System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: The underlying connection was closed

Question

I am retrieving data from a wcf web service and when data is more than 0.2 million records i get an exception which is as under:

System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: The underlying connection was closed: A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server. ---> System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server. ---> System.IO.IOException: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags)
at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.PooledStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.Connection.SyncRead(HttpWebRequest request, Boolean userRetrievedStream, Boolean probeRead)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---

Server stack trace: 
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelUtilities.ProcessGetResponseWebException(WebException webException, HttpWebRequest request, HttpAbortReason abortReason)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory`1.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.RequestChannel.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.RequestChannelBinder.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.Call(String action, Boolean oneway, ProxyOperationRuntime operation, Object[] ins, Object[] outs, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.InvokeService(IMethodCallMessage methodCall, ProxyOperationRuntime operation)
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.Invoke(IMessage message)

My web.config looks like this :

<basicHttpBinding>
  <binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IService" closeTimeout="00:01:00" openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
             maxBufferSize="2147483647" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"
             allowCookies="false" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
             messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" transferMode="StreamedResponse" useDefaultWebProxy="true">
    <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647"
                  maxBytesPerRead="2147483647" maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
    <security mode="None">
      <transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" />
      <message clientCredentialType="UserName" algorithmSuite="Default" />
    </security>
  </binding>
  <binding maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" allowCookies="true">
    <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="2147483647" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="2147483647"
maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
  </binding>
</basicHttpBinding>

I am sure that my web service is retrieving data from DB. but is unable to transfer to my web from where i initiated the call. Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

I had recently the same problem with a Wcf service within a .Net 4.0 web app. I increased the maxItemsInObjectGraph value and server didn't throw the exception anymore. The documentation here says the default maximum is Int32.MaxValue but I think it is incorrect, the maximum value is 65535.

   <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="ServiceBehaviour">
      <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="6553500"/>
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
      <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />
    </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>

The other thing you can do is enable tracing. This is an example of what I have in the web.config:

<system.diagnostics>
  <sources>
    <source name="System.ServiceModel"
            switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing"
            propagateActivity="true">
      <listeners>
        <add name="traceListener"
            type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener"
            initializeData= "c:\temp\log\Traces.svclog" />
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>
</system.diagnostics>

If you double click on the Traces.svclog, windows should open the Microsoft Service Trace Viewer.

If you test your service with the Microsoft WCF Test Client make sure you change the default client config to match the server settings (this includes the client endpoint behavior) to make sure the client can receive the response from the server.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Make your client basicHttpBinding the same as your server binding. This is a verry common error to only change one binding instead of server and client binding.

If that not works you can enable wcf tracing: wcf tracing

That will give you more insights in what the underling problem is.