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ASP.NET Web Application - on deploy, System.Speech.dll object not getting set to an instance of an object

I have an ASP.NET web application that uses System.Speech to transform text to a WAV file. It works fine locally but when I deploy it to the server, I get the below error message. This is using Windows Server 2012, ASP.NET 4.5, and IIS 8.5:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
System.Speech
at System.Speech.Internal.ObjectTokens.RegistryDataKey..ctor(String fullPath, RegistryDataKey copyKey)
at System.Speech.Internal.ObjectTokens.SAPICategories.DefaultDeviceOut()
at System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.VoiceSynthesis..ctor(WeakReference speechSynthesizer)
at System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer.get_VoiceSynthesizer()
at QuinnSDS.handlerTransform.<>c__DisplayClass6.<ProcessRequest>b__1()
The code which is generating this error message runs on the server:
if (context.Request.ContentLength > 0)
{
string line = new StreamReader(context.Request.InputStream).ReadToEnd();
// ********* generate wav file voicing the response *****************
// Using Microsoft voices
// initiate new instance of speech synthesizer
Thread t = new Thread(() =>
{
try
{
// The object creation works fine
System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer synth = new System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer();
if (synth != null)
{
// The code breaks at synth.GetInstalledVoices() below. It will break any time I try to do anything with the synth object
foreach (System.Speech.Synthesis.InstalledVoice voice in synth.GetInstalledVoices())
{
System.Speech.Synthesis.VoiceInfo info = voice.VoiceInfo;
string voiceName = info.Name;
ws.WriteLine(voiceName);
}
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
ws.WriteLine(e.Message);
ws.WriteLine(e.Source);
ws.WriteLine(e.StackTrace);
}
//... code continues...
It does not break when the Speech Synthesis object is created; it breaks whenever I try to use that object in any way.
I'm not sure if it's an access issue but I'm pretty new to ASP.NET and IIS and I can't figure out how to give the web app access to the GAC or if that's even what the problem is. I tried changing the property Local Copy for the System.Speech reference to True in Visual Studio, before I deploy the app, but that hasn't worked. I searched online and while the "object reference not set to an instance of an object" seems fairly common, I cannot find any similar issues where it is because of a .NET framework class library...I have run the text-to-speech code locally on the server and it ran fine. I have not run the entire app locally on the server because the web app requires speech input and there is not a microphone on the server.
Any ideas of anything to try would be most welcome!

What user account is the code running under when executed from ASP.NET? If the Speech API is touching the registry like the call stack suggests, it possibly has different permissions than the account you used to run the code manually.
If you can't just make the application pool for your site run with the same account you log into the machine with, I've had some success using Process Monitor to track down this kind of problem before. Basically, execute the code that fails while Process Monitor is running and look for 'ACCESS DENIED' in the 'Result' column (or anything else that looks suspicious). Quickly switching the application pool to use your standard user account will be the fastest way to rule out security or permission related problems though.

Converting Microsoft EWS StreamingNotification Example to a service

I've been working to try and convert Microsoft's EWS Streaming Notification Example to a service
( MS source http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27154).
I tested it as a console app. I then used a generic service template and got it to the point it would compile, install, and start. It stops after about 10 seconds with the ubiquitous "the service on local computer started and then stopped."
So I went back in and upgraded to C# 2013 express and used NLog to put a bunch of log trace commands to so I could see where it was when it exited.
The last place I can find it is in the example code, SynchronizationChanges function,
public static void SynchronizeChanges(FolderId folderId)
{
logger.Trace("Entering SynchronizeChanges");
bool moreChangesAvailable;
do
{
logger.Trace("Synchronizing changes...");
//Console.WriteLine("Synchronizing changes...");
// Get all changes since the last call. The synchronization cookie is stored in the
// _SynchronizationState field.
// Only the the ids are requested. Additional properties should be fetched via GetItem
//calls.
logger.Trace("Getting changes into var changes.");
var changes = _ExchangeService.SyncFolderItems(folderId, PropertySet.IdOnly, null, 512,
SyncFolderItemsScope.NormalItems,
_SynchronizationState);
// Update the synchronization cookie
logger.Trace("Updating _SynchronizationState");
the log file shows the trace message ""Getting changes into var changes." but not the "Updating _SynchronizationState" message.
so it never gets past var changes = _ExchangeService.SyncFolderItems
I cannot for the life figure out why its just exiting. There are many examples of EWS streaming notifications. I have 3 that compile and run just fine but nobody as far as I can tell has posted an example of it done as a service.

If you don't see the "Updating..." message it's likely the sync threw an exception. Wrap it in a try/catch.
OK, so now that I see the error, this looks like your garden-variety permissions problem. When you ran this as a console app, you likely presented the default credentials to Exchange, which were for your login ID. For a Windows service, if you're running the service with one of the built-in accounts (e.g. Local System), your default credentials will not have access to Exchange.
To rectify, either (1) run the service under the account you did the console app with, or (2) add those credentials to the Exchange Service object.

