FetchUrl status forbbiden when using Wolfram Alpha query

Question

Strange thing here.

If I try this with Free-form input:

Sqrt[(2^t*Log[2])^2/(1 - 2^(2*t))]

I have no problem... But if I try the same expression in the Wolfram Alpha query input I get:

FetchURL::httperr: The request to URL http://api.wolframalpha.com/v1/query.jsp?appid=U2YPK6-9K5JY5YK6Y&input=x%3DSqrt%5B+%282%5Et+%2A+Log%5B2%5D%29+%5E2%2F+%281+-+2%5E%282+%2A+t%29+%29%5D&async=true&format=cell,minput,msound,dataformats[Ellipsis] dows-x86-64&mclient=2&mmode=query&msessinfo=%7B%22Allowed%22+-%3E+%22Unknown%22%7D&languagecode=es&uuid=None&mlicense=1234-4321-123456&machineid=6202-78539-21191&sig=9ba3bda92b5d88b4f7ffdc0c4386b2e0 was not successful. The server returned the HTTP status code 403 ("Forbidden").

Does anyone know why?

Thanks

Answer 1

Not a full answer as I don't know what's wrong, but here's something that might help with debugging. We can use the following to get WA query data:

getWAArg[call__] :=
  Block[
   {
    $$arg,
WolframAlphaClient`Private`qImport
},
   WolframAlphaClient`Private`qImport = ($$arg = #) &;
   WolframAlpha[call];
   $$arg
   ];
getWAParams[call_] :=
 URLParse@getWAArg[call]

unfortunately this works fine for me:

Import[getWAArg["zabadoo"], "Text"] // StringTake[#, 500] &

"<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<queryresult success='true'
    error='false'
    numpods='5'
    datatypes='City,Internet'
    timedout=''
    timedoutpods=''
    timing='3.065'
    parsetiming='0.105'
    parsetimedout='false'
    recalculate=''
    \
id='MSPa152011423h379dfd07ff9000050i77gecdi640ih2'
    host='http://www4f.wolframalpha.com'
    server='23'
    related='http://www4f.wolframalpha.com/api/v2/relatedQueries.jsp?\
id=MSPa152021423h379dfd07ff900003ai0a4c1984c32258862909761100850"

On the plus side there might be some magic in there you can scrape out