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I've encountered this apparently common problem and have been unable to resolve it.

If I call my WCF web service with a relatively small number of items in an array parameter (I've tested up to 50), everything is fine.

However if I call the web service with 500 items, I get the Bad Request error.

Interestingly, I've run Wireshark on the server and it appears that the request isn't even hitting the server - the 400 error is being generated on the client side.

The exception is:

System.ServiceModel.ProtocolException: The remote server returned an unexpected response: (400) Bad Request. ---> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.

The system.serviceModel section of my client config file is:

 <system.serviceModel> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="WSHttpBinding_IMyService" closeTimeout="00:01:00" openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="2147483647" maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" /> <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="false" /> <security mode="None"> <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" /> <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" establishSecurityContext="true" /> </security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> <client> <endpoint address="http://serviceserver/MyService.svc" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_IMyService" contract="SmsSendingService.IMyService" name="WSHttpBinding_IMyService" /> </client> </system.serviceModel>

On the server side, my web.config file has the following system.serviceModel section:

<system.serviceModel> <services> <service name="MyService.MyService" behaviorConfiguration="MyService.MyServiceBehaviour" > <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="MyService.MyServiceBinding" contract="MyService.IMyService"> </endpoint> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/> </service> </services> <bindings> <wsHttpBinding> <binding name="MyService.MyServiceBinding"> <security mode="None"></security> </binding> </wsHttpBinding> </bindings> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name="MyService.MyServiceBehaviour"> <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment --> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/> <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information --> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> </system.serviceModel>

I've looked at a fairly large number of answers to this question with no success.

Can anyone help me with this?

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4
  • If it's not hitting the server, maybe there is something wrong with the data being sent. Maybe there are some illegal characters in the request? Also assuming this is SOAP Commented Apr 24, 2009 at 5:26
  • 1
    So you've tried setting all your 'max' attributes (eg. maxReceivedMessageSize...) to a really high number? Commented Apr 24, 2009 at 5:26
  • Yes, it's SOAP. And there shouldn't be anything wrong with the request - as I said, everything works fine for up to 50 elements generated with the same application... Commented Apr 24, 2009 at 5:27
  • @mundeep - yep - I tried setting all of them to 2147483647, but no luck there. Some of the pages I linked to actually suggested it was a bad thing to do it for all of the attributes... Commented Apr 24, 2009 at 5:28

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
108

Try setting maxReceivedMessageSize on the server too, e.g. to 4MB:

<binding name="MyService.MyServiceBinding" maxReceivedMessageSize="4194304">

The main reason the default (65535 I believe) is so low is to reduce the risk of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. You need to set it bigger than the maximum request size on the server, and the maximum response size on the client. If you're in an Intranet environment, the risk of DoS attacks is probably low, so it's probably safe to use a value much higher than you expect to need.

By the way a couple of tips for troubleshooting problems connecting to WCF services:

  • Enable tracing on the server as described in this MSDN article.

  • Use an HTTP debugging tool such as Fiddler on the client to inspect the HTTP traffic.

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1 Comment

Useful blog post: geekswithblogs.net/smyers/archive/2011/10/05/… - I just want to point out to people reading this answer that the above code snippet in the answer should go into the bindings section of your binding. Ex: Let's let the binding be basicHttpBinding: <bindings><basicHttpBinding><binding ... /><readerQuotas ... /></basicHttpBinding></bindings> - also the <readerQuotas maxArrayLength="" /> may have to be set (I had to).
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For what it is worth, an additional consideration when using .NET 4.0 is that if a valid endpoint is not found in your configuration, a default endpoint will be automatically created and used.

The default endpoint will use all default values so if you think you have a valid service configuration with a large value for maxReceivedMessageSize etc., but there is something wrong with the configuration, you would still get the 400 Bad Request since a default endpoint would be created and used.

This is done silently so it is hard to detect. You will see messages to this effect (e.g. 'No Endpoint found for Service, creating Default Endpoint' or similar) if you turn on tracing on the server but there is no other indication (to my knowledge).

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@user469104: Very good tip. Thanks. Is there a way to force the server to use a hand-declared endpoint without overwriting the default ServiceHost?
8

I was also getting this issue also however none of the above worked for me as I was using a custom binding (for BinaryXML) after an long time digging I found the answer here: Sending large XML from Silverlight to WCF

As am using a customBinding, the maxReceivedMessageSize has to be set on the httpTransport element under the binding element in the web.config:

<httpsTransport maxReceivedMessageSize="4194304" />
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6

In the server in .NET 4.0 in web.config you also need to change in the default binding. Set the follwowing 3 parms:

<basicHttpBinding> <!-- http://www.intertech.com/Blog/post/NET-40-WCF-Default-Bindings.aspx Enable transfer of large strings with maxBufferSize, maxReceivedMessageSize and maxStringContentLength --> <binding **maxBufferSize="2147483647" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647"**> <readerQuotas **maxStringContentLength="2147483647"**/> </binding> </basicHttpBinding>
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5

It might be useful to debug the client, turn off Tools\Options\Debugging\General\'Enable Just My Code', click Debug\Exceptions\'catch all first-chance exceptions' for managed CLR exceptions, and see if there is an exception under-the-hood on the client before the protocol exception and before the message hits the wire. (My guess would be some kind of serialization failure.)

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5

You can also turn on WCF logging for more information about the original error. This helped me solve this problem.

Add the following to your web.config, it saves the log to C:\log\Traces.svclog

<system.diagnostics> <sources> <source name="System.ServiceModel" switchValue="Information, ActivityTracing" propagateActivity="true"> <listeners> <add name="traceListener" type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener" initializeData= "c:\log\Traces.svclog" /> </listeners> </source> </sources> </system.diagnostics>
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Sometimes the simplest answers are the best. For me I found that I was returning a null Stream object in a stream response call. The svclog solved this in seconds. Thanks.
4

Just want to point out

Apart from MaxRecivedMessageSize, there are also attributes under ReaderQuotas, you might hit number of items limit instead of size limit. MSDN link is here

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4

I found the answer to the Bad Request 400 problem.

It was the default server binding setting. You would need to add to server and client default setting.

<binding name="" openTimeout="00:10:00" closeTimeout="00:10:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:10:00" maxReceivedMessageSize="2147483647" maxBufferPoolSize="2147483647" maxBufferSize="2147483647"> <security mode="None"/> <readerQuotas maxStringContentLength="2147483647"/> </binding>
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2

In my case, it was not working even after trying all solutions and setting all limits to max. In last I found out that a Microsoft IIS filtering module Url Scan 3.1 was installed on IIS/website, which have it's own limit to reject incoming requests based on content size and return "404 Not found page".

It's limit can be updated in %windir%\System32\inetsrv\urlscan\UrlScan.ini file by setting MaxAllowedContentLength to the required value.

For eg. following will allow upto 300 mb requests

MaxAllowedContentLength=314572800

Hope it will help someone!

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