Call Web API from MVC Controller Hanging Up - c#

I've tried many different approaches for the past couple of hours, but my method call is hanging up the thread.
Here is my Web API code, which works fine when making AJAX call from the MVC client, but I'm trying to test calling from the server:
// GET api/values
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<string> Get()
{
return new string[] { "value1", "value2" };
}
Below is my MVC controller code and model code:
public async Task<ActionResult> TestApi()
{
try
{
var result = await VoipModels.GetValues();
return MVCUtils.JsonContent(result);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return MVCUtils.HandleError(ex);
}
}
...
public static async Task<string[]> GetValues()
{
string[] result = null;
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
client.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:44305/api/");
//THIS IS THE LINE THAT HANGS UP - I'VE TRIED MANY VARIATIONS
var response = await client.GetAsync("values", HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead).ConfigureAwait(false);
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
result = await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<string[]>();
}
else
{
throw new Exception(response.ReasonPhrase);
}
}
return result;
}
I've used this format successfully when calling a separate, 3rd party API. I've run out of examples to try from my couple of hours of Googling.
What am I doing wrong here?

Check your port number. Based on your code, you have "hard coded" the port "http://localhost:44305/api/" which may likely be incorrect, you should convert that to grab it from the host
configuration instead.
Check your local machine's firewall. Make sure that your local machine's firewall is allowing connections to the port assigned.
Check your protocol. Ensure that you are using http or https appropriately in your request URL.
As a special note, there are very rare cases / exception cases that you would want to have a web API server call itself. Doing so, is rather inefficient design as it will consume resources for no gain (such a generating request and response).

Related

How to wait for all clients to answer to a request?

I have an ASP.NET core WebApi project which also uses SignalR to communicate with clients. This app has an action that is called by a third-party service and requires that all clients currently connected should send some info back.
The SignalR infrastructure is already being used between the server and clients, so I added this particular action:
public async Task<ActionResult> GetClientInfo()
{
await hubContext.Clients.All.GetClientInfo();
//var infos...
return Ok(infos);
}
So basically, this is what should happen:
The third-party service calls the action
The server asks all clients to send their info
The server returns OK with all the client info
Is it possible to somehow wait and make sure that all clients sent their info before returning OK?
I implemented the code as suggested like this:
public async Task<ActionResult> GetClientInfo()
{
try
{
var tasks = new List<Task<IEnumerable<ClientInfo>>>();
foreach (var client in cache.Clients.Values)
{
tasks.Add(Task.Run(async () =>
{
return await hubContext.Clients.Client(client.Id).GetClientInfo();
}));
}
var list = await Task.WhenAll(tasks);
return Ok(list);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return InternalServerError(ex);
}
}
cache is MemoryCache implementation that is available throughout the whole app and is based on code similar to this SO answer.

How to call one service from another with parameter and get response

Currently, I have two services running at different endpoints. For example (this is not my real scenario):
StudentService
CheckHomeWorkService
CheckHomeWorkService can be used from many services (For example TeacherService, WorkerService). It has one controller with CheckHomeWork action. It has some parameters:
HomeWorkNumber (int)
ProvidedSolution (string).
It will return success or failed.
Now, In my StudentService, I have a controller with SubmitHomeWork Action. It needs to check homework using CHeckHomeWorkService and save results to a database. How can I implement this?
I was using Ocelot Api GateWay but it can 'redirect' to another service and I need to save the result of the response to the database
As suggested in the comments, you can use HttpClient to call the other APIs. However, if you want a more safe and performant solution, you can use also the HttpClientFactory.
see this why to use it
and see the official docu
After your comment you say that you have separate WEB API services
in this case you can do this service to retrieve the result :
public async Task<List<HomeWorkModel>> CheckHomeWorkService(int
homeWorkNumber, string providedSolution)
{
using (var httpClient = new HttpClient())
{
using (var response = await
httpClient.GetAsync(Constants.ApiBaseUrl + "/CheckHomeWork?n=" +
homeWorkNumber + "&sol=" + providedSolution))
{
if (response.StatusCode ==
System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)
{
string apiResponse = await
response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
return
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<HomeWorkModel>>(apiResponse);
}
else
{
return null;
}
}
}
}
public class HomeworkModel
{
Public bool Result {get; set;}
}
whereas :
"Constants.ApiBaseUrl" is http address for base Url of another API
But in case of the same API you will use old solution :
you can pass "CHeckHomeWorkService" in your controller constructor ("Dependency Injection")
and call service methods as you like

