The Future of Deliveries Deliveries began as a hobby—it was first released as a Dashboard widget named “Apple…
R.I.P. Apple Order Status?
If you’re one of the many people wondering why my Apple Order Status widget is no longer working, things are not looking so good. Apple made a change to their store recently that broke the widget. Normally it’s a pretty quick fix, but this time I’m unable to get it working again. It’s awfully strange, because what’s happening really doesn’t make sense.
I’ve verified that I’m sending all the correct form fields. If I access the same URL in a browser I can see all the form fields filled in exactly how I sent them, and all I have to do is click the button to bring up the order.
I thought perhaps they’re using a cookie or some JavaScript now, but I tried disabling both of those in my browser and still I’m able to check the status with no problems.
Then I thought perhaps they’re checking the referrer, but I’ve tried forging the referrer using curl without success.
Interesting enough, if I check the order status with my browser and then try to access the same URL with curl, I have no problems at all. The session ID is right in the URL, and I don’t even have to tell it what order I’m looking for! Of course forcing people to open the page in their browser first totally defeats the purpose of a widget, so it’s not a solution.
If anyone has any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. I haven’t given up yet, but if I don’t find a solution soon I think I’ll throw in the towel. It’s too bad that Apple doesn’t offer a reliable way to get this data from their server.
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Comments
This entry has 5 comments.
Aaron wrote on August 25, 2006:
I just keep getting "couldn’t connect" when I put my order number and info in.
Bummer! :(
Transeau wrote on August 28, 2006:
Maybe the useragent?
What’s the URL you are trying to access?
jr wrote on August 29, 2006:
A lot of stuff has changed.
First of all the URL to get a session seems to be now:
store.apple.com/1-800-MY…Objects/OrderStatus.woa
Furthermore the form fields have different names.
The following GET Request works for me:
store.apple.com/1-800-MY…ode&0.15.19.15.27=2
where ’/6014001/wo/AkYpzyOq1J0eKYRQaKfJA0/0.0.15.19.15’ is the action URL out of quickLookForm.
The form attributes are quoted now (name="quickLookForm"). You have to adjust your regexps to reflect this.
I suggest using Firefox with NoScript and CookieSafe for testing.
hth
jr
Mike Piontek wrote on August 30, 2006:
Thanks for the suggestions! I had adjusted for most of the changes, but it turns out the 0.15.19.15.27 value (which is actually the image to submit the form) was the one I was missing. Which is strange because I tried submitting that in various ways, but I must have been doing something wrong! In any case I took another shot this morning and got it to work right away. The updated widget will be available soon.
Transeau wrote on August 30, 2006:
Sweet! :)
Good work