Question

I have asimple WCF HTTP/SOAP web service, the service implementation looks something like this:

public CustomResponse DoSomething(CustomRequest request)
{
    try
    {
        return InternalGubbins.WithErrorHandling.ProcessRequest(request);
    }
    catch
    {
        // Some sort of error occurred that is not gracefully
        // handled elsewhere in the framework
        throw new SoapException("Hmmm, it would seem that the cogs are meshed!", SoapException.ServerFaultCode);
    }
}

Now, if that SoapException is thrown I would like the exception message (i.e. Hmmm, it would seem that the cogs are meshed!) to be returned to the invoking client without any additional exception detail (i.e. stack traces).

If I set includeExceptionDetailInFaults to true (web.config on the server) then the full exception, with stack traces etc, is return to the client. However if I set it to false, I get a generic message:

The server was unable to process the
request due to an internal error. For
more information about the error,
either turn on
IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults (either
from ServiceBehaviorAttribute or from
the configuration
behavior) on the server in order to
send the exception information back to
the client, or turn on tracing as per
the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 SDK
documentation and inspect the server
trace logs.

So the question is, how can I get my SoapException message back to the invoking client? i.e:

<s:Envelope xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
    <s:Header>
        <a:Action s:mustUnderstand="1">http://schemas.microsoft.com/net/2005/12/windowscommunicationfoundation/dispatcher/fault</a:Action>
        <a:RelatesTo>urn:uuid:185719f4-6113-4126-b956-7290be375342</a:RelatesTo>
    </s:Header>
    <s:Body>
        <s:Fault>
            <s:Code>
                <s:Value>s:Receiver</s:Value>
                <s:Subcode>
                    <s:Value xmlns:a="http://schemas.microsoft.com/net/2005/12/windowscommunicationfoundation/dispatcher">a:InternalServiceFault</s:Value>
                </s:Subcode>
            </s:Code>
            <s:Reason>
                <s:Text xml:lang="en-GB">Hmmm, it would seem that the cogs are meshed!</s:Text>
            </s:Reason>
        </s:Fault>
    </s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

Answer 1

I think you need to declare a FaultContract on the operation and use FaultException (SoapException is pre WCF). I believe WCF does not send faults back to the client if they are not part of the service contract. I have never tried SoapException but certainly throwing a FaultException has always worked fine for me.

[ServiceContract()]    
public interface ISomeService
{
     [OperationContract]
     [FaultContract(typeof(MyFault))]
     CustomResponse DoSomething(CustomRequest request)
}

public class SomeService
{
    public CustomResponse DoSomething(CustomRequest request)
    {
        ...
        throw new FaultException<MyFault>(new MyFault());
    }
}