Could not find default endpoint element

Question

I've added a proxy to a webservice to a VS2008/.NET 3.5 solution. When constructing the client .NET throws this error:

Could not find default endpoint element that references contract 'IMySOAPWebService' in the ServiceModel client configuration section. This might be because no configuaration file was found for your application or because no endpoint element matching this contract could be found in the client element.

Searching for this error tells me to use the full namespace in the contract. Here's my app.config with full namespace:

<client>
  <endpoint address="http://192.168.100.87:7001/soap/IMySOAPWebService"
            binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="IMySOAPWebServicebinding"
            contract="Fusion.DataExchange.Workflows.IMySOAPWebService" name="IMySOAPWebServicePort" />
</client>

I'm running XP local (I mention this because a number of Google hits mention win2k3) The app.config is copied to app.exe.config, so that is also not the problem.

Any clues?

Answer 1

"This error can arise if you are calling the service in a class library and calling the class library from another project."

In this case you will need to include the WS configuration settings into the main projects app.config if its a winapp or web.config if its a web app. This is the way to go even with PRISM and WPF/Silverlight.

Answer 2

I solved this (I think as others may have suggested) by creating the binding and endpoint address instances myself - because I did not want to add new settings to the config files (this is a replacement for some existing library code which is used widely, and previously used an older Web Service Reference etc.), and so I wanted to be able to drop this in without having add new config settings everywhere.

var remoteAddress = new System.ServiceModel.EndpointAddress(_webServiceUrl);

using (var productService = new ProductClient(new System.ServiceModel.BasicHttpBinding(), remoteAddress))
{
    //set timeout
    productService.Endpoint.Binding.SendTimeout = new TimeSpan(0,0,0,_webServiceTimeout);

    //call web service method
    productResponse = productService.GetProducts();
} 

Edit

If you are using https then you need to use BasicHttpsBinding rather than BasicHttpBinding.

Answer 3

Having tested several options, I finally solved this by using

contract="IMySOAPWebService"

i.e. without the full namespace in the config. For some reason the full name didn't resolve properly

Answer 4

I've had this same issue. It turns out that for a web REFERENCE, you have to supply the URL as the first parameter to the constructor:

new WebService.WebServiceSoapClient("http://myservice.com/moo.aspx");

For a new style web SERVICE REFERENCE, you have to supply a name that refers to an endpoint entry in the configuration:

new WebService.WebServiceSoapClient("WebServiceEndpoint");

With a corresponding entry in Web.config or App.config:

<client>
      <endpoint address="http://myservice.com/moo.aspx"
        binding="basicHttpBinding" 
        bindingConfiguration="WebService"
        contract="WebService.WebServiceSoap"
        name="WebServiceEndpoint" />
    </client>
  </system.serviceModel>

Pretty damn hard to remove the tunnel vision on "it worked in an older program"...