Validate multiple endpoints using HTML status codes before failing when consuming a asmx web service C#

I am currently using a web service, which offers 2 endpoints, as backups for fall over. I need to test all 2 endpoints before my code completely fails and then will need to log the exception. My thoughts were to be to return the status code of the HTML response using this:
Function1:
public string ValidateHttpRequest(string endpointUrl)
{
try
{
var url = endpointUrl;
HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient();
var reponse = httpClient.GetAsync(endpointUrl);
return reponse.Result.StatusCode.ToString();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Log.Log("exception thrown in ValidateHttpRequest()! " + ex.ToString());
Log.Log(ex);
return null;
}
}
This is called from another function, say function2().
Function 2:
private bool function2()
{
//Specify the binding to be used for the client.
BasicHttpsBinding binding = new BasicHttpsBinding();
var epA = "https://www1.endpoint1.com/endpointService.asmx";
var epB = "https://www2.endpoint1.com/endpointService.asmx";
if (ValidateHttpRequest(epA)== "OK")
{
EndpointAddress address = new EndpointAddress("https://www1.enpoint1.com/endpointService.asmx");
_Client = new WebService.SoapClient(binding, address);
return true;
}
else if ((ValidateHttpRequest(epB))== "OK")
{
EndpointAddress address2 = new EndpointAddress(("https://www2.enpoint2.com/endpointService.asmx"));
else
{
// Now Log error here completely, and only fail here if both above checks return anything apart from 200 status code
LogException(“Only log exception if all endpoints fail”);
return false;
}
}
This is all well and good, however I need this to not fail on the first call, as I will need to check if the other endpoint is valid/active. The issue is that if the response is null, the exception is handled and I will not check the rest of my endpoints, how can I correctly ensure my code is safe with i.e. exceptions are handled correctly, but continuing my code to check all endpoints before completely failing and halting execution. it should fail if i receive any other response apart from 200 OK I have researched about how to check the HTTP response and all that I can come up with is this but it doesn’t completely suit my needs .If anyone could point me in the right direction or help with a solution I would be very grateful.
Thanks in advance

