Hey everyone,
I’m a beginner in web scraping and I’m running into a weird issue. I’ve been trying to get data from a website and I’m confused about why my request works in one tool but not others.
Here’s the deal:
- I copied the browser request as cURL and it works fine.
- But when I try to use the same request in Postman or with JavaScript’s fetch API, it gets blocked.
I double-checked that all the headers are there and in the right order. I’m stumped about what could be causing this difference.
Any ideas on what I might be missing or what else could be preventing the request from working in Postman and fetch? Thanks for any help you can offer!
I’ve encountered similar issues before, and it’s often due to subtle differences in how these tools handle requests. One key factor to consider is user-agent strings. cURL might be using a different user-agent than Postman or fetch by default, which some websites use to detect and block scraping attempts.
Another possibility is that the website is employing more sophisticated anti-bot measures. They might be checking for things like JavaScript execution or browser fingerprinting, which cURL doesn’t typically emulate but a real browser would.
Have you tried setting a custom user-agent in Postman and fetch to match the one used in your successful cURL request? Also, consider using a library like Puppeteer or Selenium, which can automate a real browser. These often bypass many anti-scraping measures more effectively than simple HTTP requests.
I’ve run into this exact problem before, and it can be really frustrating. In my experience, the issue often boils down to how different tools handle certain HTTP headers or connection details. One thing that worked for me was carefully examining the full cURL request, including any seemingly insignificant headers.
Pay special attention to things like ‘Accept-Encoding’, ‘Connection’, and ‘Upgrade-Insecure-Requests’. Some websites are picky about these. Also, check if there’s any specific order to the headers in the cURL request - I’ve seen cases where that matters.
Another trick that helped me was adding a slight delay (like 1-2 seconds) before sending the request in Postman or fetch. Some sites have timing-based protections that this can bypass.
If all else fails, consider using a more robust scraping library like Scrapy or Playwright. They often handle these edge cases better than basic HTTP requests.
yo, could be a cookies thing. sometimes websites track session stuff that curl keeps but postman/fetch don’t. try copyin ALL the headers from curl, especially any cookie ones. also, some sites check for javascript or do weird timing checks. maybe try addin a delay or usin a headless browser lib instead?