WCF getting meaningful channel exceptions

Question

I have a simple WCF service with one method:

[ServiceContract]
public interface TestServiceContract
{
    [OperationContract]
    int[] Test();
}

public class TestService:TestServiceContract
{
    public int[] Test()
    {
        return new int[1000000];
    }
}

When on the client side I call

client.Test();

it fails, obviously because object I pass is too large.

BUT

instead of a meaningful description I get a totally useless

The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state.

I tried enabling

<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />

but it doesn't help.

Is it possible to get a meaningful error description?

Answer 1

Use "try catch" to catch exceptions when creating service endpoints.According to your description, I did a test and found that if the passed object is too large, there will be exceptions. Here is the exception I got:

Here is my demo:

    namespace Test
    {
    [ServiceContract]
public interface TestServiceContract
{
    [OperationContract]
    int[] Test();
}
public class TestService : TestServiceContract
{
    public int[] Test()
    {
        return new int[1000000];
    }
}
class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        Uri baseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:8000/GettingStarted/");
        ServiceHost selfHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(TestService), baseAddress);
        try
        {
            selfHost.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(TestServiceContract), new WSHttpBinding(), "Test");
            ServiceMetadataBehavior smb = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();
            smb.HttpGetEnabled = true;
            selfHost.Description.Behaviors.Add(smb);
            selfHost.Open();
            Console.WriteLine("The service is ready.");
            Console.WriteLine("Press <Enter> to terminate the service.");
            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
        catch (CommunicationException ce)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("An exception occurred: {0}", ce.Message);
            selfHost.Abort();
        }
    }
}

}

This is the server-side code.

       static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        WSHttpBinding myBinding = new WSHttpBinding();

        EndpointAddress myEndpoint = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost:8000/GettingStarted/Test");

        ChannelFactory<TestServiceContract> myChannelFactory = new ChannelFactory<TestServiceContract>(myBinding, myEndpoint);
        TestServiceContract wcfClient1 = myChannelFactory.CreateChannel();
        wcfClient1.Test();

    }

This is the client-side code.I create a channel factory to call the service. You can also use Svcutil to generate proxy classes to call services.