Question

I have an asynchronous WCF server (I’ve derived my own clientbase class) and I call this from my client application.

However, when this method is called:

public IAsyncResult Beginxxx(string path, AsyncCallback callback, object state)  
{
    return Channel.Beginxxx(path, callback, state); 
}

I get this exception:

{“There was an error while trying to serialize parameter http://tempuri.org/:callback. The InnerException message was ‘Type ‘System.DelegateSerializationHolder+DelegateEntry’ with data contract name ‘DelegateSerializationHolder.DelegateEntry:http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System’ is not expected. Add any types not known statically to the list of known types – for example, by using the KnownTypeAttribute attribute or by adding them to the list of known types passed to DataContractSerializer.’. Please see InnerException for more details.”}

If I had my own class with its own properties, this exception would make sense but this is a standard .NET type (AsyncCallback I believe the exception is complaining about). A code sample of what I am trying to do doesn’t have this problem (and I changed that to the same type of binding I am using – named pipes).

What is wrong?

Answer 1

You likely forgot to add the (AsyncPattern = true) property in the [OperationContract] attribute. The example below shows two clients, one (wrong) with the exact error you’re seeing, one (correct) which works. The only difference is the AsyncPattern = true in the operation contract.

    public class StackOverflow_5999249_751090
{
    [ServiceContract(Name = "ITest", Namespace = "")]
    public interface ITest
    {
        [OperationContract]
        string Echo(string path);
    }

    public class Service : ITest
    {
        public string Echo(string path) { return path; }
    }

    [ServiceContract(Name = "ITest", Namespace = "")]
    public interface ITestClient_Wrong
    {
        [OperationContract]
        IAsyncResult BeginEcho(string path, AsyncCallback callback, object state);
        string EndEcho(IAsyncResult asyncResult);
    }

    [ServiceContract(Name = "ITest", Namespace = "")]
    public interface ITestClient_Correct
    {
        [OperationContract(AsyncPattern = true)]
        IAsyncResult BeginEcho(string path, AsyncCallback callback, object state);
        string EndEcho(IAsyncResult asyncResult);
    }

    static void PrintException(Exception e)
    {
        int indent = 2;
        while (e != null)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < indent; i++)
            {
                Console.Write(' ');
            }

            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", e.GetType().FullName, e.Message);
            indent += 2;
            e = e.InnerException;
        }
    }

    public static void Test()
    {
        string baseAddress = "net.pipe://localhost/Service";
        ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(Service), new Uri(baseAddress));
        host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(ITest), new NetNamedPipeBinding(), "");
        host.Open();
        Console.WriteLine("Host opened");

        AutoResetEvent evt = new AutoResetEvent(false);

        Console.WriteLine("Correct");
        ChannelFactory<ITestClient_Correct> factory1 = new ChannelFactory<ITestClient_Correct>(new NetNamedPipeBinding(), new EndpointAddress(baseAddress));
        ITestClient_Correct proxy1 = factory1.CreateChannel();
        proxy1.BeginEcho("Hello", delegate(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Result from correct: {0}", proxy1.EndEcho(ar));
            evt.Set();
        }, null);
        evt.WaitOne();

        Console.WriteLine("Wrong");
        ChannelFactory<ITestClient_Wrong> factory2 = new ChannelFactory<ITestClient_Wrong>(new NetNamedPipeBinding(), new EndpointAddress(baseAddress));
        ITestClient_Wrong proxy2 = factory2.CreateChannel();
        try
        {
            proxy2.BeginEcho("Hello", delegate(IAsyncResult ar)
            {
                try
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Result from wrong: {0}", proxy2.EndEcho(ar));
                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    PrintException(e);
                }
                evt.Set();
            }, null);
            evt.WaitOne();
        }
        catch (Exception e2)
        {
            PrintException(e2);
        }

        Console.WriteLine("Press ENTER to close");
        Console.ReadLine();
        host.Close();
    }
}