WCF Service cannot see Web.config file

Question

A bit of a newbie question as this is my first WCF service: Running in the development environment the service can see the Web.config file.

When it is deployed to IIS on a server it cannot see this file.

The class accessing this file is:

using System.Configuration;

namespace DBService
{
public static class clsSettings
{
    public static string DBServer {get; set;}
    public static string DB { get; set; }
    public static string DBUsername { get; set; }
    public static string DBPassword { get; set; }
    public static Boolean VerboseLogging { get; set; }

    public static void LoadSettings()
    {
        string setting;

        try
        {
            clsSettings.DBUsername = "Login";
            clsSettings.DBPassword = "Password";

            setting = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DatabaseServer"];
            if (setting != null) clsSettings.DBServer = setting;

            setting = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Database"];
            if (setting != null) clsSettings.DB = setting;

            setting = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["VerboseLogging"];
            if (setting.ToUpper() == "TRUE") 
            {
                clsSettings.VerboseLogging = true;
            }
            else
            {
                clsSettings.VerboseLogging = false;
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            clsError.LogError("clsSettings", "LoadSettings", ex.Message);
        }
    }
}
}

And the Web.config file contains:

 <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <appSettings> <add key="DatabaseServer" value="Server1\\SQL2012"/> <add key="Database" value="Licensing"/> <add key="VerboseLogging" value="True"/> </appSettings> <system.web> <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0"/> <httpRuntime/> </system.web> <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior> <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the values below to false before deployment --> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="false" httpsGetEnabled="false"/> <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information --> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <protocolMapping> <add binding="basicHttpsBinding" scheme="https"/> </protocolMapping> <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="false" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true"/> </system.serviceModel> <system.webServer> <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/> <!-- To browse web app root directory during debugging, set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing web app folder information. --> <directoryBrowse enabled="true"/> </system.webServer> </configuration> 

Deployed it creates the structure:

DBService (folder) containg SPService.svc. It also contains a
bin (folder) containing DBService.dll and DBService.pdb

In the above structure, the bin folder is inside the DBService folder :-)

It also creates a DBService.dll.config file in the bin folder. I have copied this to the parent folder, and also copied and renamed it to Web.config and placed this in both folders. I've also tried renaming Web.config to web.config.

I have made the program print the settings to the Event Viewer and can see they aren't populated.

No Matter what I do it still doesn't pick up the settings from the config file. What does the config file need to be called and where should it be? Thanks!

Answer 1

You have to use WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings instead of ConfigurationManager.AppSettings .

ConfigurationManager is for app.config files of Windows apps, WebConfigurationManager is for web applications and their web.config.

Use it like this:

setting = WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["DatabaseServer"];