We are attempting to make a request to a web service (we will refer to it as
XXXServices) hosted on a Web Logic server from a C# SOAP client.  The server
responds with a 401 Unauthorized error (that appears in plain text), and
causes the client to crash.  This C# code has been deployed both as an
ASP.NET application and a WinForms app, each of which produced the same
result.  Further, moving the clients from a Windows XP machine to Windows
2003 Server on a different network resulted in the same errant behavior.

However, a Java client that accesses the same web service succeeds.  We
employed an HTTP packet sniffer to examine the difference between the
Request and Response interaction between the respective clients and the
server.  First, here is the C# client's request:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol
   POST /xxxservices/ws HTTP/1.1\r\n
       Request Method: POST
       Request URI: /xxxervices/ws
       Request Version: HTTP/1.1
   User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; MS Web Services Client
Protocol 1.1.4322.2032)\r\n
   Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8\r\n
   SOAPAction: ""\r\n
   Content-Length: 790\r\n
   Expect: 100-continue\r\n
   Connection: Keep-Alive\r\n
   Host: xxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx.com\r\n
   \r\n

Next, here is the request made by the Java client

Hypertext Transfer Protocol
   POST /xxxservices/ws?wsdl HTTP/1.1\r\n
       Request Method: POST
       Request URI: /xxxservices/ws?wsdl
       Request Version: HTTP/1.1
   Content-Type: text/xml\r\n
   SOAPAction: ""\r\n
   Authorization: Basic xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=\r\n
       Credentials: username:password
   User-Agent: Java/1.5.0_05\r\n
   Host: xxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx.com\r\n
   Accept: text/html, image/gif, image/jpeg, *; q=.2, */*; q=.2\r\n
   Connection: keep-alive\r\n
   Content-Length: 686\r\n
   \r\n

Here is the C# client code, which fails:

try
  {
   XXXServices service = new XXXServices();
   String userName = "username";
   String password = "password";

   NetworkCredential cred = new NetworkCredential(userName,password);

   service.Credentials = cred;

   String appString = "appstring";
   String xmlReq  = "A string that contains XML data";

   textBox1.Text =  service.Url + Environment.NewLine +
service.sendxml(appString,xmlReq);

  }
  catch(Exception ex)
  {

   textBox1.Text = ex.ToString();
  }

Finally, here is the Java code, which succeeds:

try
       {
           String
wsdlUrl="http://xxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx.com/xxxservices/ws?wsdl";
           System.out.println("Getting proxy to = "+wsdlUrl);
           XXXServices service = new XXXServices_Impl();
           XXXServicesPort_Stub stub = (XXXServicesPort_Stub)
service.getXXXServicesPort();

stub._setProperty(javax.xml.rpc.Stub.USERNAME_PROPERTY,"username");

stub._setProperty(javax.xml.rpc.Stub.PASSWORD_PROPERTY,"password");
           stub._setProperty(javax.xml.rpc.Stub.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY,
wsdlUrl);
           XXXServicesPort port = (XXXServicesPort) stub;
           String xmlTrans = "A string that contains XML data";
           System.out.println("Sending transaction: "+xmlTrans);
           String result = port.sendxml("appstring",xmlTrans);
           System.out.println("Result = "+result);

       }
       catch(Exception e)
       {
           System.out.println(e.toString());
           e.printStackTrace();
       }

The ideal outcome to this problem involves somehow "fixing" the C# code so
it plays nicely with the Web Logic server.  We have entertained the
following possible approaches:

1. Deploy the Java code as some kind of intermediate "translator"
between C# and Java SOAP formats
2. Integrate the Java code using Interop into the C# client, so that
all the Web Service interaction is done in Java, but the business logic
remains C#
3. Overload the auto-generated C# proxy to produce a header that
"looks-like" the Java header.

None of these seems particular "right."  Further, we're not entirely sure
how we would do any of them, since we are mostly a .NET shop and have little
Java experience.  Our operations group is also not crazy about running an
Apache server to host the Java code, if it comes to that.

Can anyone on this list recommend either a) a better solution that works or
b) an implementation approach to one of the above-mentioned solutions, 1, 2
or 3?  We would also be very interested to hear about similar experiences
and solutions that have succeeded or failed.  Lastly, if this is a
documented problem that Microsoft, Sun, BEA (or whoever) knows about, and
someone can point us to an article, that would be very helpful.

Many thanks in advance.

-Nate