Question

We have an application using HttpWebRequest to post data to a remote server, over HTTPS (handled by an apache front-end).

Most of time, everything works fine.

From time to time, we have the following exception :

    WebException occured SecureChannelFailure ---> System.Net.WebException: The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()

But this exception is caught, the application retries a bit later, and everything goes fine again (something must fail in the HTTPS handshake, I don’t know what).

Recently, we had a new problem we can’t reproduce :

On the web-site side (apache), we have a HTTP 403, with message ” Re-negotiation handshake failed: Not accepted by client!? “.

On the .NET client-side, we have a silent crash (or application is stuck without timeout, I can’t tell). The only thing we know : it’s not a WebException which is correctly handled by the application.
Unfortunately, there’s not enough Exception logging around this portion of code, and we cannot easily deploy a new version of the application with System.Net traces for investigation around handshake.

Does anyone have an idea of what could be the problem ?

Here is the code :

        HttpWebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(new Uri(url)) as HttpWebRequest;

        // set client certificate and server certificate validation callback
        ConfigureWebRequestSecurity(req); 

        req.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.AcceptEncoding, "gzip");
        req.AutomaticDecompression = DecompressionMethods.GZip;
        req.Method = "POST";
        req.ContentType = "text/xml";
        req.ContentLength = data.Length;

        HttpWebResponse resp = null;
        try
        {
            using (Stream post = req.GetRequestStream())
            {
                post.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
            }

            resp = req.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

            Log.Logger.DebugFormat("REST : HTTP Response={0}({1})", (int)resp.StatusCode, resp.StatusCode.ToString());

            if (!resp.StatusCode.Equals(HttpStatusCode.OK))
            {
                throw new MOServerErrorException("The server did not respond with status 200 (OK), but with " + resp.StatusCode);
            }
        }
        catch (WebException e)
        {
            string m = string.Format("REST : WebException occured {0}", e.Status.ToString());
            throw new MOServerErrorException(m, e);
        }
        finally
        {
            if (resp != null)
                resp.Close();
        }

---

EDIT :
Ok, I’ve managed to reproduce the problem. The thread hangs in GetRequestStream().
Here is the stack :

    mscorlib.dll!System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne(long timeout, bool exitContext) + 0x2f bytes   
    mscorlib.dll!System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne(int millisecondsTimeout, bool exitContext) + 0x25 bytes    
>   System.dll!System.Net.LazyAsyncResult.WaitForCompletion(bool snap) + 0xd3 bytes 
    System.dll!System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckEnqueueRead(byte[] buffer = {byte[4096]}, int offset = 0, int count = 4096, System.Net.AsyncProtocolRequest request) + 0x194 bytes 
    System.dll!System.Net.Security._SslStream.StartReading(byte[] buffer = {byte[4096]}, int offset = 0, int count = 4096, System.Net.AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest = null) + 0x6d bytes    
    System.dll!System.Net.Security._SslStream.ProcessRead(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count, System.Net.AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest = null) + 0x6b bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.TlsStream.Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int size) + 0x58 bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.PooledStream.Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int size) + 0x1b bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.SyncRead(System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = {System.Net.HttpWebRequest}, bool userRetrievedStream = false, bool probeRead = true) + 0x12a bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.PollAndRead(System.Net.HttpWebRequest request, bool userRetrievedStream) + 0x5a bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.ConnectStream.PollAndRead(bool userRetrievedStream) + 0x1b bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndWriteHeaders(bool async) + 0xa2 bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.WriteHeadersCallback(System.Net.WebExceptionStatus errorStatus, System.Net.ConnectStream stream = {System.Net.ConnectStream}, bool async) + 0x16 bytes 
    System.dll!System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeaders(bool async) + 0x2d1 bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndSubmitRequest() + 0x82 bytes    
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.SetRequestSubmitDone(System.Net.ConnectStream submitStream) + 0xf7 bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.CompleteConnection(bool async, System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = {System.Net.HttpWebRequest}) + 0x158 bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.CompleteStartConnection(bool async, System.Net.HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest) + 0x177 bytes    
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.CompleteStartRequest(bool onSubmitThread, System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = {System.Net.HttpWebRequest}, System.Net.TriState needReConnect = True) + 0x9a bytes  
    System.dll!System.Net.Connection.SubmitRequest(System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = {System.Net.HttpWebRequest}) + 0x293 bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.ServicePoint.SubmitRequest(System.Net.HttpWebRequest request = {System.Net.HttpWebRequest}, string connName = "S>1054081937") + 0x7c bytes    
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.SubmitRequest(System.Net.ServicePoint servicePoint) + 0xf9 bytes   
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream(out System.Net.TransportContext context = null) + 0x1d3 bytes 
    System.dll!System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream() + 0xe bytes 

It hangs here, no timeout occurs. Sounds like a bug in the network stack !!

Answer 1

Appears to be KB980817

I didn’t manage to install the proposed hotfix (setup goes fine… but System.dll remains unchanged).
As a workaround, I’m using the async version of the API (Begin …End) and manage a timeout by myself.