Request failed: unacceptable content-type: text/html using AFNetworking 2.0

I'm trying out the new version 2.0 of AFNetworking and I'm getting the error above. Any idea why this is happening? Here's my code:

    NSURL *URL = [NSURL URLWithString:kJSONlink];
    NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:URL];
    AFHTTPRequestOperation *op = [[AFHTTPRequestOperation alloc] initWithRequest:request];
    op.responseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer];
    [op setCompletionBlockWithSuccess:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
        NSLog(@"JSON: %@", responseObject);
    } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
        NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
    }];
    [[NSOperationQueue mainQueue] addOperation:op];

I'm using Xcode 5.0.

Also, here's the error message:

Error: Error Domain=AFNetworkingErrorDomain Code=-1016 "Request failed: unacceptable content-type: text/html" UserInfo=0xda2e670 {NSErrorFailingURLKey=kJSONlink, AFNetworkingOperationFailingURLResponseErrorKey=<NSHTTPURLResponse: 0xda35180> { URL: kJSONlink } { status code: 200, headers {
    Connection = "Keep-Alive";
    "Content-Encoding" = gzip;
    "Content-Length" = 2898;
    "Content-Type" = "text/html";
    Date = "Tue, 01 Oct 2013 10:59:45 GMT";
    "Keep-Alive" = "timeout=5, max=100";
    Server = Apache;
    Vary = "Accept-Encoding";
} }, NSLocalizedDescription=Request failed: unacceptable content-type: text/html}

I just hid the JSON using kJSONlink. This should return a JSON.

This means that your server is sending "text/html" instead of the already supported types. My solution was to add "text/html" to acceptableContentTypes set in AFURLResponseSerialization class. Just search for "acceptableContentTypes" and add @"text/html" to the set manually.

Of course, the ideal solution is to change the type sent from the server, but for that you will have to talk with the server team.

Setting my RequestOperationManager Response Serializer to HTTPResponseSerializer fixed the issue.

Objective-C

manager.responseSerializer = [AFHTTPResponseSerializer serializer];

Swift

manager.responseSerializer = AFHTTPResponseSerializer()

Making this change means I don't need to add acceptableContentTypes to every request I make.

I took @jaytrixz's answer/comment one step further and added "text/html" to the existing set of types. That way when they fix it on the server side to "application/json" or "text/json" I claim it'll work seamlessly.

  manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes setByAddingObject:@"text/html"];

On the server side, I added:

header('Content-type: application/json');

into my .php code and this also fixed the problem.

I solve this problem from a different perspective.

I think if the server sends JSON data with Content-Type: text/html header. It doesn't mean the server guy intended to send you some html but accidentally changed to JSON. It does mean the server guy just doesn't care about what the Content-Type header is. So if the server guy doesn't care as the client side you better ignore the Content-Type header as well. To ignore the Content-Type header check in AFNetworking

manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = nil;

In this way the AFJSONResponseSerializer (the default one) will serialize the JSON data without checking Content-Type in response header.

A simple way to enable to receive "text/plain" content type:

manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [NSSet setWithObject:@"text/plain"];

Similarly if you wish to enable "text/html" content type:

manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [NSSet setWithObject:@"text/html"];

I tried below line as per @Andrie answer but didn't work,

op.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [NSSet setWithObject:@"text/html"];

so after hunting more, I did work around to get it work successfully.

Here is my code snip.

AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *operation = [[AFHTTPRequestOperationManager alloc] initWithBaseURL:url];
    operation.responseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer];
    
    AFJSONResponseSerializer *jsonResponseSerializer = [AFJSONResponseSerializer serializer];
    
    NSMutableSet *jsonAcceptableContentTypes = [NSMutableSet setWithSet:jsonResponseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes];
    [jsonAcceptableContentTypes addObject:@"text/plain"];
    jsonResponseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = jsonAcceptableContentTypes;
    operation.responseSerializer = jsonResponseSerializer;

Hope this will help someone out there.

This is the only thing that I found to work

-(void) testHTTPS {
    AFSecurityPolicy *securityPolicy = [[AFSecurityPolicy alloc] init];
    [securityPolicy setAllowInvalidCertificates:YES];
    
    AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager];
    [manager setSecurityPolicy:securityPolicy];
    manager.responseSerializer = [AFHTTPResponseSerializer serializer];
    
    [manager GET:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", HOST] parameters:nil success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
        NSString *string = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:responseObject encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
        NSLog(@"%@", string);
    } failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
        NSLog(@"Error: %@", error);
    }];
}

If someone is using AFHTTPSessionManager then one can do like this to solve the issue,

I subclassed AFHTTPSessionManager where I'm doing like this,

NSMutableSet *contentTypes = [[NSMutableSet alloc] initWithSet:self.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes];
[contentTypes addObject:@"text/html"];
self.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = contentTypes;

In my case, I don't have control over server setting, but I know it's expecting "application/json" for "Content-Type". I did this on the iOS client side:

manager.requestSerializer = [AFJSONRequestSerializer serializer];

refer to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21321000/afnetworking-version-2-content-type-error

Just add this line :

operation.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [NSSet setWithObject:@"text/html"];

A good question always have multiple answers, to reduce and help you choose the right answer, here I am adding my own too. I have tested it and it works fine.

AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [[AFHTTPRequestOperationManager alloc] initWithBaseURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.yourdomain.com/appname/data/ws/index.php/user/login/"]];
manager.requestSerializer = [AFJSONRequestSerializer serializer];
manager.responseSerializer = [AFHTTPResponseSerializer serializer];

[manager POST:@"POST" parameters:parameters success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject) {
    NSString *json = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:responseObject encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSLog(@"%@", json);
    //Now convert json string to dictionary.
} failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error) {
    NSLog(@"%@", error.localizedDescription);
}];

I had a somehow similar problem working with AFNetworking from a Swift codebase so I'm just leaving this here in the remote case someone is as unlucky as me having to work in such a setup. If you are, I feel you buddy, stay strong!

The operation was failing due to "unacceptable content-type", despite me actually setting the acceptableContentTypes with a Set containing the content type value in question.

The solution for me was to tweak the Swift code to be more Objective-C friendly, I guess:

serializer.acceptableContentTypes = NSSet(array: ["application/xml", "text/xml", "text/plain"]) as Set<NSObject>

 UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"decline_clicked.png"];
NSData *imageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image,1);


NSString *queryStringss = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://119.9.77.121/lets_chat/index.php/webservices/uploadfile/"];
queryStringss = [queryStringss stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
AFHTTPRequestOperationManager *manager = [AFHTTPRequestOperationManager manager];
manager.responseSerializer.acceptableContentTypes = [NSSet setWithObject:@"text/html"];

[MBProgressHUD showHUDAddedTo:self.view animated:YES];


[manager POST:queryStringss parameters:nil constructingBodyWithBlock:^(id<AFMultipartFormData> formData)
 {
    
     
     [formData appendPartWithFileData:imageData name:@"fileName" fileName:@"decline_clicked.png" mimeType:@"image/jpeg"];
         
         
     
 }
      success:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, id responseObject)
 {
     
     
     
    NSDictionary *dict = [responseObject objectForKey:@"Result"];
     
    NSLog(@"Success: %@ ***** %@", operation.responseString, responseObject);
    [MBProgressHUD hideAllHUDsForView:self.view animated:YES];
    
    
 }
      failure:^(AFHTTPRequestOperation *operation, NSError *error)
 {
     [MBProgressHUD hideAllHUDsForView:self.view animated:YES];
     NSLog(@"Error: %@ ***** %@", operation.responseString, error);
 }];