Getting a JSON response from Microsoft Live API instead of redirect for user's profile picture

Question

I'm making the following request against the Microsoft Live API:

GET https://apis.live.net/v5.0/me/picture?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN

The result, unlike any other request to that API, is a redirect to a physical image location, which causes the actual image object to be returned instead of a typical JSON response that would include the path to that image.

I could dig into the the response object and try to get the Content-Location header or something to get the URL I'm looking for, but that feels very brittle and diverges from the way I'm handling every other API response.

I also know that the API URL itself, based on this behavior, can act as the image URL, but 1) I'm using a client that constructs that URL behind the scenes and 2) I don't want to persist the access token in something like a profile picture column.

The Interactive Live SDK actually shows a JSON object as the return for a REST request:

{
    "location": "https://cid-0000000000000000.users.storage.live.com/users/0x0000000000000000/myprofile/expressionprofile/profilephoto:UserTileStatic"
}

That is the kind of response I want, and since the interactive SDK can show it, there's got to be some way to request that JSON be returned. I've tried setting redirect=false in the query string (necessary for Facebook, which does something similar) and setting the Accept request header to application/json. Neither had any effect.

Answer 1

This is not truly an answer to my question, so I'd still be interested any responses along the lines of my original question. However, I have found a workaround of sorts.

The URL https://apis.live.net/v5.0/{user_id}/picture will return the appropriate photo photo without requiring an access token. Therefore, all you need is the the user's id to construct this URL, and that can be obtained via:

GET apis.live.net/v5.0/me?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN

Which will return something akin to:

{
    "id": "0000000000000000",
    "name": "John Doe",
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "gender": null,
    "locale": "en_US"
}

The id member there, is what you need for the URL. It's not ideal, because I have to sort of do two steps, and hope Microsoft doesn't change the way the profile picture for a specific user is retrieved or suddenly starts requiring an access token for that too. It's better than nothing, though, I suppose.

Answer 2

Adding ?suppress_redirects=true should do it.

i.e. GET https://apis.live.net/v5.0/me/picture?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN&suppress_redirects=true

I actually haven't tested this with /me/picture, but {user_id}/picture has the same behavior and adding suppress_redirects=true did the trick.