Why does my WCF Service have trouble returning custom object?

Question

So my question is much like this one: WCF service: Returning custom objects, however, despite the solutions in that question I see nothing working.

Yesterday I proposed a question related to this one, but I've come closer, if not identified the potential source of my issue.

I don't believe it is problem with the size of the data that I am working with. I can send this data to the server, but I am having a problem with retrieving it. I'm returning an object called ProjectDetails over WCF. However, I run into an issue with receiving it from the service to the client.

Is there a setting that I am missing or is there a way I configured my class for WCF incorrectly?

Here is my ProjectDetails code:

[DataContract]
public class ProjectDetails 
{
    [DataMember]
    public int projectId { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string name { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int calYearId { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string projectState { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string reportTitle { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int plantId { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string holdNumber { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string holdDescription { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string remarks { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string adminComments {get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int companyId { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int customerId { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string folderNumber { get;  set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int invoicedInFull { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int approved { get; set; }
}

Here is how the it is defined in my Service Contract:

[ServiceContract]
public interface IProjectService
{
    [OperationContract]
    ProjectDetails GetProjectDetails(int selected_id);
}

I have regenerated my proxy with svcutil.exe and updated my service reference. However, every time I call the GetProjectDetails method my code fails. I get:

The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive.

Please, if anyone can help, I would be so grateful.

Update

Client side config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
        <bindings>
            <basicHttpBinding>
                <binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IProjectService" />
            </basicHttpBinding>
        </bindings>
        <client>
            <endpoint address="http://192.168.0.99:9000/ProjectService/ProjectService"
                binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IProjectService"
                contract="IProjectService" name="BasicHttpBinding_IProjectService" />
        </client>
     </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Client side config:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration> 
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true"/>
  </system.web>
  <!-- When deploying the service library project, the content of the config file must be added to the host's 
  app.config file. System.Configuration does not support config files for libraries. -->
  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service behaviorConfiguration="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.Service1Behavior" name="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.ProjectService">
        <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.IProjectService">
          <identity>
            <dns value="localhost"/>
          </identity>
        </endpoint>
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib/Service1/"/>
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.Service1Behavior">
          <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, 
          set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>
          <!-- 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 -->
          <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483646"/>
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

<startup><supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/></startup></configuration>

Client side code:

        Console.WriteLine("Testing................");
        ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.ProjectDetails details = client.GetProjectDetails(1);

        Console.WriteLine(details.adminComments);
        Console.WriteLine(details.approved);
        Console.WriteLine(details.calYearId);
        Console.WriteLine(details.companyId);
        Console.WriteLine(details.folderNumber);
        Console.WriteLine(details.holdDescription);
        Console.WriteLine(details.holdNumber);
        Console.WriteLine(details.invoicedInFull);
        Console.WriteLine(details.name);
        Console.WriteLine(details.plantId);
        Console.WriteLine(details.projectId);
        Console.WriteLine(details.projectState);
        Console.WriteLine(details.remarks);
        Console.WriteLine(details.reportTitle);

Answer 1

It ended up being that the server side code was throwing an exception due to the occurrence of:

int.Parse("0");

This was the sole cause of the problem. When I looked through the trace logs and saw the StringFormatException it made no sense to me, but when I stepped through the code it became glaringly obvious of where/ when/ why this exception was being thrown.

A great lesson was learned here - debugging a Client-Server program is much different than just a classic standalone program.

Answer 2

If you are going to host your service in IIS this service configuration will work for you

  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service behaviorConfiguration="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.Service1Behavior" name="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.ProjectService">
        <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.IProjectService" />
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="ProjectBaseWCFServiceLib.Service1Behavior">
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

If you are going to have it self hosted, add proper base address. But anyway you should be sure that ServiceConfig is in web/app.config file of the application which hosts the service. It's not enough and not necessary to update config of your Lib project.