Powershell web request - 400 Bad Request - rest

Question

Im building a powershell script to execute commands on a REST-like server, I am using powershell to POST XML data to the webservice. Everything is working perfectly except when the "application" produces an error. The application replies back with details in xml and also gives me a Web Request Error (in this case 400) which is when i have problems. Whenever i get a Web Request Error that is not 200 the commands throw an error which screws up how i handle the error.
This is an example of the response im receiving (using fiddler):
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 04:29:48 GMT
Content-Type: text/xml;charset=ISO-8859-1
Connection: close
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<Status>
<operation>Add Network</operation>
<result>ERROR</result>
<resultCode>REASON_210</resultCode>
</Status>
This is the error i receive in powershell:
Exception calling "UploadData" with "3" argument(s): "The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request."
At C:\Scripting\test.ps1:47 char:34
+ $response = $query.UploadData <<<< ($url,"POST",$byteArray)
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException
Exception calling "GetString" with "1" argument(s): "Array cannot be null.
Parameter name: bytes"
At C:\Scripting\test.ps1:48 char:62
+ $stringresponse = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString <<<< ($response)
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException
I dug further into the error and this is as close as i could get to retrieving the content of the response (the XML).
I thought I might be able to pull it out from this..
$error[1].exception.InnerException.Data
But it is empty :(
PS C:\Scripting> $error[1].exception.InnerException | fl -force
Status : ProtocolError
Response : System.Net.HttpWebResponse
Message : The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.
Data : {}
InnerException :
TargetSite : Byte[] UploadDataInternal(System.Uri, System.String, Byte[], System.Net.WebRequest ByRef)
StackTrace : at System.Net.WebClient.UploadDataInternal(Uri address, String method, Byte[] data, WebRequest& request)
at System.Net.WebClient.UploadData(Uri address, String method, Byte[] data)
at System.Net.WebClient.UploadData(String address, String method, Byte[] data)
at UploadData(Object , Object[] )
at System.Management.Automation.MethodInformation.Invoke(Object target, Object[] arguments)
at System.Management.Automation.DotNetAdapter.AuxiliaryMethodInvoke(Object target, Object[] arguments, MethodInformation methodInformation, Object[]
originalArguments)
HelpLink :
Source : System
PS C:\Scripting> $error[1].exception.InnerException.response | fl
IsMutuallyAuthenticated : False
Cookies : {}
Headers : {Connection, Transfer-Encoding, Content-Type, Date}
ContentLength : -1
ContentEncoding :
ContentType : text/xml;charset=ISO-8859-1
CharacterSet : ISO-8859-1
Server :
LastModified : 29/11/12 4:04:19 PM
StatusCode : BadRequest
StatusDescription : Bad Request
ProtocolVersion : 1.1
ResponseUri : https://api-au.dimensiondata.com/oec/0.9/cdefb891-1552-4008-8638-7393eda8d7e1/network
Method : POST
IsFromCache : False
Here is my powershell code that I am using:
function send_web ($url,$data) {
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true}
$query = new-object system.net.WebClient
$auth = 'Basic ' + [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($username+":"+$password ))
$query.Headers.Add('Authorization', $auth )
[byte[]]$byteArray = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes($data)
$query.Headers.Add("ContentType","application/xml")
$response = $query.UploadData($url,"POST",$byteArray)
$stringresponse = [System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString($response)
return $stringresponse
}
This seems like it shouldn't be a hard thing to do any help would be much appreciated :)
Richard