TransactionFlow in WCF from Visual Studio 2010 Express

Question

I'm trying to get started with transactions in WCF, using the free Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. It gives me the option to create a "WCF Service Application" but it doesn't appear to give me many options for hosting it or configuring different bindings. If I F5 the project I get the error:

At least one operation on the 'Service' contract is configured with the TransactionFlowAttribute attribute set to Mandatory but the channel's binding 'BasicHttpBinding' is not configured with a TransactionFlowBindingElement. The TransactionFlowAttribute attribute set to Mandatory cannot be used without a TransactionFlowBindingElement.

I've tried adding in */services/service/endpoint configuration into the web.config but it appears to just be ignored. I also tried to change the default startup application to WcfSvcHost.exe but this option is greyed out. I'm beginning to suspect the Express edition of some failings but am optimistic that it's just me being a dunce. Is there a trick I need to learn, or will splashing out on the full version of Visual Studio 2010 be enough to get me over this hurdle and onto the next one?

Thanks!

I'm using the vanilla example from the "WCF Service Application", only I added a TransactionFlow attribute to one of the operations in the service contract. There were no services defined in the Web.config. I don't know what reflection magic is going on, but even though I tried setting up the endpoint with wsHttpBinding (note the error message is always BasicHttpBinding) I had no luck. — Jono, Jun 22 '11 at 12:50

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '11 at 08:11

Without knowing your configuration and service contract it is almost impossible to make targeted answer. If you think that your configuration is ignored make sure that names used in service and endpoint/@contract contains CLR namespaces.

WCF 4 uses nice simplified configuration which IMHO made real configuration much bigger pain then it was before. You can switch defaults by adding this to your web config:

<protocolMapping>
  <remove scheme="http" />
  <add scheme="http" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="transactionFlowEnabled"/>
</protocolMapping>
<bindings>
  <wsHttpBinding>
    <binding name="transactionFlowEnabled" transactionFlow="true" />
  </wsHttpBinding>
</bindings>

This is workaround which should use defined binding as default instead of basicHttpBinding.

Both of your answers are spot on. Thanks! – Jono Jun 22 '11 at 15:04 — Jono, Jun 22 '11 at 15:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '11 at 14:58

1

Thanks to Ladislav's suggestion, I was able to solve this by adding the following entries into the Web.config file:

<services>
  <service name="WcfService1.Service1">
    <endpoint
      address=""
      binding="wsHttpBinding"
      contract="WcfService1.IService1"
      />
  </service>
</services>

and:

<bindings>
  <wsHttpBinding>
    <binding transactionFlow="true"/>
  </wsHttpBinding>
</bindings>

answered Jun 22 '11 at 14:58

Jono

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where did you write this in the web.config of the server or of the client? – Para Apr 11 '12 at 14:20

TransactionFlow in WCF from Visual Studio 2010 Express

2 Answers2