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XML File produced in a .NET web app works locally, but the content is empty in production

I have a .NET 7 web app, where I have a controller that results in a sitemap.xml file. When I run the application locally, I get an XML file as a result with this content:
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"/>
And it looks like this:
However, when this is pushed to production (everything is hosted as a web app on Azure), the same endpoint returns nothing. It does recognize the endpoint and looks like this:
My code to generate this, is shown below:
[Route("/sitemap.xml")]
public async Task SitemapXml()
{
var countries = await _countryService.GetBySpecificationAsync(new CountrySpecification()
{
Take = int.MaxValue
});
Response.ContentType = "application/xml";
using (var xml = XmlWriter.Create(Response.Body, new XmlWriterSettings { Indent = true }))
{
xml.WriteStartDocument();
xml.WriteStartElement("urlset", "http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9");
xml.WriteEndElement();
}
}
My question:
I am completely lost. At first I thought it was because I didn't add support for static files and this is considered a static file, but I do have:
app.UseStaticFiles();
In the Program.cs.
Any hints where I should be starting?

I spent some time this week wanting to answer this question, and I have time now.
The main issue with your attempt is you are not returning XML results. To do so I suggest using IActionResult interface.
Now time to create sitemap.xml. IMO there are 2 ways to go from here, either using a library OR writing your own sitemap method.
I will start with a library. For instance, there is a very simple library (NuGet) called SimpleMvcSitemap.Core. Install it in your project, and in your controller insert the following code:
[Route("/sitemap.xml")]
public async Task<IActionResult> SitemapXml()
{
// your await call etc
List<SitemapNode> nodes = new List<SitemapNode>
{
new SitemapNode(Url.Action("Index","Home")),
new SitemapNode(Url.Action("About","Home")),
//other nodes
};
return new SitemapProvider().CreateSitemap(new SitemapModel(nodes));
}
Btw for this test, I created an asp.net MVC .net 7 project.
I have deployed the solution to azure and it works both on local development and on azure. Here is the result:
If you do want to do it manually, you can do following
var listUrls = new List<string>
{
Url.Action("Index", "Home"),
Url.Action("About", "Home")
};
return new SitemapResult(listUrls);
And here is the implementation:
public class SitemapResult : ActionResult
{
private readonly IEnumerable<string> _urls;
public SitemapResult(IEnumerable<string> urls)
{
_urls = urls;
}
public override async Task ExecuteResultAsync(ActionContext context)
{
if (context == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(context));
}
var response = context.HttpContext.Response;
response.ContentType = "application/xml; charset=utf-8";
var settings = new XmlWriterSettings() { Async = true, Encoding = Encoding.UTF8, Indent = false };
using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(response.Body, settings))
{
WriteToXML(writer);
await writer.FlushAsync();
}
}
private void WriteToXML(XmlWriter writer)
{
writer.WriteStartDocument();
// Write the urlset.
writer.WriteStartElement("urlset", "http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9");
// url element
foreach (var item in _urls)
{
writer.WriteStartElement("url");
// loc
writer.WriteStartElement("loc");
writer.WriteValue(item);
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteEndElement();
}
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteEndDocument();
}
}
The manual way is also deployed on azure and works, but in the manual way you need to do a lot of work that is already done in a library. To be fair both above outcome is inspired form the question How to dynamically create a sitemap.xml in .NET core 2?.

from this msdn magazine: "A controller that returns void will produce an EmptyResult." I assume this holds true also for Task.
So maybe you need to change your return type of your method from Task to Task<IActionResult> (or whatever suits you most) and return the content with any of these availablle methods.
Then though, I cannot understand why without these mods is currently working locally.

