What does the following Azure Notification Hub REST response mean: 'The specified resource description is invalid.'?

Question

I am trying to register my Windows Universal App for notifications from the Azure Notification Hub through our Java backend service.

I debugged the app from Visual Studio, while it was running on my Windows Phone device. The app could properly get a ChannelUri and passed it along to our Java backend. (I ran the backend on my local PC.)

The Java backend generated the following request for a template registration and tried to send it to the Azure REST Api:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
   <content type="application/xml">
      <WindowsTemplateRegistrationDescription xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/netservices/2010/10/servicebus/connect" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
         <Tags>Windows,10204394042027091,broadcast</Tags>
         <ChannelUri>https://db3.notify.windows.com/?token=AwYAAABXiUp%2bD8v1%2bVfWbWLr3FZ3rQcJtPkUgFwaiGZus4GbtkM8zbZ6uQt1NKXpC4FOtYWHDxXvBb3FkoefaozvCYTFiDjhdb3jDuORUDY8zBlkGw1MxY0QjrH7G0fFbW0RXgo%3d</ChannelUri>
         <BodyTemplate><![CDATA[{...}]]></BodyTemplate>
         <WNSHeaders>
            <WNSHeader>
               <Header>X-WNS-Type</Header>
               <Value>wns/raw</Value>
            </WNSHeader>
         </WNSHeaders>
         <TemplateName>geoinfo</TemplateName>
      </WindowsTemplateRegistrationDescription>
   </content>
</entry>

In my opinion this is according to the MS Azure REST reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn223265.aspx

Still, the response contains the following error:

<Error><Code>400</Code><Detail>The specified resource description is invalid..TrackingId:4ffaabcc-c7f8-4a6c-ab2f-4f65e94427df_G16,TimeStamp:10/21/2014 9:42:52 PM</Detail></Error>

Any ideas on what Azure's issue is around here?

Answer 1

Try this:

1. Call Create Registration ID
2. Store retrieved id in your DB
3. Call Create or Update Registration to create registration
4. Each time you want to update that registration in future (refresh channel, modify tags...) you just call Create or Update Registration again

I've just successfully played with payload bellow:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <title type="text"></title>
  <updated>2014-10-21T23:57:08Z</updated>
  <content type="application/atom+xml;type=entry;charset=utf-8">
    <WindowsTemplateRegistrationDescription xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/netservices/2010/10/servicebus/connect">
      <Tags>t1,t2</Tags>
      <ChannelUri>https://db3.notify.windows.com/?token=AwYAAABXiUp%2bD8v1%2bVfWbWLr3FZ3rQcJtPkUgFwaiGZus4GbtkM8zbZ6uQt1NKXpC4FOtYWHDxXvBb3FkoefaozvCYTFiDjhdb3jDuORUDY8zBlkGw1MxY0QjrH7G0fFbW0RXgo%3d</ChannelUri>
      <BodyTemplate><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><root></root>]]></BodyTemplate>
      <WnsHeaders>
        <WnsHeader>
          <Header>X-WNS-Type</Header>
          <Value>wns/raw</Value>
        </WnsHeader>
      </WnsHeaders>
      <TemplateName>MyTemplate</TemplateName>
    </WindowsTemplateRegistrationDescription>
  </content>
</entry>

Answer 2

The error message apparently means that the request is missing required XML elements. The problem in my case was the capitalization:

Both WNSHeader and WNSHeaders should be written in Pascal case instead: WnsHeader and WnsHeaders.

Unfortunately Microsoft's documentation on the API is misleading regarding this.