WCF exception - "Service not found" when retrieving large collection - wcf

Question

my WCF service it's used by a Silverlight application to retrieve data. I've no problem,
[OperationContract]
MyCollectionClass GetList(int sessID, string name);
[CollectionDataContract]
public class MyCollectionClass : List<MyClass>{ }
[DataContract]
public class MyClass {
[DataMember]
public string Prop1 { get; set; }
[DataMember]
public string Prop2 { get; set; }
}
But.. when MyCollectionClass have a less then 3000+ "record" it works. When the number of records is greater the WCF service seems to work, but on the completed event of the Silverlight app an exception occurs: "Service Not Found".
I've found that could be related to service configuration and i've tryied to use both:
maxBufferSize="2147483647"
maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"
on WCF and Client configuration. Also added:
readerQuotas:
maxArrayLength="2000000"
maxStringContentLength="2000000"/>
(also changed the values found) But seems to not working.
I think that the problem is that the message exceed the max number of byte per "message", but I do not understand why data is not spanned on different message. Any tips is appreciated.
Giorgio

Answer 1

I had the same problem, in my case was just serializing an string and no prob there, BUT in your case you are serializing a big bunch of objects, there's a default limit for that, I remember I saw a post about that (just a setting in the config --> maxItemsInObjectGraph) to high up that number of serialized objects,
Links
http://silverlight.net/forums/t/17674.aspx
http://forums.asp.net/t/1330713.aspx
Settings:
HTH
Braulio

Answer 2

Try to enable wcf service logging on server side. This might help: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms730064.aspx

Answer 3

I use these 2 statement right after InitializeComponent:
binding.MaxReceivedMessageSize = 5000000
binding.MaxBufferSize = 5000000
You can change the numbers to what you want but I had to do this in order to recieve a large amount of data on the Silverlgiht client. My binding object is defines as:
Private binding As New BasicHttpBinding
This is in vb.net. Works like a charm after I include these items.

Answer 4

I would take a look at http://smehrozalam.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/retrieving-huge-amount-of-data-from-wcf-service-in-silverlight-application/.

Answer 5

I use silverlight 4 and vs 2010, and I had the same problem, and I resolved modifing the web.config file.
My original web.config file had:
<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
And I changed it by:
<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
<dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483647"/> <!--this very is important: it is the size of the buffer-->
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>

Answer 6

Could I suggest that you decrease the number of records you are returning? Not as a work around but as a usability suggestion. I cannot imagine any user coping with being shown 3000+ records. If you will be aggregating values from the data set rather aggregate them server side, it will boost your app's performance greatly... I have encountered this a couple of times in my apps, and almost always it worked out better to change the design than the options...