Credentials - Microsoft reporting library

I have problem with Microsoft.Reporting library. I need to access SQL reporting services and I have report name, address of the server and username and password. First of all I need to get all parameters needed for one specific report.
Here is my implementation so far :
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms;
namespace ConsoleApp1
{
class Program
{
static IEnumerable<DataSourceCredentials> CredentialsEnumerable()
{
var credentials = new DataSourceCredentials
{
Name = #"domain\account",
Password = #"password"
};
yield return credentials;
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var credentials = new DataSourceCredentials
{
Name = #"domain\account",
Password = #"password"
};
var report = new ReportViewer
{
ProcessingMode = ProcessingMode.Remote
};
report.ServerReport.ReportPath = #"/Archiv/Daily sales";
report.ServerReport.ReportServerUrl = new Uri(#"http://serverIPaddress/reportserver");
report.ServerReport.SetDataSourceCredentials(credentials);
foreach (var param in report.ServerReport.GetParameters())
{
Console.WriteLine(param.ToString());
}
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
But I have problem with my code and mainly with :
report.ServerReport.SetDataSourceCredentials(credentials);
I am getting error, that it´s not possible to transfer from Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.DataSourceCredentials to System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable
I have already tryid to use variable "credentials" and created IEnumerable class but it´s not working.
Can you please suggest what is wrong with my code? How to fix it and provide credentials for reporting server? Without credentials I am getting error "Not authorized"
Thank you in advance

Problem solved - wrong credentials parameter.
Instead of :
report.ServerReport.SetDataSourceCredentials(credentials);
I used
report.ServerReport.ReportServerCredentials.NetworkCredentials = credentials;
And it´s working !

Check if Raven Db exist?

how do I check programmatically if my Raven Db (http://ravendb.net/) called "Test" exist?
Best regards

EnsureDatabaseExists is an extension method on IDatabaseCommands defined in the Raven.Client.Extensions namespace.
To make it work you need to add a using statement for this namespace.
using Raven.Client;
using Raven.Client.Extensions;
using (DocumentStore store = new DocumentStore()
{
Url = "http://localhost:8080/" ;
})
{
store.Initialize();
store.DatabaseCommands.EnsureDatabaseExists("SomeDatabase");
}
This is an extensions method I use for that:
public static bool DatabaseExists(this IDocumentStore documentStore,
string databaseName)
{
var headers = documentStore.DatabaseCommands.Head("Raven/Databases/" + databaseName);
return headers != null;
}
Easily called:
bool exists = documentStore.DatabaseExists("foo");
This works when your documentStore is pointed at raven's default
system database. If you set a DefaultDatabase on the document store,
I don't believe it would work properly.

Programmatically setting the 'Connect as' user in IIS7 using C#

I'm attempting to do this using the following code snippet, but the FindElement keeps giving me errors indicating it doesn't exist in the current context. Ultimately what I'm trying to do is set the username and password the website uses in the connect as area. This is different from the impersonation user.
using Microsoft.Web.Administration;
using Microsoft.Web.Management;
using Microsoft.Web.Media.TransformManager.Common;
using Microsoft.Web.Media.TransformManager;
using System.Web.Configuration;
using System.Collections;
Configuration config = iisManager.GetApplicationHostConfiguration();
ConfigurationSection sitesSection = config.GetSection("system.applicationHost/sites");
ConfigurationElementCollection sitesCollection = sitesSection.GetCollection();
ConfigurationElement siteElement = FindElement(sitesCollection, "site", "name", #"Default Web Site");
ConfigurationElementCollection applicationCollection = siteElement.GetCollection();
ConfigurationElement applicationElement = FindElement(applicationCollection, "application", "path", #"/MyNewVirtualDir");
ConfigurationElementCollection virtualDirCollection = applicationElement.GetCollection();
ConfigurationElement virtualDirElement = FindElement(virtualDirCollection, "virtualDirectory", "path", #"/");
virtualDirElement.Attributes["userName"].Value = "MYDOMAIN\\MyUser";
virtualDirElement.Attributes["password"].Value = "MyPassword";
EDIT : So as I was staring at the question after beating my head against this for a few days, I discovered you can accomplish this using ServerManager in the following context.
ServerManager iisManager = new ServerManager()
site = iisManager.Sites.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Name.Contains("Default"));
site.VirtualDirectoryDefaults.Password = tbImpersonatorPassword.Text;
site.VirtualDirectoryDefaults.UserName = tbImpersonatorUser.Text;

So as I was staring at the question after beating my head against this for a few days, and apparently you can accomplish this using Servermanager in the following context.
ServerManager iisManager = new ServerManager()
site = iisManager.Sites.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Name.Contains("Default"));
site.VirtualDirectoryDefaults.Password = tbImpersonatorPassword.Text;
site.VirtualDirectoryDefaults.UserName = tbImpersonatorUser.Text;

