WSE012: The input was not a valid SOAP message because the following information is missing: action

Question 1

We have a winner…

Wiktor's comments led me to look at Interop between WCF and WSE3.0, and try using MessageVersion.Soap12WSAddressingAugust2004 in a CustomBinding by overriding Binding.CreateBindingElements so that the method ClientName.ProjectName.Services. ServiceName.ServiceNameSoapClient.CallServiceName changed from:

public Result CallServiceName(Request request)
{
    return base.Channel.CallServiceName(request);
}

(as in the original question) to:

using System.ServiceModel.Channels;

public Result CallTestDrive(Request request)
{
    BindingElementCollection elements
        = base.Endpoint.Binding.CreateBindingElements();
    elements.Find<MessageEncodingBindingElement>().MessageVersion
        = MessageVersion.Soap12WSAddressingAugust2004;
    base.Endpoint.Binding = new CustomBinding(elements);

    return base.Channel.CallTestDrive(request);
}

(code adapted from Modifying the Binding of a Service on Nicholas Allen's WCF blog).

This would seem to have solved my problem. At last.

Thank you very much Wiktor and John Saunders; I wouldn't have got to this without your assistance.

Edit: Another failed attempt below

Again for completeness's sake, I shall include another avenue I tried that did not work for me. I also tried following the instructions from this answer to the question WCF CustomBinding Configuration, creating a Custom Binding class in my namespace ClientName.ProjectName.ServiceName:

using System.ServiceModel;
using System.ServiceModel.Channels;

public class CustomWsHttpBinding : WSHttpBinding
{
    public override BindingElementCollection CreateBindingElements()
    {
        BindingElementCollection elements = base.CreateBindingElements();

        MessageEncodingBindingElement encodingElement
          = elements.Find<MessageEncodingBindingElement>();
        encodingElement.MessageVersion
          = MessageVersion.Soap12WSAddressingAugust2004;

        return elements;
    }
}

and adding it to the config with:

<system.serviceModel>
    <extensions>
        <bindingExtensions>
            <add name="CustomWsHttpBinding"
             type="ClientName.ProjectName.ServiceName.CustomWsHttpBinding, ClientName.ProjectName.ServiceName" />
        </bindingExtensions>
    </extensions>
    <bindings>
        <CustomWsHttpBinding>
            <binding name="ServiceNameSoap" closeTimeout="00:01:00"
             openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00"
             sendTimeout="00:01:00" allowCookies="false"
             bypassProxyOnLocal="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
             maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
             messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8"
             useDefaultWebProxy="true">
                <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192"
                 maxArrayLength="16384" maxBytesPerRead="4096"
                 maxNameTableCharCount="16384"/>
                <security mode="Transport">
                    <transport clientCredentialType="Basic"
                     proxyCredentialType="None" realm="www.serviceprovider.com"/>
                    <message clientCredentialType="UserName"
                     algorithmSuite="Default"/>
                </security>
            </binding>
        </CustomWsHttpBinding>
    </bindings>
    <!-- ... -->
</system.serviceModel>

Question 2

(joint effort with the OP)

I've just saw that your service is exposed on an .asmx endpoint which suggests that this is not a wcf service but rather an old asp.net service. Asp.net web services in contrary to wcf have very limited configuration options, they do not support ws/web binding (only basic http). My advice then is to switch to an old type proxy, generate it with wsdl.exe tool. You don't need any configuration and you can't use the wsHttpBinding but at least you should be able to call the service.

Question 3

I know this is 2 years old but i figured i'd give the simplest solution. I may be rehashing the above answer. The trick is to realize that old school asmx services we pre ws-* acceptance. There are 2 versions(maybe more) of the WS-Addressing feature - August 2005 and the problematic August 2004. You can see these in SOAPUI where you have to manually change the WS-A version to "200408" when testing .asmx services. All that does is essentially change the ws-addressing header from:

<soap:Header xmlns:wsa="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">

to

<soap:Header xmlns:wsa="http://www.w3.org/2004/08/addressing">

so the question is, how would you do this in WCF? Simply, as the above stated is to NOT use wsHttpBinding but to use custom binding and setting the message version. Without further Adieu, the relevent WebConfig:

<system.serviceModel> <client> <endpoint address="http://localhost/some_old_school_garbage_service/adapterws.asmx" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="AdapterWSSoap" contract="AdapterWS.AdapterWSSoap" name="LodestarASMX" /> </client> <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="AdapterWSSoap" > <security authenticationMode="UserNameOverTransport" allowInsecureTransport="True"></security> <textMessageEncoding messageVersion="Soap12WSAddressingAugust2004"></textMessageEncoding> <httpTransport/> </binding> </customBinding>

WSE012: The input was not a valid SOAP message because the following information is missing: action

Edit to add more detail

Even more detail: ServiceNameSoap interface

We have a winner…

Edit: Another failed attempt below