How to Fix Fiddler’s Garbled Output When Capturing Python Requests

Introduction

A user in a Python community asked why the response displayed in Fiddler appeared as garbled text when trying to capture an image request, even though the decode option had been selected.

Analysis

Another community member pointed out that the request was for an image, so the server returns binary content. Decoding binary image data as text inevitably results in unreadable characters.

Solution

The correct approach is to handle the response as raw binary data (e.g., saving it to a file) instead of attempting to decode it as text. Once treated as binary, the image can be opened or processed without corruption.

Conclusion

The issue was resolved by recognizing the response type and handling it appropriately. The discussion also encourages community members to share code snippets, error screenshots, and use small demo data when seeking help.