Getting 401 error when connecting to the list.asmx web service using JQUERY

Question

I'm attempting to do a pretty straightforward query to the list.asmx web service and I keep getting a 401 error. I've spent a couple of hours attempting to solve it with no luck.

My jQuery Code:

    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "http://devsp2:3050/_vti_bin/lists.asmx/GetList",
        data: '{"listName":"Site Pages"}',
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        xhrFields: {
            withCredentials: true
        }
    })

Error Details:

When I execute the code on a test page with a simple button click it prompts me to authenticate. However it asks me to authenticate to the servername.company.com and not the headername I passed.

Firebug returns:

{"Message":"There was an error processing the request.","StackTrace":"","ExceptionType":""}

Fiddler returns (Raw):

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 SPRequestGuid: 9ed17429-0633-4bb8-82dd-fb086b86977f WWW-Authenticate: NTLM X-Powered-By: ASP.NET MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices: 14.0.0.4762 Date: Thu, 03 May 2012 19:43:08 GMT Content-Length: 16 Proxy-Support: Session-Based-Authentication

401 UNAUTHORIZED

soapUI

When I query the same web service using the same credentials with soapUI, it works great.

Attempted Solutions:

• Registry Edits
  • BackConnectionHostNames
  • DisableLoopbackCheck
• withCredentials in jQuery

Updated: Successful Solution

Thanks to @Mark D Anderson for pointing me in the right direction. The below code works. Credit to Jan Tielen as well (http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2009/04/09/calling-the-sharepoint-web-services-with-jquery.aspx)

    var soapEnv =
    "<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'> \
        <soapenv:Body> \
            <GetListCollection xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/'> \
            </GetListCollection> \
        </soapenv:Body> \
    </soapenv:Envelope>";

    $.ajax({
        url: "http://devsp2:3050/_vti_bin/lists.asmx",
        type: "POST",
        dataType: "xml",
        data: soapEnv,
        contentType: "text/xml; charset=\"utf-8\""
    });

Answer 1

I think that the issue is that you are trying to pass JSON data to a SOAP Web Service, which expects XML. Plus, you're not passing in the SOAP envelope which is required. Take a look at SPServices for examples of how to call the SOAP Web Services.