Mvc Application Async Methods Are Hanging

We have SOA for our solution. We are using .net framework 4.5.1, asp.net mvc 4.6, sql server, windows server and thinktecture identity server 3 ( for token based webapi calls. )
Solution structure looks like;
Our mvc frontend application talks with our webapi application via a httpClient wrapper. Here is the generic http client wrapper code;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Cheetah.HttpClientWrapper
{
public class ResourceServerRestClient : IResourceServerRestClient
{
private readonly ITokenProvider _tokenProvider;
public ResourceServerRestClient(ITokenProvider tokenProvider)
{
_tokenProvider = tokenProvider;
}
public string BaseAddress { get; set; }
public Task<T> GetAsync<T>(string uri, string clientId)
{
return CheckAndInvokeAsync(async token =>
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
ConfigurateHttpClient(client, token, clientId);
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(uri);
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
return await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<T>();
}
var exception = new Exception($"Resource server returned an error. StatusCode : {response.StatusCode}");
exception.Data.Add("StatusCode", response.StatusCode);
throw exception;
}
});
}
private void ConfigurateHttpClient(HttpClient client, string bearerToken, string resourceServiceClientName)
{
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(resourceServiceClientName))
{
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("CN", resourceServiceClientName);
}
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(BaseAddress))
{
throw new Exception("BaseAddress is required!");
}
client.BaseAddress = new Uri(BaseAddress);
client.Timeout = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 10);
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", bearerToken);
}
private async Task<T> CheckAndInvokeAsync<T>(Func<string, Task<T>> method)
{
try
{
string token = await _tokenProvider.IsTokenNullOrExpired();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(token))
{
return await method(token);
}
var exception = new Exception();
exception.Data.Add("StatusCode", HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized);
throw exception;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
if (ex.Data.Contains("StatusCode") && ((HttpStatusCode)ex.Data["StatusCode"]) == HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized)
{
string token = await _tokenProvider.GetTokenAsync();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(token))
{
return await method(token);
}
}
throw;
}
}
public void ThrowResourceServerException(List<string> messages)
{
string message = messages.Aggregate((p, q) => q + " - " + p);
var exception = new Exception(message);
exception.Data.Add("ServiceOperationException", message);
throw exception;
}
}
}
Also, sometimes this http client wrapper using with NitoAsync manager ( Call async methods as sync. ), and sometimes we are using this generic method directly with await - async task wait like;
var result = await _resourceServerRestClient.GetAsync<ServiceOperation<DailyAgendaModel>>("dailyAgenda/" + id);
So here is our problem:
When we test our mvc application with jmeter (for making some-kind-of load test / 10 threads per 1 sec), after a couple of minutes, mvc application stops working [ exception is task canceled due to timeout ] ( maybe only 1-2 requests timeouts ) on this line: HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(uri);. But after that request, all requests will be failed like they are in row. So mvc application is hanging for 2-15 minutes ( randomly ) but in that time I can send new requests from postman to webapi. They are ok, I mean webapi is responding well. After a couple of minutes mvc application turnback to normal.
Note: We have load-balancer for mvc-ui and webapi. Because sometimes we get 120K requests in a minute in a busy day. But it gives same error if there is no load balancer in front of webapi or mvc application. So it's not LB problem.
Note2: We tried to use RestSharp for mvc-ui and webapi communication. We got same error here. When a reuqest is failing, all requests will be failed in a row. It looks like it's a network error but we can't find a proof for it.
Can you see any error on my httpClient wrapper ? or better question is;
In your solution, how is your mvc application communicating with your webapi application ? What are the best practices here ?
