由于大量服务操作而导致添加服务引用时出错

Question

I have a service contract with a sufficient amount of operations (~ 40 operations). When I'm trying to add Service Reference from my client project (or even from WCF Test Client ) I'm getting an error:

Error: Cannot obtain Metadata from net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex If this is a Windows (R) Communication Foundation service to which you have access, please check that you have enabled metadata publishing at the specified address. For help enabling metadata publishing, please refer to the MSDN documentation at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=65455.WS-Metadata Exchange Error URI: net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex'. There is an error in the XML document. The value for the 'type' attribute is invalid - 'q2:PersonFilter' is an invalid value for the 'type' attribute.

The strange behaviour starting here: when do nothing, but remove just one of service operations, everything goes very well - adding of the Service Reference works super good. Of course, I did not tried to remove every method of those ~40, but I've tried ~5. Another important thing - I did not remove the method which operates with the PersonFilter (the type shown in the error message).

I have no idea, how to fix this. If more information is needed, just let me know.

UPDATE #1

So, I've just tried to set mex custom binding to increase defult quotas:

  <customBinding>
    <binding name="mexBinding">
      <binaryMessageEncoding>
        <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" 
                      maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" 
                      maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
      </binaryMessageEncoding>
      <tcpTransport transferMode="Buffered" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" 
                    maxBufferSize="2147483647" />
    </binding>
  </customBinding>

and

  <service name="MyNamespace.DataService" behaviorConfiguration="myServiceBehavior">
    <host>
      <baseAddresses>
        <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/" />
      </baseAddresses>
    </host>

    <endpoint binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="NetTcpBinding"
              contract="MyNamespace.IDataService" />
    <endpoint address="mex" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="mexBinding"
              name="tcp" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
  </service>

but it does not help - the same error is still occuring.

UPDATE #2

Using ServiceModel Metadata Utility Tool (Svcutil.exe) I've tried to get metadata from 3 following sources:

1. HTTP host
2. TCP host
3. Assembly directly

As for sources 1. and 3. - everything goes fine. I'm able to get metadata and generate client code, but when I call svcutil over TCP host I'm getting:

Microsoft (R) Service Model Metadata Tool [Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Communication Foundation, Version 4.0.30319.1] Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Attempting to download metadata from 'net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex' using WS-Metadata Exchange. This URL does not support DISCO.

Microsoft (R) Service Model Metadata Tool [Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Communication Foundation, Version 4.0.30319.1] Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Error: Cannot obtain Metadata from net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex

If this is a Windows (R) Communication Foundation service to which you have access, please check that you have enabled metadata publishing at the specified address. For help enabling metadata publishing, please refer to the MSDN documentation at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=65455 .

WS-Metadata Exchange Error URI: net.tcp://localhost:12345/DataProvider/mex

 Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'net.tcp://12345/DataProvider/Management/mex'. There is an error in the XML document. The value for the 'type' attribute is invalid - 'q2:PersonFilter' is an invalid value for the 'type' attribute. 

If you would like more help, type "svcutil /?"

I'm still have no idea about what is wrong with my wcf service or its configuration.

Answer 1

It is generally easier to get the service to work with basic http binding first and then change it to net tcp afterwards.

In addition to defining a mex endpoint you need to enable metadata exchange:

<behaviors> 
  <serviceBehaviors> 
    <behavior name="myServiceBehavior"> 
        <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True" /> 
        <serviceMetadata /> 
    </behavior> 
   </serviceBehaviors> 
 </behaviors> 

Without the <serviceMetadata /> element the mex endpoints will not work.

Answer 2

Well, I found the solution a long time ago, but I'm completely forgot to post an answer.

So, I have made some changes in the Visual Studio config file devenv.exe.config . I've just added the system.serviceModel section as follows:

<system.serviceModel>
    <client>
        <endpoint binding="netTcpBinding" bindingConfiguration="GenericBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" name="net.tcp" />
    </client>
    <bindings>
        <netTcpBinding>
            <binding name="GenericBinding"
                     maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647"
                     maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647">
                <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647"
                              maxStringContentLength="2147483647"
                              maxArrayLength="2147483647"
                              maxBytesPerRead="2147483647"
                              maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
                <security mode="None" />
            </binding>
        </netTcpBinding>
    </bindings>
</system.serviceModel>

Now everything works without any problem.