moment, but as you can see it's pretty simple and I made a small class to send the post request and get the JSON response.

I tested the json object I'm sending on PostMan and cURL and both work, also the authentication header, so I think they are not the problem. Here is the constructor of my class:

public AlternativePaymentsCli(string apiSecretKey)
{
    this._apiSecretKey = apiSecretKey;

    _httpClient = new HttpClient();
    _httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept
        .Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));

    var authInfo = _apiSecretKey;
    authInfo = Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(string.Format("{0}:", _apiSecretKey)));

    // The two line below because I saw in an answer on stackoverflow.
    _httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Connection", "Keep-Alive"); 
    _httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Keep-Alive", "3600");

    _httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.UserAgent.ParseAdd("Anything.com custom client v1.0");
    _httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", authInfo);

}

And the method where I'm posting the data:

public string CreateHostedPageTransaction(HostedPageRequest req) 
{
    var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings { NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore };

    // I send this same json content on PostMan and it works. The json is not the problem
    var content = new StringContent(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(req, settings), Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
    var response = _httpClient.PostAsync(this._baseUrl + "/transactions/hosted", content).Result;
    var responseText = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().GetAwaiter().GetResult();

    if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        return responseText;

    return "";
}

Then I get this error: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host, at the PostAsync line. This is the error details:

[SocketException (0x2746): An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host]
   System.Net.Sockets.Socket.EndReceive(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +8192811
   System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.EndRead(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +47

[IOException: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.]
   System.Net.TlsStream.EndWrite(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +294
   System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeadersCallback(IAsyncResult ar) +149

[WebException: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.]
   System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndGetRequestStream(IAsyncResult asyncResult, TransportContext& context) +324
   System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler.GetRequestStreamCallback(IAsyncResult ar) +137

[HttpRequestException: An error occurred while sending the request.]

I'm using C# 4.5, Asp.Net MVC. I've been reading answers for the same error and none of them solved my issue so far. What am I missing in this code?

Thanks for any help

I don't see in your code sample where you are setting the value of _baseUrl, but I'm assuming that is being done somewhere. I'm also assuming that since this related to payments, the URL is HTTPS. If the remote host has disabled TLS 1.0 and your connection is coming in as TLS 1.0, it could cause that behavior. I know C# 4.6 has TLS 1.0/1.1/1.2 support enabled by default, but I think C# 4.6 still defaults to only SSL3/TLS 1.0 even though TLS 1.1 and 1.2 are supported. If this is the cause of the issue, you can manually add TLS 1.1 and 1.2 to the enabled values using the following code.

System.Net.ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol |= SecurityProtocolType.Tls11 | SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;

If you are using .Net 4.0 then SecurityProtocolType.Tls11 and SecurityProtocolType.Tls2 are not defined so instead you can use the hard coded value below.

ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = (SecurityProtocolType)3072;

It is possible to solve the issue without any changes in the code, as described in this excellent answer to a similar question:

Retarget the web project to .Net 4.6+, then update web.config as the following:

<system.web>
  <compilation targetFramework="4.6" /> 
  <httpRuntime targetFramework="4.6" /> 
</system.web>

This worked for me, the first line ensures the protocols ssl3 and TLS1.2, and the second line ignores any potential certificate errors (ignore and continue - like expired certs.):

ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Ssl3 | SecurityProtocolType.Tls12;
ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback +=  (sender, certificate, chain, sslPolicyErrors) => true;

For me this error was caused by forgetting to configure the proxy server. Using the following code to construct the HttpClient solved it for my .NET 4.7.2 application:

var httpClientHandler = new HttpClientHandler { Proxy = WebRequest.GetSystemWebProxy() };
var httpClient = new HttpClient(httpClientHandler);

Hope this helps someone.