Do I need to Close and/or Dispose callback channels acquired through OperationContext.Current.GetCallbackChannel?

Question

I'm using OperationContext.Current.GetCallbackChannel to get a channel to the client that called a WCF service operation.

Do I need to worry about closing / disposing these callback channels or is this taken care of by the framework?

Answer 1

Well, I just tried it myself and it turns out that if you Close & Dispose the callback channel (after casting to IClientChannel) the entire Service channel becomes useless and when called throws a ProtocolException saying:

"This channel can no longer be used to send messages as the output session was auto-closed due to a server-initiated shutdown. Either disable auto-close by setting the DispatchRuntime.AutomaticInputSessionShutdown to false, or consider modifying the shutdown protocol with the remote server."

I assume that this is an unwelcome consequence or side effect of attempting to close & dispose the callback channel, meaning that this should not be done.