WCF throwing NetDispatcherFaultException when trying to deserialize posted data

Question

I'm working on an interview project that has to call a simple WCF that I created. I've never used those before, so I'm a little lost. I spent several hours last night trying to get this to work, and have it narrowed down now to a serialization error.

This is the WCF I'm using.

[ServiceContract(Namespace = "HighEnergy.Web")]
[ServiceBehavior(IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults = true)]
[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)]
public class CustomerService {
    private const string ACCT   = "9999999999";
    private const string PHONE  = "111-111-1111";

    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)]
    public bool Validate(OutageModel model) {
        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.AccountNumber) && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.PhoneNumber)) {
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.AccountNumber)) {
                model.AccountNumber = ACCT;
            }
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.PhoneNumber)) {
                model.PhoneNumber = PHONE;
            }

            return model.AccountNumber == ACCT &&
                   model.PhoneNumber == PHONE;
        }

        return false;
    }
}

This is the OutageModel I'm using for that call.

[Serializable]
public class OutageModel {
    [RegularExpression(Utilities.AccountNumberRegex, ErrorMessage = "Your account number is 10 digits.")]
    public string AccountNumber { get; set; }
    [Phone(ErrorMessage = "Your phone number must be in 123-456-7890 format.")]
    public string PhoneNumber   { get; set; }

    public OutageModel() {
        this.Clear();
    }

    private void Clear() {
        this.AccountNumber  = string.Empty;
        this.PhoneNumber    = string.Empty;
    }
}

Here is how I'm trying to call it from my MVC page. I don't have it wired into any button events or anything, just sitting at the bottom of the page to run as it gets parsed.

$.ajax({
        url: '/CustomerService.svc/Validate',
        type: 'POST',
        contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
        data: {
            "AccountNumber": "9999999999",
            "PhoneNumber": "111-111-1111"
        }
    }
    ).done(function (data) {
        alert(data);
    }).error(function (xhr, status, error) {
        console.log(xhr.responseText);
        //alert("Error\n-----\n" + xhr.status + '\n' + xhr.responseText);
    });

The relevant section of the web.config:

<system.serviceModel>
  <diagnostics>
    <messageLogging
        logEntireMessage = "true"
        logMalformedMessages ="false"
        logMessagesAtServiceLevel ="true"
        logMessagesAtTransportLevel = "false"
        maxMessagesToLog = "3000"
        maxSizeOfMessageToLog ="2000" />
  </diagnostics>
  <bindings>
    <webHttpBinding>
      <binding name="WebHttpEndpointBinding">
        <security mode="TransportCredentialOnly">
          <transport clientCredentialType="Windows"/>
        </security>
      </binding>
    </webHttpBinding>
  </bindings>
  <behaviors>
    <endpointBehaviors>
      <behavior name="HighEnergy.Web.CustomerServiceAspNetAjaxBehavior">
        <enableWebScript />
        <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483647" />
      </behavior>
    </endpointBehaviors>
    <serviceBehaviors>
      <behavior name="debug">
        <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />
      </behavior>
      <behavior name="AjaxServiceBehavior">
        <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
        <serviceThrottling
                     maxConcurrentCalls="4096"
                     maxConcurrentSessions="4096"
                     maxConcurrentInstances="4096"
                   />
      </behavior>
    </serviceBehaviors>
  </behaviors>
  <standardEndpoints>
    <webHttpEndpoint>
      <standardEndpoint name="" contentTypeMapper="HighEnergy.Web.WebContentTypeMapper.JsonContentTypeMapper, JsonContentTypeMapper, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null" />
    </webHttpEndpoint>
  </standardEndpoints>
  <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true"
    multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="false" />
  <services>
    <service name="HighEnergy.Web.CustomerService">
      <endpoint address="http://localhost:44208/CustomerService.svc" behaviorConfiguration="HighEnergy.Web.CustomerServiceAspNetAjaxBehavior"
        binding="webHttpBinding" contract="HighEnergy.Web.CustomerService" />
    </service>
  </services>
</system.serviceModel>

Here are the basics of the Exception details being returned to the client in that AJAX call (edited for brevity):

"Type" : "System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.NetDispatcherFaultException"},
"ExceptionType" : "System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.NetDispatcherFaultException",
"Message" : "The formatter threw an exception while trying to deserialize the message: Error in deserializing body of request message for operation 'Validate'. Encountered unexpected character 'A'."

I can provide more of those details if needed. I have checked out several other questions, but after about 6 hours have been unable to get this to work. I'd imagine it's probably something monumentally simple that I'm missing, but any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I believe you are missing a JSON.stringify() around the data argument. Off the top of my head I don't know what a javascript object serializes to. They should probably have assumed that most people are going to want it serialized to json and accommodated that - but they don't, so arguments to $.ajax must be stringified before POSTing.

Answer 2

I think the problem is that you're mixing up two different things. On one hand, you're using webHTTPBinding on the host side with an AJAX request. That should be OK, but you're also adding AspNetCompatibilityRequirements, which is a .NET-centric, Microsoft only, requirement, which won't work well with your Java stuff.

So I'd get rid of AspNetCompatibilityRequirements and try it again.