CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wcfdebugging
tavistmorph
tavistmorph

Reputation: 979

WCF can no longer step into a service that's locally hosted -- why not?

I have a WCF test service and a test client in the same solution. The service is configured to run on localhost (Ie, "http://localhost:8731/Design_Time_Addresses/MyService/Service") I run the client app and it correctly invokes the service and gets back the correct answer. I've verified via logs that it's definitely running the service that's local to my machine. However, I can't debug into the service when running the client. WCF is supposed to allow just stepping through, but no breakpoints on the service get hit, and stepping in to the service call doesn't work either. Has anyone ever seen this?

I've checked all the obvious stuff like "is the PDB file being generated?" -- yes, it is. If I run the service project by itself, then hit it with some test client, breakpoints get hit correctly. So debugging on the service works. I can even explicitly "attach to remote process" and debug the service that way. But WCF will not automatically step from the client to the service.

Upvotes: 20

Views: 28377

Answers (9)

Vijayanand Settin
Vijayanand Settin

Reputation: 1084

In my case, I had published it using Release configuration. You need to select Debug here.

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Upvotes: 1

Matt Davis
Matt Davis

Reputation: 46052

Are you using the automatic WCF service hosting feature in Visual Studio? You can check this by opening the project properties of your WCF service project and navigating to the WCF Options tab. Is the Start WCF Service Host when debugging another project in the same solution checkbox checked? If it is, then this explains the problem.

What's happening is that when you run your client, a separate process is created to automatically host your WCF service. Because it is a separate process, you will not be able to "step into" it when debugging your client. You'll have to run two separate debug sessions, one for your service and one for your client.

An easy way to do this is to put a call to System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break() in the startup logic for your service. When your service is automatically started by the WCF service host, you'll be prompted to debug it, allowing you to open a second instance of Visual Studio for its debug session.

Upvotes: 3

Aaron Azhari
Aaron Azhari

Reputation: 987

One other reason for not stepping into WCF service may be the size of your data that is passed to the WCF methods.

For ex., I was passing an array of dobules of size 1000, and I was getting a bad request error (400) with seeing how the method is run. I made the size 500 and now it debugs the WCF.

Upvotes: 1

hexiang
hexiang

Reputation: 11

Yes, I got the same problem, WCF uses another processs.

At last, I found a way, i start a new instance(debug->start a new instance) of WCF service first, then start the client side, the breakpoints in the WCF service hits!

Upvotes: 1

Mark Bergan
Mark Bergan

Reputation: 83

For Visual Studio multi-configurations:

In the Property Pages of your solution, ensure that the "Configuration" for your web-service is set for "Debug", not "Release".

Upvotes: 4

dynamiclynk
dynamiclynk

Reputation: 2331

Also when using VS debug and attaching it to the w3wp.exe process and you have specific port bindings other than http:80:* you must have the debug > web in VS set to the site and port http is running on.

Upvotes: 1

Kent Kruckeberg
Kent Kruckeberg

Reputation: 371

@msulis - yes, thanks, this remedied it for me. I had also changed recently, the target CPU from any to x86. I couldn't reply directly to you message for some reason so apologize if this comes up as an "answer".

Upvotes: 0

Lukas Cenovsky
Lukas Cenovsky

Reputation: 5670

I had similar problem. WCF hosted by WCF Service Host, requests tested by WCF Test Client. My problem was caused by space in build configuration name. As soon as I used configuration name without spaces, debbuging worked.

I guess the real problem was the build output folder ending with folder named by the configuration name.

Upvotes: 0

msulis
msulis

Reputation: 555

I've had this happen as well. Curiously it seems to happen after I make changes to the build configuration (from x64 to x86). Here's how I've been able to fix it:

  1. Right-click the solution, select Properties.
  2. Under "Startup Project" switch from "Single startup project" to "Multiple startup projects".
  3. Set Action to "Start" for the WCF project.

Even though I'm hosting the project in the local IIS server (not the VS Development Server) this solves it, which is a little puzzling. I suspect that setting a project to "Start" also causes VS to attach to the process for debugging.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb157685.aspx

Upvotes: 23

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