WCF C# webservice returns nothing, ends client unexpectedly

I have several web services residing on a LIVE server that return data to a client. For some reason since I have moved the services from TEST server to the LIVE server the services are breaking.
My logs indicate that the services are executing correctly serverside but on the client side 'nothing' is returned. I.e. the client exists unexpectedly and the local variables defined 'do not exist in the correct context' when debugging.
PDFLive.PDFServiceClient client = new PDFLive.PDFServiceClient();
string[] response = client2.ReceiptPDF("document string");
string foo = "othercodetobeexecuted";
If I debug over this code, it will attempt to execute 'string[] response ...' and then just skip over the other code and end the client without returning any errors or exceptions and making the local variables
string[] response
and
string foo
'Non existent in the current context'
I have enabled Diagnostics in my web.config and they indicate no errors. Again on the serverside the code executes correctly its the return data that isnt reaching the client or reaching the client but not being processed correctly on the client side.
Ive tried creating the default WCF project and deploying it on my LIVE server and consuming it externally alas, same issue. Could it be something on the Server that is disallowing data to be sent?
I have searched high and low but without any meaningful error being returned its difficult to know what the issue could be. Has anyone had any experience with this issue or come across it in anyway?
I can consume the service via an external test client but when adding a service reference to a C# project it displays the behaviour mentioned above.
SOLVED:
I had to uncheck 'optimize' code in the project settings and my debugger works perfectly now. I got the idea from this post A curious case of Visual Studio 2010 debugger

SOLVED: I had to uncheck 'optimize' code in the project settings and my debugger works perfectly now. I got the idea from this post A curious case of Visual Studio 2010 debugger

Problem with calling Console application (WCF Service) from webform

I am using a ASP.net webform application to run an existing console application which get all records from DB and send them through a third party WCF service. Locally everything is working fine. When I run the application it opens the console, gets the records and sends them. But now I pushed my files over to Test server along with the exe file and related config files. But when I access the application through the browser (test url) I get the same error message time and again and I don't see the console window. Sometimes everything works fine but never two times in a row.
The error message is:
"There was no end point listening at '.....svc' that could accept message. This is often caused by incorrect address or soap action.
System.net.webexception. Remote name could not be resolved
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream
at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpOutput.Webrequest.HttpOutput.GetOutputStream()
The code I have used in the webform to call console application is:
ProcessStartInfo p = new ProcessStartInfo();
p.Arguments = _updateNow.ToString();
p.FileName="something";
p.UseShellExecute = false;// tried true too without luck
Process.Start(p);
Error message denotes "there is no end point" and sounds like there is problem with the WCF service but if I double click the executable in Test there is no problem. What could be the possible problem or should I redo the console application functionality to my main webform application?
Update: After adding Thread.Sleep(3000) after Process.Start(p), I'm having no problem. So seems like main application is not waiting for the batch process to complete. How to solve this problem?

It seems like there is a short delay between starting the console application and the WCF web service becoming initialise and available to use - this is to be expected.
You could either:
Work around the issue using Thread.Sleep() and possibly with a couple of catch - retry blocks.
You could have the console application report to the creating process when it is ready to recieve requests (for example by having it write to the standard output and using redirected streams).
However at this point I'd probably reconsider the architecutre slightly - starting a new process is relativley costly, and on top of that initialising a WCF serice is also relatively costly too. If this is being done once per request then as well as the above timing issues you are also incurring performance penalties.
Is it not possible to change the architecutre slightly so that a single external process (for example a Windows service) is used for all requests instead of spawning a new process each time?

Mathematica .Net/Link in an Asp.Net application

I am using the Mathematica .Net/Link platform to create a web service to format and calculate math problems. However I am unable to get it working.
I create it using this code:
_Log.IpDebug("Starting the Kernel Link");
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(_MathLinkArguments))
_InternelKernel = MathLinkFactory.CreateKernelLink();
else
_InternelKernel = MathLinkFactory.CreateKernelLink(_MathLinkArguments);
_Log.IpDebug("Kernel Link Started");
_InternelKernel.WaitAndDiscardAnswer();
The value of _MathLinkArguments is -linkmode launch -linkname \"C:\\Program Files\\Wolfram Research\\Mathematica\\7.0\\Math.exe\".
This piece of code is called from the Application_Start method of the global.asax.cs file.
When it gets to the WaitAndDiscardAnswer() call it gives the server error:
Error code: 11. Connected MathLink program has closed the link, but there might still be data underway.
Note: The SampleCode given with the .NET/Link package (both a console app and a WinForms app) works.
Edit:
I copied the console app sample code given with Mathematica into an asp.net page and it gave me the same error the first load and then on subsequent loads it gave me:
Error code: 1. MathLink connection was lost.
Edit2:
I forgot to mention that when I have procmon and task manager open while running my app, I can tell that Math.exe starts but it immediately exits, which makes those error code make complete sense...but doesn't explain why that happened.

To allow the .Net/Link to work in Asp.net (at least in IIS 7.5) you need to enable the property loadUserProfile on the app pool for the web site.
I am not entirely sure why this is the case, but from what I found while trying to debug this, there are some things that are gotten from the user's profile. I know for a fact that the default location of the kernel is, which explains why I couldn't use it with no arguments, and so I can only assume that other things are needed as well and without the profile it couldn't determine that.
But whatever the reason is this is required, it is, or at least it is a fix if you are getting similar problems like this in your own application.

I got the same error in a .Net WinForm application.
mathKernel = new MathKernel();
mathKernel.Compute("<< XYZ`XYZGraphs`");
The error occurred on loading the package straight after instantiating the MathKernel.
To resolve it you can wait a couple of seconds and then instantiating the MathKernel works fine. During this state where there might still be data underway the following conditions are both false:
if (!MathKernel.IsConnected)
{
MathKernel.Connect();
}
if (MathKernel.IsComputing)
{
MathKernel.Abort();
}
Edit:
I've recieved the error again and this time was able to determine the problem.
Using a command line open the MathKernel.exe and view the error message: