Locked from website using Webbrowser to automate downloads

Question

I just wrote an application that uses Webbrowser to login to a website and download information. After a few days of debugging I finally got it working last night.

But I just came into work this morning to find myself locked out of the website, I can't even login manually.  Is there a better way to automate downloads? Interestingly I hadn't even started downloading any files yet - i was merely reading and saving the HTML source code of three small web pages because the pages contain some needed data. But the logic had to do pobably two thousand clicks because the home page was a datagrid comprised of hyperlinks clickable to get to the pages with the "real" data.

This is not a lockout due to failed password attempts. I know this for several reasons. (1) The site has let us use the same name and password for three years. (2) My app was downloading the material fine when I left work last night and it doesn't have any logic to retry logging in.  (3) When I was debugging over the last several days, my logic never experienced a failed login attempt (other than the first day when i was setting it up). (4) I can't even get to the login page anymore - when I put that URL in my address bar I get an "Access Forbidden" screen.

I can only deduce that the server locked me out due to overtaxing the server. So is there a better way to go about this? I thought Webbrowser was supposed to be good for automating downloads.

Answer 1

Well we contacted the developers who told us they were rebuilding the website last night and this morning. I guess I didn't overtax their server after all.

Answer 2

Hi jal2,

How’s it going? Do you have any updates about the previous issue?

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Bob Shen [MSFT]
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