Update1: We moved projects .net 4.5.1 to 4.6.1. Same deadlock happened again. And than we temporary moved all source codes of the layer: "Business & Repository" as dll level. There is no webapi between business & presentation level now. Dead lock solved. We are still searching why httpClientWrapper codes are not working properly when we called webapi methods from our webapplication controllers.
better question is;
In your solution, how is your mvc application communicating with your webapi application ? What are the best practices here ?
A best practice here is for the client (browser in your case) to directly retrieve data from the Web API Controllers and for the MVC controllers to only serve pure HTML views which include layout, styles (css), visual structure, scripts (ie. javascript) etc and not the data.
Image credit: Ode to Code. Incidentally the author on that site also does not recommend your approach although it is listed as an option.
This servers as a good SOC between your views and your data allowing you more easily to make changes to either part.
It allows for the client (browser) to retrieve data asynchronously which creates for a better user experience.
By not doing this and adding a network request step in the call stack you have created an unnecessary expensive step in the flow of data (call from MVC Controller(s) to Web API deployment). The more boundaries are crossed during executing the slower the execution.
The fast solution, as you have already figured out, is to call your business code library directly from your MVC project. This will avoid the additional and unnecessary network step. There is nothing wrong with doing this and many more traditional sites serve both the view (html) and data in the same call. It makes for a more tightly coupled design but it is better than what you had.
The best long term solution is to change the MVC views so they call your Web API deployment directly. This can be done using frameworks like Angular, React, Backbone, etc. If the Web API method calls are limited and are not expected to grow you can also use JQuery or pure javascript BUT I would not try to build a complex application on this, there is a reason why frameworks like Angular have become so popular.
As to the actual underlying technical problem in this case we can't be sure without a memory dump to see what resources are causing the deadlock. It might be something as simple as making sure your MVC Action Methods are also returning async Task<ActionResult> (instead of just ActionResult which, I am guessing, is how you have them structured now) so they can call the HttpClient using an actual async/await pattern. Honestly, because its a bad design, I would not spend any time into trying to get this to work.
I'm not exactly sure whu, but I'll start by refactoring the GetAsync() method
public async Task<T> GetAsync<T>(string uri, string clientId)
{
try
{
string token = await _tokenProvider.IsTokenNullOrExpired();
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(token))
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
ConfigurateHttpClient(client, token, clientId);
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(uri);
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
return await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<T>();
}
var exception = new Exception($"Resource server returned an error. StatusCode : {response.StatusCode}");
exception.Data.Add("StatusCode", response.StatusCode);
throw exception;
}
}
else
{
var exception = new Exception();
exception.Data.Add("StatusCode", HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized);
throw exception;
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw;
}
}
You should put .ConfigureAwait(false) to your inner awaits statements:
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(uri).ConfigureAwait(false);
(...)
return await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<T>().ConfigureAwait(false);
(...)
string token = await _tokenProvider.IsTokenNullOrExpired().ConfigureAwait(false);
(...)
return await method(token).ConfigureAwait(false);;
(...)
string token = await _tokenProvider.GetTokenAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);;
(...)
return await method(token).ConfigureAwait(false);
This way you will avoid to capture the synchronization context before the await is done. Otherwise the continuation will be done in this context, which might result in a lock if this one is in use by other threads.
Doing so will allow the continuation to be done whithin the context of the task which is awaited.

