WCF Post Shows Deserialization error

Question

I have a WCF service that i am using with my mobile application. When i try to pass some parameters to the service it throws an error saying

The server encountered an error processing the request. The exception message is 'The formatter threw an exception while trying to deserialize the message: Error in deserializing body of request message for operation 'InspectVisit'. Encountered unexpected character 'â'.'. See server logs for more details. The exception stack trace is:

at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.OperationFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DemultiplexingDispatchMessageFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.UriTemplateDispatchFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.CompositeDispatchFormatter.DeserializeRequest(Message message, Object[] parameters) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.DeserializeInputs(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.InvokeBegin(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage5(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage41(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage4(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage31(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage3(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage2(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage11(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage1(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)

my service is

[ServiceContract]
public interface ISiteVisitService
{


    [OperationContract]
    [WebInvoke(Method = "POST", RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, UriTemplate = "InspectVisit/")]
    Output InspectVisit(InspectVisitInput inspectInfo);
}`

And my input class is

[DataContract]
public class InspectVisitInput
{
    [DataMember]
    public string UserId { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public int VisitId { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Catogery { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string InspectionDate { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public bool ServiceRequired { get; set; }
}

And my json string will loook like this

{
"inspectInfo": {
            "UserId":"arun",
            "VisitId":39,
            "Catogery": “Walks”,
            “InspectionDate” : “10/06/2015 11:30:30”,
            “ServiceRequired": true
}

}

Anyone please help me here.

1) What does your JSON look like? 2) Is there an InnerException to show the actual exception thrown by the formatter? — dbc
What's happening at client side? How you are creating the client object of WCF? you must use same serializers settings on client and server. — vendettamit
Did you check the server logs for more details? They can be found in Event Viewer under "Applications and Services Logs"->Microsoft->Windows->"Application Server-Applications", either Admin of Operational. — MattC
@MattC i am using windows XP to host my service and can't find any server logs on the server. — SUBIN

vendettamit vendettamit · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-09T14:05:52

You need to change your JSON to ANSI format. If you copy and paste your JSON to Notepad++ and change the Encoding to ANSI you'll see your JSON like following:

{
  "inspectInfo": {
            "UserId":"arun",
            "VisitId":39,
            "Catogery": â€œWalksâ€,
            â€œInspectionDateâ€ : â€œ10/06/2015 11:30:30â€,
            â€œServiceRequired": true
  }
}

As you can see in Category value there's a same character â that the Exception is showing. The problems seems to be of those different types of quotes " around the data.

If you have control to modify the JSON then you should change it to ANSI and those special characters by supported ones. Or make sure you mention the UTF-8 encoding for JSON content when sending the data from client.

WCF Post Shows Deserialization error

1 Answers