Trouble with automated download from secure website - ms-access

Question

I'm looking for some assistance in downloading files from a secure website. I don't have much knowledge in this area so I'm not sure what I can provide that will be helpful. If you can tell me what to grab from the website I will.
Here are the basics. I must use IE. I'm using vba to send the automated code. I can login to the website, navigate to their reports page, run my report. It returns a table with a hyperlink, name etc. I'm only at the stage of trying to download just one example so I know the download works. I think I'll be able to loop the table & feed hyperlinks to the loop without a problem.
When I fed the download code its first hyperlink, I got my pdf but upon opening it it is only a message saying you must be logged in to view. Well I was logged in. That used
Call URLDownloadToFile(0, "https://atlasbridge.com/reports/atlasreportdownload.ashx?N=49837661&RT=PREVMAIL", "C:\Users\JCarney\Desktop\DownloadedMail\atlasreportdownload.ashx.pdf", 0, 0)
then I tried:
Dim theURL As String
theURL = "https://atlasbridge.com/reports/atlasreportdownload.ashx? N=49837661&RT=PREVMAIL"
Debug.Print theURL
Dim WinHttpReq As Object
Set WinHttpReq = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
WinHttpReq.Open "GET", theURL, False, UName, Pword
WinHttpReq.Send
theURL = WinHttpReq.responseBody
If WinHttpReq.Status = 200 Then
Debug.Print theURL
Set oStream = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
oStream.Open
oStream.Type = 1
oStream.Write WinHttpReq.responseBody oStream.SaveToFile "C:\Users\JCarney\Desktop\DownloadedMail\atlasreportdownload.ashx.pdf", 2 ' 1 = no overwrite, 2 = overwrite
oStream.Close
End If
The result is the same, a pdf downloads but says I'm not logged in. UName, Pword are string variables that look up the user name & password earlier in the sub. They are looking up the correct info. I'm at a loss as to where to go from here. Can I make vba "click" the hyperlink & download & name the file? or do I continue trying to download from WinHttpReq.
here is what the html of the table looks like:
'<table align="center" id="ctl00_cphMain_dgMailings" style="border-collapse:collapse;" border="1" rules="all" cellspacing="0">
'<td>Policy</td><td>Insured</td><td>Type</td><td>Mailed</td>
' <tbody><tr class="blacktextbold">
' <td> </td><td>Policy</td><td>Insured</td><td>Type</td><td>Mailed</td>
' </tr><tr class="blacktext">
' </tr><tr class="blacktext" style="background-color:#D9D9D9;">
' <td>View</td><td>1501-1603-1276</td><td>SUSAN</td><td>Amended Dec Page</td><td>12/08/2018</td>
' </tr><tr class="blacktext">href="javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$cphMain$dgMailings$ctl19$ctl01','')">></a></td>
' </tr>
'</tbody></table>
What the properly formatted hyperlink will be, as if you did this manually is:
"https://atlasbridge.com/reports/atlasreportdownload.ashx?N=49837661&RT=PREVMAIL"
The table is showing us the truncated path.
Thank you in advance.
quick edit. When I inspect the element, the "view" hyperlink in the table. I get:
View
If that's helpful. Doesn't shed any light for me but maybe it's helpful.
This is the response text if i use SetCredentials "username","password",, HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_SERVER for the login screen of the website
login screen webpage
here's the response text when i hit the pdf hyperlink directly:
pdf hyperlink

Answer 1

From your last post, I can see that your manual steps are working.
But, In your code you are using WinHttpReq.Open and other code. Which will not work exactly as you did manually.
I suggest you to create an object of Internet Explorer and than try to use it to open your web page. than you can try to find the PDF file links using its id and try to click the buttons or links to download it.
Example code:
Sub demo()
Dim IEapp As Object
Dim WebUrl As String
Set IEapp = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
WebUrl = "http://www.microsoft.com"
With IEapp
.Silent = True
.Visible = True
.Navigate WebUrl
Do While .Busy
DoEvents
Loop
Do While .readyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
End With
End Sub
Add reference to Microsoft Internet Controls and Microsoft HTML Object Library to run this code.
This is just an example code, you need to modify it and add more code to fulfill your requirement.