How to make custom WCF error handler return JSON response with non-OK http code?

Question

Actually, this works for me.

Here's my ErrorMessage class:

    [DataContract]
    public class ErrorMessage
    {
        public ErrorMessage(Exception error)
        {
            Message = error.Message;
            StackTrace = error.StackTrace;
            Exception = error.GetType().Name;
        }

        [DataMember(Name="stacktrace")]
        public string StackTrace { get; set; }
        [DataMember(Name = "message")]
        public string Message { get; set; }
        [DataMember(Name = "exception-name")]
        public string Exception { get; set; }
    }

Combined with the last snippet above:

        fault = Message.CreateMessage(version, "", new ErrorMessage(error), new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(ErrorMessage)));
        var wbf = new WebBodyFormatMessageProperty(WebContentFormat.Json);
        fault.Properties.Add(WebBodyFormatMessageProperty.Name, wbf);

        var response = WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse;
        response.ContentType = "application/json";
        response.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError; 

This gives me proper errors as json. Thanks. :)

Here's a complete solution based on some info from above:

Yes you have. You can create custom error handler and do what you feel like.

See the attached code.

That's the custom error handler:

public class JsonErrorHandler : IErrorHandler
{

    public bool HandleError(Exception error)
    {
        // Yes, we handled this exception...
        return true;
    }

    public void ProvideFault(Exception error, MessageVersion version, ref Message fault)
    {
        // Create message
        var jsonError = new JsonErrorDetails { Message = error.Message, ExceptionType = error.GetType().FullName };
        fault = Message.CreateMessage(version, "", jsonError,
                                      new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(JsonErrorDetails)));

        // Tell WCF to use JSON encoding rather than default XML
        var wbf = new WebBodyFormatMessageProperty(WebContentFormat.Json);
        fault.Properties.Add(WebBodyFormatMessageProperty.Name, wbf);

        // Modify response
        var rmp = new HttpResponseMessageProperty
                      {
                          StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.BadRequest,
                          StatusDescription = "Bad Request",
                      };
        rmp.Headers[HttpResponseHeader.ContentType] = "application/json";
        fault.Properties.Add(HttpResponseMessageProperty.Name, rmp);
    }
}

That's an extended service behavior to inject the error handler:

/// <summary>
/// This class is a custom implementation of the WebHttpBehavior. 
/// The main of this class is to handle exception and to serialize those as requests that will be understood by the web application.
/// </summary>
public class ExtendedWebHttpBehavior : WebHttpBehavior
{
    protected override void AddServerErrorHandlers(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, EndpointDispatcher endpointDispatcher)
    {
        // clear default erro handlers.
        endpointDispatcher.ChannelDispatcher.ErrorHandlers.Clear();

        // add our own error handler.
        endpointDispatcher.ChannelDispatcher.ErrorHandlers.Add(new JsonErrorHandler());
        //BehaviorExtensionElement
    }
}