Setting the Username and Password on the VirtualDirectoryDefaults may not yield the results you are looking for. Instead you may want to locate the app within this Site object whose path is the root (hence the .Path.Equals("/") filter on the query), then modify that apps Virtual Directory username and password.
This can be accomplished with the following method (Please Note: this method assumes that you have already located the desired Site via a search on the ServerManagers Sites collection and that you are passing that Site object into this method). Be sure to dispose of the ServerManager object when you are done in order to avoid a memory leak.
public static void SetConnectAsAccount(Site site, string username, string password)
{
if (site == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("site");
}
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(username))
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("username");
}
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(password))
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("password");
}
foreach (var app in site.Applications.Where(c => c.Path.Equals("/")))
{
try
{
// set the Connect-As Accounts login credentials to the Service Acount
var appVirDir = app.VirtualDirectories.Where(c => c.Path.Equals("/")).FirstOrDefault();
if (appVirDir != null)
{
appVirDir.UserName = username;
appVirDir.Password = password;
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// log your exception somewhere so you know what went wrong
}
}
}

Amazon API, Product Advertising API , ItemSearch, C#

I'm trying to get use the new product amazon API to search for products on Amazon. I've been looking at their sample code and other people's examples of this but I'm not getting back any results and wondering if anyone else has used the API recently and could provide some assistance?
using System;
using System.ServiceModel;
using Simple.Amazon.ECS;
namespace Simple {
class Program {
// your Amazon ID's
private const string accessKeyId = "*******************";
private const string secretKey = "************************************";
// the program starts here
static void Main(string[] args) {
// create a WCF Amazon ECS client
BasicHttpBinding binding = new BasicHttpBinding(BasicHttpSecurityMode.Transport);
binding.MaxReceivedMessageSize = int.MaxValue;
AWSECommerceServicePortTypeClient client = new AWSECommerceServicePortTypeClient(
binding,
new EndpointAddress("https://webservices.amazon.com/onca/soap?Service=AWSECommerceService"));
// add authentication to the ECS client
client.ChannelFactory.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(new AmazonSigningEndpointBehavior(accessKeyId, secretKey));
// prepare an ItemSearch request
ItemSearchRequest request = new ItemSearchRequest();
request.SearchIndex = "Books";
request.Title = "WCF";
request.ResponseGroup = new string[] { "Small" };
ItemSearch itemSearch = new ItemSearch();
itemSearch.Request = new ItemSearchRequest[] { request };
itemSearch.AWSAccessKeyId = accessKeyId;
// issue the ItemSearch request
ItemSearchResponse response = client.ItemSearch(itemSearch);
// write out the results
foreach (var item in response.Items[0].Item) {
Console.WriteLine(item.ItemAttributes.Title);
}
}
}
}
All the samples/examples are similar to this in structure but when it comes to the foreach loop there are no items returned(Null) so I get a null exception error.

if the solution above still won't work.
try this one..
download the sample code on http://www.falconwebtech.com/post/2010/06/14/Using-WCF-and-SOAP-to-Send-Amazon-Product-Advertising-API-Signed-Requests.aspx
we need to update service references, make little change at app.config, program.cs, and reference.cs.
app.config:
(1.) appSettings tag;
assign accessKeyId and secretKey value,
add .
(2.) behaviours tag -> endpointBehaviors tag -> behaviour tag -> signingBehavior tag;
assign accessKeyId and secretKey value.
(3.) bindings tag -> basicHttpBinding tag; (optional)
delete binding tag except AWSECommerceServiceBindingNoTransport
and AWSECommerceServiceBindingTransport.
(4.) client tag;
delete endpoint tag except AWSECommerceServiceBindingTransport.
program.cs:
add itemSearch.AssociateTag = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["associateTag"]; before ItemSearchResponse response = amazonClient.ItemSearch(itemSearch);
reference.cs: (open file in service references folder using visual studio)
change private ImageSet[][] imageSetsField; to private ImageSet[] imageSetsField;
change public ImageSet[][] ImageSets {...} to public ImageSet[] ImageSets {...}
finally we can run our program and it will work. good luck..
nb: i use microsoft visual studio 2010.
there will be 1 warning (invalid child element signing behaviour), i think we can ignore it, or if you have any solution please share.. ^^v..

This is a wsdl error, I use link below to fix it:
https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=86989