What should a controller integration test assert

Doing an integration test on a web api endpoint what should I put my focus on to assert?
My endpoint is also doing a call to a domain service.
Should I mock that service? With the current code that is not possible, because I would need to instantiate the controller to pass the mock service.
Am I interested in the service return value? actually not.
I am only interested wether the endpoint was succesfully triggered but then I should isolate the service call I guess.
Any advice is welcome :-)
TEST
[TestClass]
public class SchoolyearControllerTests
{
private TestServer _server;
[TestInitialize]
public void FixtureInit()
{
_server = TestServer.Create<Startup>();
}
[TestCleanup]
public void FixtureDispose()
{
_server.Dispose();
}
[TestMethod]
public void Get()
{
var response = _server.HttpClient.GetAsync(_server.BaseAddress + "/api/schoolyears").Result;
var result = response.Content.ReadAsAsync<IEnumerable<SchoolyearDTO>>().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
Assert.AreEqual(response.StatusCode, HttpStatusCode.OK);
}
}
Action to test
[HttpGet]
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Get()
{
var schoolyears = await service.GetSchoolyears();
return Ok(schoolyears);
}
The trouble with doing an integration test on a web service is that it doesn't tell you very much about the problem - or even if there actually is one, and if there is, it doesn't tell you where the issue lies. It will either succeed or fail. So in that respect did you get a 200 response code or a 500 response code... but did it fail because:
The server was unreachable
The web service isn't started, or failed when trying to start
A firewall is blocking the network
A database record wasn't found
There's a database schema problem and entity framework didn't start
properly.
It could literally be anything - and result might be different on your dev machine than in production - so what does it really tell you about your application?
What makes for robust software is to test that your product is able to handle any of these situations correctly, gracefully and robustly.
I write my controller actions like this:
public HttpResponseMessage Get(int id)
{
try
{
var person = _personRepository.GetById(id);
var dto = Mapper.Map<PersonDto>(person);
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateResponse<PersonDto>(HttpStatusCode.OK, dto);
return response;
}
catch (TextFileDataSourceException ex)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError);
return response;
}
catch (DataResourceNotFoundException ex)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.NotFound, ex);
return response;
}
catch (FormatException ex)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError, ex);
return response;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError, ex);
return response;
}
}
A try block gets the data, makes a dto and returns the data with a 200 code. There are several error conditions handled here, but none indicate a problem with my web service itself and some (404 error) don't even indicate an issue with the application - I EXPECT a NotFoundException and a 404 if my application can't find a record - if this happens my application WORKS in this scenario.
So if any of these error conditions occur, its not because there's a problem with the web service, and not necessarily a problem with the app. But I can test that my web service is returning the correct response for any of these expected conditions.
The tests for this controller action looks like this:
[Test]
public void CanGetPerson()
{
#region Arrange
var person = new Person
{
Id = 1,
FamilyName = "Rooney",
GivenName = "Wayne",
MiddleNames = "Mark",
DateOfBirth = new DateTime(1985, 10, 24),
DateOfDeath = null,
PlaceOfBirth = "Liverpool",
Height = 1.76m,
TwitterId = "#WayneRooney"
};
Mapper.CreateMap<Person, PersonDto>();
var mockPersonRepository = new Mock<IPersonRepository>();
mockPersonRepository.Setup(x => x.GetById(1)).Returns(person);
var controller = new PersonController(mockPersonRepository.Object);
controller.Request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "1");
controller.Configuration = new HttpConfiguration(new HttpRouteCollection());
#endregion
#region act
HttpResponseMessage result = controller.Get(1);
#endregion
#region assert
Assert.AreEqual(HttpStatusCode.OK, result.StatusCode);
#endregion
}
[Test]
public void CanHandlePersonNotExists()
{
#region Arrange
var mockPersonRepository = new Mock<IPersonRepository>();
mockPersonRepository.Setup(x => x.GetById(1)).Throws<DataResourceNotFoundException>();
var controller = new PersonController(mockPersonRepository.Object)
{
Request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "1"),
Configuration = new HttpConfiguration(new HttpRouteCollection())
};
#endregion
#region Act
HttpResponseMessage result = controller.Get(1);
#endregion
#region Assert
Assert.AreEqual(HttpStatusCode.NotFound, result.StatusCode);
#endregion
}
[Test]
public void CanHandleServerError()
{
#region Arrange
var mockPersonRepository = new Mock<IPersonRepository>();
mockPersonRepository.Setup(x => x.GetById(1)).Throws<Exception>();
var controller = new PersonController(mockPersonRepository.Object);
controller.Request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "1");
controller.Configuration = new HttpConfiguration(new HttpRouteCollection());
#endregion
#region Act
HttpResponseMessage result = controller.Get(1);
#endregion
#region Assert
Assert.AreEqual(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError, result.StatusCode);
#endregion
}
Note that I'm introducing a mock respository and having my mock repository trigger the expected exceptions for 404 and server error and ensuring that the web service handles it correctly.
What this tells me is that my web service handling expected and exceptional situations as it should and returning the appropriate codes: 200/404/500.
Although some are error states and some are success states, none of these outcomes indicate a problem with my web service - it is behaving exactly as it should, and that's what I want to test.
An 'across the network' integration test on a web service tells you nothing about the robustness or correctness of your application - or even if its returning the correct data or response-code.
Don't try to re-test WebAPI... Microsoft wrote a massive suite of tests for it already - hundreds of test-fixture classes, thousands of test methods:
https://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest#test/System.Web.Http.Test/Controllers/ApiControllerTest.cs
Assume that WebAPI works as it should and doesn't require you to test it again. Focus on testing your application code and make sure success and error conditions are handled gracefully by your web service.
If you want to check your web service is connected and available on the network - open a browser and test it manually; there's no need to automate this; the result will vary between environments and according to external conditions.
Test each layer of your application the same way, mock out the layer above and test that the current layer handles every possible outcome from the layer above.
Your client application for your service should do the same thing: Mock the web service, and pretend that it gave a 404 - and check that it handles this as it should.

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