This is Microsoft's recommended way to handle WCF client calls:
For more detail see: Expected Exceptions
try { ... double result = client.Add(value1, value2); ... client.Close(); } catch (TimeoutException exception) { Console.WriteLine("Got {0}", exception.GetType()); client.Abort(); } catch (CommunicationException exception) { Console.WriteLine("Got {0}", exception.GetType()); client.Abort(); } Additional information So many people seem to be asking this question on WCF that Microsoft even created a dedicated sample to demonstrate how to handle exceptions:
c:\WF_WCF_Samples\WCF\Basic\Client\ExpectedExceptions\CS\client
Considering that there are so many issues involving the using statement, (heated?) Internal discussions and threads on this issue, I'm not going to waste my time trying to become a code cowboy and find a cleaner way. I'll just suck it up, and implement WCF clients this verbose (yet trusted) way for my server applications.
Optional Additional Failures to catch
Many exceptions derive from CommunicationException and I don't think most of those exceptions should be retried. I drudged through each exception on MSDN and found a short list of retry-able exceptions (in addition to TimeOutException above). Do let me know if I missed an exception that should be retried.
// The following is typically thrown on the client when a channel is terminated due to the server closing the connection. catch (ChannelTerminatedException cte) { secureSecretService.Abort(); // todo: Implement delay (backoff) and retry } // The following is thrown when a remote endpoint could not be found or reached. The endpoint may not be found or // reachable because the remote endpoint is down, the remote endpoint is unreachable, or because the remote network is unreachable. catch (EndpointNotFoundException enfe) { secureSecretService.Abort(); // todo: Implement delay (backoff) and retry } // The following exception that is thrown when a server is too busy to accept a message. catch (ServerTooBusyException stbe) { secureSecretService.Abort(); // todo: Implement delay (backoff) and retry } Admittedly, this is a bit of mundane code to write. I currently prefer this answerthis answer, and don't see any "hacks" in that code that may cause issues down the road.
