The maximum message size quota for incoming messages (65536) has been exceeded

Question

My WCF Service has an OperationContract that accepts, as a parameter, an array of objects. This can potentially be quite large. After looking for fixes for Bad Request: 400, I found the real reason: the maximum message size.

I know this question has been asked before in MANY places. I've tried what everyone says: "Increase the sizes in the client and server config files." I have. It still doesn't work.

My Service's web.config:

<system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="myService">
        <endpoint name="myEndpoint" address=""
                  binding="basicHttpBinding"
                  bindingConfiguration="myBinding"
                  contract="Meisel.WCF.PDFDocs.IPDFDocsService" />
      </service>
    </services>
    <bindings>
      <basicHttpBinding>
        <binding name="myBinding"
                 closeTimeout="00:11:00"
                 openTimeout="00:11:00"
                 receiveTimeout="00:15:00"
                 sendTimeout="00:15:00"
                 maxBufferSize="2147483647"
                 maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"
                 maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647"
                 transferMode="Buffered"
                 allowCookies="false"
                 bypassProxyOnLocal="false"
                 hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                 messageEncoding="Text"
                 textEncoding="utf-8"
                 useDefaultWebProxy="true">
          <readerQuotas maxDepth="2147483647"
                        maxStringContentLength="2147483647"
                        maxArrayLength="2147483647"
                        maxBytesPerRead="2147483647"
                        maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
          <security mode="None" />
        </binding>
      </basicHttpBinding>
    </bindings>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior>
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />
          <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483647" />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
    <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
  </system.serviceModel>

My Client's app.config:

<system.serviceModel>
    <bindings>
      <basicHttpBinding>
        <binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IPDFDocsService"
                 closeTimeout="00:11:00"
                 openTimeout="00:11:00"
                 receiveTimeout="00:10:00"
                 sendTimeout="00:11:00"
                 allowCookies="false"
                 bypassProxyOnLocal="false"
                 hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                 maxBufferSize="2147483647"
                 maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647"
                 maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"
                 messageEncoding="Text"
                 textEncoding="utf-8"
                 transferMode="Buffered"
                 useDefaultWebProxy="true">
          <readerQuotas maxDepth="32"
                        maxStringContentLength="2147483647"
                        maxArrayLength="2147483647"
                        maxBytesPerRead="2147483647"
                        maxNameTableCharCount="2147483647" />
          <security mode="None">
            <transport clientCredentialType="None"
                       proxyCredentialType="None"
                       realm="" />
            <message clientCredentialType="UserName"
                     algorithmSuite="Default" />
          </security>
        </binding>
      </basicHttpBinding>
    </bindings>
    <client>
      <endpoint address="http://localhost:8451/PDFDocsService.svc"
                behaviorConfiguration="MoreItemsInObjectGraph"
                binding="basicHttpBinding"
                bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IPDFDocsService"
                contract="PDFDocsService.IPDFDocsService"
                name="BasicHttpBinding_IPDFDocsService" />
    </client>
    <behaviors>
      <endpointBehaviors>
        <behavior name="MoreItemsInObjectGraph">
          <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="2147483647" />
        </behavior>
      </endpointBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

What can I possibly be missing or doing wrong? It's as though the service is ignoring what I typed in the maxReceivedBufferSize.

Thanks in advance, Kyle

UPDATE

Here are two other StackOverflow questions where they never received an answer, either:

https://stackguides.com/questions/2880623/maxreceivedmessagesize-adjusted-but-still-getting-the-quotaexceedexception-with

WCF MaxReceivedMessageSize property not taking

It looks correct at a glance. Are you configuring the end point in the code anywhere? If so, that might be overriding the config settings. — Jeff Schumacher
@Jeff: I'm just creating a new instance of my Service Client, then calling the OperationContract, passing in my custom class as a parameter. Nothing fancy. @Simon: I'm using the ASP .NET Development Server. Currently, it's all local. — DaleyKD

Simon Chadwick Simon Chadwick · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-26T01:01:55

In the service config file, the "name" attribute is missing from the element

<behaviors>
  <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="StackOverflow">

and there should be a reference to this name in the service element:

<system.serviceModel>
    <services>
        <service behaviorConfiguration="StackOverflow" name="myService">
            <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="myBinding"

In general, it's a good idea to validate, if not always edit, your WCF config files using the "WCF Service Configuration Editor", which is invoked from the Visual Studio "Tools" menu item.

Also there is no endpoint behavior defined for the service. I don't know if this matters.

The maximum message size quota for incoming messages (65536) has been exceeded

2 Answers