Reading an HTTP Request Response Body from Exceptions

Every so often I need to read the response body of a failed HTTP request while debugging a .NET application in Visual Studio. It's not immediately obvious how you can do this, so here's a quick way to do so. You can use these same methods when working directly with an HTTP response object or an HTTP request object as well.

1) Open the Immediate Window under Debug > Windows > Immediate, or by pressing CTRL + ALT + I.

2) You'll need to cast your exception to a WebException. Try either of these, depending on what kind of exception you're working with.
e as System.Net.WebException

e.InnerException as System.Net.WebException

Still no luck? Look in the Locals window and see if you can find the correct exception that has the HTTP response object in it. You'll know you have the right one when the Immediate Window prints something other than null. For example:

{"The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found."}
    base: {"The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found."}
    Response: {System.Net.HttpWebResponse}
    Status: ProtocolError

3) Now you can get the response stream from the WebException.
var s=(e.InnerException as System.Net.WebException).Response.GetResponseStream();

{System.Net.SyncMemoryStream}
     [System.Net.SyncMemoryStream]: {System.Net.SyncMemoryStream}
    base: {System.Net.SyncMemoryStream}
    CanRead: true
    CanSeek: true
    CanTimeout: true
    CanWrite: true
    Length: 78
    Position: 0
    ReadTimeout: -1
    WriteTimeout: -1

4) Create a new StreamReader object just for ease of use.
var sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(s);

{System.IO.StreamReader}
    base: {System.IO.StreamReader}
    BaseStream: {System.Net.SyncMemoryStream}
    CurrentEncoding: {System.Text.UTF8Encoding}
    EndOfStream: false

5) Finally, read the stream contents. This is the HTTP response body.
sr.ReadToEnd();

"{\"Message\":\"The index 'products' for service 'search' was not found.\"}"