Question

I currently have a wcf service library project that includes my service contract & implementation. If I were to go to a web project within the same solution and add a service reference and click on the discover button, I can see my service listed as http://..design_time_address/myservice listed.

Now if i were to go ahead and move my service contract & implementation classes to another project & configure my wcf library project to point to this new project, I’m finding that when i go and try to discover the service within my web application, I’m not seeing the design_time_address anymore. It’s not discovering anything..

Here’s what my app.config for the wcf service looked like before I moved the classes to a new project

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<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 name="Test.Server.Wcf.Service1">
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/Test.Server.Wcf/Service1/" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
        <!-- Service Endpoints -->
        <!-- Unless fully qualified, address is relative to base address supplied above -->
        <endpoint address ="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="Test.Server.Wcf.IService1">
          <!-- 
              Upon deployment, the following identity element should be removed or replaced to reflect the 
              identity under which the deployed service runs.  If removed, WCF will infer an appropriate identity 
              automatically.
          -->
          <identity>
            <dns value="localhost"/>
          </identity>
        </endpoint>
        <!-- Metadata Endpoints -->
        <!-- The Metadata Exchange endpoint is used by the service to describe itself to clients. --> 
        <!-- This endpoint does not use a secure binding and should be secured or removed before deployment -->
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior>
          <!-- 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 -->
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="False" />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

</configuration>

and here’s what it looks like after the move

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<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 name="Test.Server.Core.Service1">
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/Test.Server.Wcf/Service1/" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
        <!-- Service Endpoints -->
        <!-- Unless fully qualified, address is relative to base address supplied above -->
        <endpoint address ="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="Test.Server.Core.IService1">
          <!-- 
              Upon deployment, the following identity element should be removed or replaced to reflect the 
              identity under which the deployed service runs.  If removed, WCF will infer an appropriate identity 
              automatically.
          -->
          <identity>
            <dns value="localhost"/>
          </identity>
        </endpoint>
        <!-- Metadata Endpoints -->
        <!-- The Metadata Exchange endpoint is used by the service to describe itself to clients. --> 
        <!-- This endpoint does not use a secure binding and should be secured or removed before deployment -->
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior>
          <!-- 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 -->
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="False" />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

</configuration>

What am I doing incorrectly? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been stuck on this for hours now and I feel like I’m losing my mind…

Thanks

Answer 1

The Discover option you use to add a service reference is an internal visual studio function. What is does is start and list the WCF services it can actually find an implementation for. For some reason it wants to find the implementation of the service interface in a WCF project type (library or application) with a config file. So if you moved you implementation to the Core project being a regular class library without app.config file, it will not Discover your service anymore.

What you can do is start your service manually and browser to the URL to add a service reference. It is just the discovery option that does not work anymore.