WCF Service this.Invoke The operation has timed out

Well I had another issue which stumped me for awhile. It's a simple fix, but I spent a while on it so I figured I would try and save others similar pain.

So here is the scenario. I just added a new Web Service for my project to consume using the URL which pointed to the source WCF Service. I have consumed a lot of web services in the past so it was nothing new and I built out all the code rather quickly for it. However, when I tried to run it, it would always timeout, no other errors just a timeout:

Server Error in '/' Application.

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The operation has timed out

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Net.WebException: The operation has timed out

Source Error:

Line 82: [return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(IsNullable=true)] Line 83: public string SaveMethod(string AppId, [System.Xml.Serialization .XmlElementAttribute(IsNullable=true)] CustomObject myobject) { Line 84: object[] results = this.Invoke("SaveMethod", new object[] { Line 85: AppId, Line 86: myobject});

Source File: C:\path\Reference.cs Line: 84

Stack Trace:

[WebException: The operation has timed out] System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) +358 System.Web.Services.Protocols.HttpWebClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request) +42 System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters) +268 System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e) +37 System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy .Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +91 System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +148 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +122 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +3412

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Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.3615; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.3614

I removed some of the stack trace that was specific to my application...

After fighting with this issue for a day or two, stepping through the code, monitoring calls at both ends, the basic troubleshooting stuff. I finally read this blog post again, who knows what neurons in my brain got triggered and why, but it clicked... I had added my WCF Service as a Web Service. Adding WCF Services isn't quite as intuitive as the old web service was because there is no Add WCF Service option in the visual studio 2008 gui that I could find. Instead you have to right click on the project name itself and click Add Service Reference.

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The next error I fought trying to get this web service up was:

System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (405) Method Not Allowed.

This was resolved by making sure that the "endpoint address" on the server had the service URL without the final file name. While the client "endpoint address" had the fully qualified url of the wcf service.

Google Chrome Incognito Doesn't load GMail

I just had an interesting issue.

for some reason gmail stopped working in google chrome. It still worked great in the regular browser, but as soon as I went incognito I would get a blank screen.

I found the answer at the linked google forum site. It was very basic and something I would expect and try instantly in Internet Explorer, but I have never had the issue in Chrome. Turns out all I needed to do was clear the browsing history and cache. A simple fix and I am glad that was all it turned out to be, at the same time that's a trick that IE pulls; Chrome is supposed to be better than that. However, that is the first time ever that I have had that issue, hopefully it doesn't become a habit of it.

Edit: apparently that only fixed the issue for a short period. A few minutes later it started having the issue again and I have been unable to get it fixed.

Edit2: well what do you know, a few days later it just started working again. Apparently google worked out the issue and sent out an update. It's good to know they are still working on it. I love this browser.

Chrome Extensions

Well finally, after all this waiting, Google Chrome finally has official extensions.

Some of us have played around with the unofficial things which have been ok, but not so easy to use; however now we get the official integration and it sure is slick.

They seem to have a pretty good range of diversity as well. The two that I have settled on using right now are the google voice and gmail as default mail client extensions. There seem to be a few great ones for web developers as well to bring up to speed with the development helpfulness of firefox.

So far my limited experience with them has been really good. While the helpfulness of any given extension depends on its developer, the interface to use them seems almost perfect. They have a very fast download time, almost instantaneous install and uninstall, and so far have been unimposing and have not seems to affect my browser speed.

Purchasing plane ticket

I've been trying to figure out when the best time to purchase a plane ticket on orbitz.com is.

It's been quite a confusing process, purchasing a plane ticket has got to be one of the least straight forward things I have ever tried to acquire.

Each day brings slightly different pricing, and occasionally when I click on a price I want to explore it has disappeared.

Another very annoying thing is price disclosure. Orbitz seems to at least try, but some flights require the archaic method of mailing me the tickets on paper. This ends up adding about $30 to the total package. Not only does this make me mad when I have already settled on a price, but how does it benefit the airline? They now have to go through the work of mailing out a set of tickets, which is extra overhead, when they already have a better system in place; and they have to deal with tickets getting lost in the mail.

Also it is hard to shop around and compare prices on other ticket sites with the pricing changing so quickly, I might come back to my good deal only to find it gone.

getting ready for permanent duty.

Well in a couple of months I will be heading to my permanent duty station. Looking like Ft Drum though possibly Ft Lewis. I would much prefer Ft Lewis, Ft Drums snow doesn't sound super appealing, plus Ft Lewis is much closer to home.

AIT barracks are horrible, so I was looking at trying to figure out what my new home would look like. Here is a picture someone took of their room at Ft Drum:

googles new blog type idea sharing tool

I've played with the new google sharing tool for a few hours now...

So far I'd say it has potential, but still isn't worth using just yet.

It has the ability to pull in posts from other rss type sites which is rather cool.

It is trying to integrate into gmail which has potential, however the integration is pretty poor still.

It has some pretty big security concerns still and is difficult to find exactly what you want when looking through it.

My biggest complaint is the email integration, it floods the gmail inbox with emails that are only half integrated into the sharing tool, they allow comments and moderation to be performed from them, however archiving and deletion have no effect on the sharing tool post itself. It's like a separate copy of the post was sent to gmail that has shortcuts in it to perform some of the convenience actions. This is a problem for me because the big thing I like about google is centralization, having two copies of a post sent to me seems to make management more difficult and just creates clutter.

Edit: this post is getting spammed a lot so I am trying to reword it to cut down on spam.

google docs

Google docs recently came out with a new feature that I have been waiting for for awhile. It now allows you to add all types of files, not just those supported by docs themselves. This is great in that now I have one central place to save all my most important documents.

Unfortunately storage is still limited to 1GB so I still use skydrive.live.com for longer term storage of documents that I need to save but might not need to access quite as frequently. Skydrive is pretty week on features still, but it offers more storage than any other free service I have found.