Unable to call google api from Azure virtual machine - vb.net

Question

Public Class Geocode
Public Structure GeocodeResult
Public Latitude As String
Public Longitude As String
Public Result As String
End Structure
Public Shared Function GetGeocode(ByVal Address As String) As GeocodeResult
Dim strLat As String = ""
Dim strLon As String = ""
Dim strResult As String = ""
Dim oXmlDoc As Object
GetGeocode.Latitude = ""
GetGeocode.Longitude = ""
GetGeocode.Result = ""
Try
Dim baseURL As String = "https://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?sensor=false&address=" & Address
baseURL = Replace(baseURL, " ", "+")
oXmlDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
With oXmlDoc
.Async = False
If .Load(baseURL) And Not .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/status") Is Nothing Then
GetGeocode.Result = .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/status").Text
If Not .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/result") Is Nothing Then
GetGeocode.Latitude = .selectSingleNode("//location/lat").Text
GetGeocode.Longitude = .selectSingleNode("//location/lng").Text
Return GetGeocode
End If
End If
End With
oXmlDoc = Nothing
Return GetGeocode
Exit Function
Catch ex As Exception
Throw (ex)
End Try
Return GetGeocode
End Function
End Class
Ok so this works fine in production, qa, and localhost until we moved it to an Azure VM. From the VM we can go use a browser to get to the https://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?sensor=false&address= URL. but when another page calls the getgeocode function the results are always blank meaning the rest api call failed in some way.
I don't think its the domain key restrictions because a) im not using a key in this call and b) i set my google api key to any domain to test it.
EDIT: I have tried using another service with the same result. It works in dev and on local machines but not on the Azure VMs. What I do not understand is how the REST apis are accessible via the browser, but return nothing when called from code.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Explicitly creating a web client and loading that into the xml document has fixed this issue for me.
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System.Xml
Imports System.Linq
Imports System.Xml.Linq
Imports System.Net
Imports System.IO
Public Class Geocode
Public Structure GeocodeResult
Public Latitude As String
Public Longitude As String
Public Result As String
End Structure
Public Shared Function GetGeocode(ByVal Address As String) As GeocodeResult
Dim oXmlDoc As Object
GetGeocode.Latitude = ""
GetGeocode.Longitude = ""
GetGeocode.Result = ""
Try
Dim baseURL As String = "https://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?sensor=false&address=" & Address
baseURL = Replace(baseURL, " ", "+")
Using WC As New WebClient()
oXmlDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
With oXmlDoc
.Async = False
If .Load(WC.DownloadData(baseURL)) And Not .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/status") Is Nothing Then
GetGeocode.Result = .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/status").Text
If Not .selectSingleNode("GeocodeResponse/result") Is Nothing Then
GetGeocode.Latitude = .selectSingleNode("//location/lat").Text
GetGeocode.Longitude = .selectSingleNode("//location/lng").Text
Return GetGeocode
End If
End If
End With
oXmlDoc = Nothing
End Using
Return GetGeocode
Exit Function
Catch ex As Exception
Throw (ex)
End Try
Return GetGeocode
End Function
End Class