redirect containing + is not being encoded properly by visual studio

Question

I'm currently trying to create a performance test in Visual Studio 2013 for an older web application with numerous redirects. One of these redirects contains a url with a + in it.

<h2>Object moved to <a href="%2fPage.aspx%3fname%3dLYNDON+VROOMAN%26type%3dMyType">here</a>.</h2>

When Visual Studio attempts to run the web performance test and follows the redirect, it attempts to go to /Page.aspx?name=LYNDON VROOMAN&TYPE=MyType which of course returns a 400. The redirect, of course, is also not appearing in the recording.

I don't normally run performance tests on web sites with a GUI. I've tried added an HTMLEncoded flag to every parameter, and tried generating code and adding a replace to any of the strings that I can see.

I'm sure that it's something small that I'm missing, but, I'm not seeing it and my searches for information are coming back fruitless.

Answer 1

I had got the same issue with web performance test in Visual Studio 2013. Some redirects in my application contains a white space in their url

<h2>Object moved to <a href="/Error/SubErr.aspx?GROUP=MED SH&amp;USER=DAVID GOUPIL">here</a>.</h2>

When visual studio attempts this redirect, the web test returns a Bad request.

I finally use a WebTestPlugin to encode each query string parameters before each requests

public override void PreRequest(object sender, PreRequestEventArgs e)
{
    foreach (var queryStringParam in e.Request.QueryStringParameters)
        queryStringParam.UrlEncode = true;
}

And add this event to the PreRequest event on MyWebTest.

private MyWebTestPlugin myPlugin = new MyWebTestPlugin();     
public MyWebTest()
{
    this.PreAuthenticate = true;
    this.Proxy = "default";
    this.PreRequest += this.myPlugin.PreRequest;
}

Hope it helps