That's a custom binding so you'll be able to configure it in the web.config

/// <summary>
/// Enables the ExtendedWebHttpBehavior for an endpoint through configuration.
/// Note: Since the ExtendedWebHttpBehavior is derived of the WebHttpBehavior we wanted to have the exact same configuration.  
/// However during the coding we've relized that the WebHttpElement is sealed so we've grabbed its code using reflector and
/// modified it to our needs.
/// </summary>
public sealed class ExtendedWebHttpElement : BehaviorExtensionElement
{
    private ConfigurationPropertyCollection properties;
    /// <summary>Gets or sets a value that indicates whether help is enabled.</summary>
    /// <returns>true if help is enabled; otherwise, false. </returns>
    [ConfigurationProperty("helpEnabled")]
    public bool HelpEnabled
    {
        get
        {
            return (bool)base["helpEnabled"];
        }
        set
        {
            base["helpEnabled"] = value;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>Gets and sets the default message body style.</summary>
    /// <returns>One of the values defined in the <see cref="T:System.ServiceModel.Web.WebMessageBodyStyle" /> enumeration.</returns>
    [ConfigurationProperty("defaultBodyStyle")]
    public WebMessageBodyStyle DefaultBodyStyle
    {
        get
        {
            return (WebMessageBodyStyle)base["defaultBodyStyle"];
        }
        set
        {
            base["defaultBodyStyle"] = value;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>Gets and sets the default outgoing response format.</summary>
    /// <returns>One of the values defined in the <see cref="T:System.ServiceModel.Web.WebMessageFormat" /> enumeration.</returns>
    [ConfigurationProperty("defaultOutgoingResponseFormat")]
    public WebMessageFormat DefaultOutgoingResponseFormat
    {
        get
        {
            return (WebMessageFormat)base["defaultOutgoingResponseFormat"];
        }
        set
        {
            base["defaultOutgoingResponseFormat"] = value;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>Gets or sets a value that indicates whether the message format can be automatically selected.</summary>
    /// <returns>true if the message format can be automatically selected; otherwise, false. </returns>
    [ConfigurationProperty("automaticFormatSelectionEnabled")]
    public bool AutomaticFormatSelectionEnabled
    {
        get
        {
            return (bool)base["automaticFormatSelectionEnabled"];
        }
        set
        {
            base["automaticFormatSelectionEnabled"] = value;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>Gets or sets the flag that specifies whether a FaultException is generated when an internal server error (HTTP status code: 500) occurs.</summary>
    /// <returns>Returns true if the flag is enabled; otherwise returns false.</returns>
    [ConfigurationProperty("faultExceptionEnabled")]
    public bool FaultExceptionEnabled
    {
        get
        {
            return (bool)base["faultExceptionEnabled"];
        }
        set
        {
            base["faultExceptionEnabled"] = value;
        }
    }
    protected override ConfigurationPropertyCollection Properties
    {
        get
        {
            if (this.properties == null)
            {
                this.properties = new ConfigurationPropertyCollection
                {
                    new ConfigurationProperty("helpEnabled", typeof(bool), false, null, null, ConfigurationPropertyOptions.None), 
                    new ConfigurationProperty("defaultBodyStyle", typeof(WebMessageBodyStyle), WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare, null, null, ConfigurationPropertyOptions.None), 
                    new ConfigurationProperty("defaultOutgoingResponseFormat", typeof(WebMessageFormat), WebMessageFormat.Xml, null, null, ConfigurationPropertyOptions.None), 
                    new ConfigurationProperty("automaticFormatSelectionEnabled", typeof(bool), false, null, null, ConfigurationPropertyOptions.None), 
                    new ConfigurationProperty("faultExceptionEnabled", typeof(bool), false, null, null, ConfigurationPropertyOptions.None)
                };
            }
            return this.properties;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>Gets the type of the behavior enabled by this configuration element.</summary>
    /// <returns>The <see cref="T:System.Type" /> for the behavior enabled with the configuration element: <see cref="T:System.ServiceModel.Description.WebHttpBehavior" />.</returns>
    public override Type BehaviorType
    {
        get
        {
            return typeof(ExtendedWebHttpBehavior);
        }
    }
    protected override object CreateBehavior()
    {
        return new ExtendedWebHttpBehavior
        {
            HelpEnabled = this.HelpEnabled,
            DefaultBodyStyle = this.DefaultBodyStyle,
            DefaultOutgoingResponseFormat = this.DefaultOutgoingResponseFormat,
            AutomaticFormatSelectionEnabled = this.AutomaticFormatSelectionEnabled,
            FaultExceptionEnabled = this.FaultExceptionEnabled
        };
    }
}

That's the web.config

  <system.serviceModel>
<diagnostics>
  <messageLogging logMalformedMessages="true" logMessagesAtTransportLevel="true" />
</diagnostics>
<bindings>
  <webHttpBinding>
    <binding name="regularService" />
  </webHttpBinding>
</bindings>
<behaviors>
  <endpointBehaviors>
    <behavior name="AjaxBehavior">
      <extendedWebHttp />
    </behavior>
  </endpointBehaviors>
  <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior>
      <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpsGetEnabled="true"/>
      <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information -->
      <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
    </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<extensions>
  <behaviorExtensions>
    <add name="extendedWebHttp" type="MyNamespace.ExtendedWebHttpElement, MyAssembly, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"/>
  </behaviorExtensions>
</extensions>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
<services>
  <service name="MyWebService">
    <endpoint address="" behaviorConfiguration="AjaxBehavior"
      binding="webHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="regularService"
      contract="IMyWebService" />
  </service>
</services>

Note: The behavior extension should be in one line EXACTLY as is (there's a bug in WCF).

That's my client side (part of our custom proxy)

 public void Invoke<T>(string action, object prms, JsAction<T> successCallback, JsAction<WebServiceException> errorCallback = null, JsBoolean webGet = null)
    {
        Execute(new WebServiceRequest { Action = action, Parameters = prms, UseGetMethod = webGet },
            t =>
            {
                successCallback(t.As<T>());
            },
            (req, message, err)=>
            {
                if (req.status == 400) //Bad request - that's what we've specified in the WCF error handler.
                {
                    var details = JSON.parse(req.responseText).As<JsonErrorDetails>();
                    var ex = new WebServiceException()
                    {
                        Message = details.Message,
                        StackTrace = details.StackTrace,
                        Type = details.ExceptionType
                    };

                    errorCallback(ex);
                }
            });
    }

In the latest version of WCF (As of 11/2011) there's a better way of doing this using WebFaultException. You can use it as follows in your service catch blocks:

throw new WebFaultException<ServiceErrorDetail>(new ServiceErrorDetail(ex), HttpStatusCode.SeeOther);


[DataContract]
    public class ServiceErrorDetail
    {
        public ServiceErrorDetail(Exception ex)
        {
            Error = ex.Message;
            Detail = ex.Source;
        }
        [DataMember]
        public String Error { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public String Detail { get; set; }
    }

I had the exact same problem. This was useful for me:

http://zamd.net/2008/07/08/error-handling-with-webhttpbinding-for-ajaxjson/