No exception thrown when connecting to an offline SQL Server - c#

When I try to access (open a connection to) an offline sql server instance (service turned off) from my web service, no exception is thrown, just a brief 5 sec timeout followed by return (I put the breakpoint way out in my controller, not sure what the connection object returns yet during the call to open).
I'm trying to simulate a scenario where the DB is not available to the webservice, and figured an exception would be thrown and I could just log the error.
Any suggestions on how to properly detect DB connection issues (I'm guessing I need to look to see what the connection object returns when calling open). It'd be nice to just have an exception bubble up though.
Thanks.

A connection timeout will be thrown for sure unless your thread is being aborted before that by a web server timeout. Placing a try/catch in your controller would certainly catch the DB connection timeout.
You should post code, as SqlConnection.Open() definitely would throw an exception but if you're using some other call/code to open the connection and it's getting swallowed then it is obviously difficult to determine a root cause.
My guess is that you are getting back a Connection object that is not connected, to check if it's connected:
if (conn.State == ConnectionState.Closed)
{
...
}

Related

How to trap when server forcebly closes HttpClient

One is encouraged to re-use HttpClient rather than making a new one for each api call.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/advanced/calling-a-web-api-from-a-net-client
My client program has a single connection that remains open.
However, if somebody stops IIS then the connection can't remain open.
In this case I get an exception that kills my client program even though I have a catch for it. (see code)
Is there some way to make the exception handler handle the exception without crashing the program?
Alternatively, is there some property of HttpClient that indicates that the server has closed it?
try
{
return await m_Client.GetAsync(AppVars.Instance.ServerAddress + method);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// getting 'An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host' kills the
// application
// getting 'No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it'
// does not kill the application - i.e. catch behaves as expected
}
I have discovered that this is caused by Visual Studio. I am debugging both the client and the server from one solution (multiple startup projects). When I close IIS Express, Visual Studio kills the client next time it tries to use the connection. If I launch a separate instance of Visual Studio and debug the client from there then the client does not get killed when I try to re-use the closed connection, i.e. the exception handling works as expected. (so I can make a new connection and retry)
Hopefully this will help anyone who experiences the same issue.

Error reading data from the connection

We have written several C# web services that have a connection to our internal Firebird 2.5.5 database.
Unfortunately the exception "Error reading data from the connection" is thrown more and more often and we don't know how to fix it.
We tried to disable pooling but this did not have the desired effect.
We also wrote a try catch block that reconnects and re-executes the SQL, but this does not seem to us to be the right solution.
Is there another option?
Here are some environment informations:
C# 7.0
.NET 4.5
Firebird Version 2.5.5
Firebird Driver 5.5.0
The Firebird log does not show any error messages at that time
The error happens from time to time with any sql statement
The problem is relatively simple: the network connection between client and server is interrupted or broken for some reason, but the State of the client connection remains Open - even though you cannot use that connection anymore. Unfortunately Firebird decided to not update this status to Broken automatically, which would make a lot more sense if you ask me.
You already figured out that reopening the connection "somewhat fixes" the problem, and we have discussed that you could do this only when FbException.ErrorCode is 335544726.
Unfortunately this does mean that any open transaction is also lost, and you cannot commit any data from it anymore. The only way I could think of to reliably recover from this situation is to rethrow the exception:
try
{
// ...
}
catch (FbException ex)
{
if (ex.ErrorCode == 335544726)
{
// close the connection (reopen depending on your application)
}
throw;
}
This way, you can catch this exception at a higher level in your application, and deal with it however is appropriate at that point - ie. retrying the entire transaction, or letting the user choose what to do.

FaultException vs Exception in WCF

I'm learning about FaultException and CLR Exceptions in the context of WCF services but something is not clear.
In the book "Learning WCF" it says that when a service throws a normal CLR Exception it's caught by the service model, the service model constructs a SOAP message from that, sends it back to the client, and the exception is thrown at the client again. There the channel is faulted.
So I've built a service which throws a NullReferenceException.
A client calls the service, catches the exception and print the CommunicationState.
try
{
x = Proxy.Call(); // throws NullReferenceException at the service
}
catch (Exception ex) // or CommunicationException is the same
{
MessageBox.Show("" + Proxy.InnerChannel.State);
}
But the State member stays on Opened and I can call the service forever....
What is correct here? Should a client go into faulted state when a service throws a CLR exception and stays in Opened state when a service throws a FaultException? Or does it always stay open?
I can not find official confirmation, but here is what going on in my opinion:
You using BasicHttpBinding which does not keep connection open, but creates new one on every request. If you switch to NetTcpBinding, you will see expected behavior(just tested locally)
When error occures session's state gets in fault state and since binding such as basicHttpBinding does not support session at all you cannot distincly see that connection is in faulted state. Try to make use of binding which supports session such as netTcpBinding and you should discover that session, after exception being thrown, is not accessible.

Websphere MQ isConnected variable after exception

I use an C# Console Application to put and read messages of the MQ..
When the application starts, it connect once with the MQ and then the connection should be always upholded.
The program runs every 30 sec and check if new messages are in the queue or a database(to put them on the queue) and check the isConnected-variable if its true.
But what happen if an exception(2009 - connection broke) in the Put/Get occur? Will the isConnected automatically set to false?
Is the connection automatically disconnected or do I have to call Disconnect() in the error handling?
Thanks!
To answer your exact question, for a basic .net application (non XMS) using MQQueue for put/get, if you get CERTAIN bad return codes from the underlying API call which indicates a connection issue, MQ will attempt an MQBACK and an MQDISC for you and will result in the connection handle being invalidated (IsConnected would return false) and an exception being thrown. However if an exception occurs outside those return codes then no attempt is made to do anything with the connection.
Basically you should not code an application relying on this behaviour, when the most simple answer is to always disconnect if you get an exception which relates to the quality of the connection or queue manager. For example, a no message available etc type exception doesnt mean you need to disconnect but a connection broken obviously does. There is no harm in calling disconnect on an already disconnected connection.

Booksleeve, error thrown when trying to open connection after connection was closed

I cannot re-connect to my Redis DB doing the following:
Create a new RedisConnection called "connection"
Open the connection connection.Open().Wait();
Close the connection connection.Close(true);
Now when I attempt to connection.Open().Wait(); an error is thrown "Connection is closed".
I am aware the connection was closed but why I cannot re-open it?
The same happens if I instead of close the connection, shut down the Redis server, let the client raise the Closed event, re-start the server, and then attempt to open the connection with connection.Open().Wait(); again. "Connection is closed" error is thrown.
What is wrong with my approach? I do not seem to be able to manage connection states properly with Booksleeve.
Thanks
It is not the expected usage that you open and close a BookSleeve connection.
since it is a multiplexer, it is expected that it is opened once and then used by multiple callers concurrently (it is thread-safe etc)
opening involves various handshakes (at both network and protocol levels) to ensure correct operation - this is best avoided (it isn't insanely expensive, note)
no ongoing state would be viable once closed; you night as well just use a brand new connection if you really want to close it
Personally I'd only close it if I was reconfiguring the system at runtime, or the connection broke.

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