Error adding wcf service to WCF Test Client - Service metadata cannot be accessible

Question

I created a WCF Service and would like to test the one method I added using the WCF Test Client. When I originally created the method, it returned a DataTable. When I used the WCF Test Client to add the service, the service was added using the original app.config file. The method returning the DataTable showed an 'X' because I learned that you can't return this data type. So I created a class that contains the DataTable. The DataContract, Subject, is returned by the method. The code is below:

 [ServiceContract]
public interface IPaging
{
    [OperationContract]
    Subject GetSubjectList(string strUserID);

    [OperationContract]
    CompositeType GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite);
}

[DataContract]
public class Subject
{
    DataTable dtSubjectData = new DataTable();

    [DataMember]
    public DataTable SubjectTable
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

The method details: namespace PagingService { public class Paging : IPaging { Subject cSubject = new Subject();

    public Subject GetSubjectList(string strUserID)
    {
         ....
    }
}

}

Now, when I try to add the service to the WCF Test Client, I get the error: 'Service metadata cannot be accessible.' This is my app.config file:

<system.serviceModel>
<services>
  <service name="PagingService.Paging" behaviorConfiguration="SimpleServiceBehavior">
    <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="PagingService.IPaging">
      <identity>
        <dns value="localhost" />
      </identity>
    </endpoint>
    <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
    <host>
      <baseAddresses>
        <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8732/Design_Time_Addresses/PagingService/Service1/" />
      </baseAddresses>
    </host>
  </service>
</services>
<behaviors>
  <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="SimpleServiceBehavior">
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True" />
      <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, 
      set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>
      <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, 
      set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment 
      to avoid disclosing exception information -->
      <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="False" />
    </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>

It seems to me that it is not with the app.config file because the original entries worked when the method returned a DataTable. But now the return type is now 'Subject', it is not updated somewhere.

When you change the method signature, is there some other place that needs to be changed that I am missing?

Thanks.

David P David P · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-27T19:53:28

Why don't you just serialize the DataTable and send it back as an XML string? On the client end you could create a DataTable on the client end by usinging DataTable.ReadXML.

Error adding wcf service to WCF Test Client - Service metadata cannot be accessible

1 Answers