Damien McGivern

(Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008) Service Pack 2 Customer Preview Program (CPP)

2008-12-03T04:58:00Z

Mike Nash has announced that the betas for both Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 will be released to the public shortly, however if you have a TechNet or MSDN subscription then you can access them now.

ReSharper 4 doesn't like VS 2008 SP1/ .Net 3.5 SP1

2008-05-15T13:05:00Z

I’m a big fan of ReSharper and lately I’ve been installing the nightly builds which has resulted in a little pain with some dodgy builds but overall I’m still allot more productive. Yesterday I noticed that Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta had been released and as I’d no other VS beta software installed (there are issues with it if you do) I went ahead and tried it out. The installer is very small and downloads the required files before continuing the install. I’m not sure how long it took as I went off to play Grand Theft Auto 4 on the PS3 but about 1 hour later I returned to the laptop to discover that the install had failed. I opened up VS and checked the about dialogue – no mention of SP1 so I left it. This morning when I opened up VS I noticed that ReSharper no longer worked. I downloaded the latest nightly build and installed but still ReSharper didn’t load within VS. Checking the Installed Programs I noticed that .Net 3.5 SP1 was listed (I assume the VS SP1 installer installed this but didn’t uninstall after it failed) and once this was uninstalled ReSharper came back to life. Pity as I was looking forward to checking out some of the bug fixes and performance improvements with WCF which SP1 claims to add. I'm running Vista Ultimate 64 bit but haven't seen any other reports of issues.

Update: 19 May 2008

seems that my install may have failed due to issues with certain KB's see http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/05/15/remove-kb945140-before-installing-visual-studio-2008-sp1-beta.aspx - don't think I'm going to try it again though untill I know R# will work. Some people do seem to have it working (with issues) though http://www.intellij.net/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=275245&tstart=0

VS 2008 Web Development Hot-Fix Roll-Up Available

2008-02-09T12:07:00Z

Some initial performance glitches with VS 2008 Web Development have been resolved and a patch has been released. Read more about it on Scot Guthrie's blog post http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/08/vs-2008-web-development-hot-fix-roll-up-available.aspx

Direct download https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=10826 (requires a live account)

Vista SP1 & Windows Server 2008 both RTM

2008-02-05T06:03:00Z

Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 have finally been RTM. For those of you also on the W2K8 beta program you will be able to download from the connect website. Unfortunately Vista SP1 hasn't been made available to beta testers on connect yet.

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/02/04/announcing-the-rtm-of-windows-vista-sp1.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2008/02/04/windows-server-2008-rtm.aspx

WCF requires precompiled ASP.Net sites to be updatable

2008-01-30T12:01:00Z

Today I was testing a deployment ASP.Net site build that I added some WCF services to. All other non deployment builds passed all testing so I was stumped when testing one of the services I got the following error.

Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the 
current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the 
exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key]
   System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentNullException(ExceptionArgument argument) +51
   System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.FindEntry(TKey key) +5295964
   System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.TryGetValue(TKey key, TValue& value) +20
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetTransportSettings(String virtualPath) +154
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetAccessSslFlags(String virtualPath) +9
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHostedTransportConfiguration.GetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath) +113
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedTransportConfigurationManager.InternalGetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath) +146
   System.ServiceModel.HostingManager.CreateService(String normalizedVirtualPath) +162
   System.ServiceModel.HostingManager.ActivateService(String normalizedVirtualPath) +46
   System.ServiceModel.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath) +738

[ServiceActivationException: The service '/demo2/services/memberservice.svc' cannot be activated due to an exception during compilation.  The exception message is: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key.]
   System.ServiceModel.AsyncResult.End(IAsyncResult result) +7571873
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedHttpRequestAsyncResult.End(IAsyncResult result) +4504815
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedHttpRequestAsyncResult.ExecuteSynchronous(HttpApplication context, Boolean flowContext) +288
   System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule.ProcessRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e) +273
   System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +80
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +177

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.1433; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.1433

The only difference with the deployment build is that the website is precompiled and the assemblies merged. Then I checked the even log and noticed that for every request of memberservice.svc the following two errors occurred.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    System.ServiceModel 3.0.0.0
Event Category:    WebHost
Event ID:    3
Date:        30/01/2008
Time:        11:30:35
User:        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:    ELGRECO
Description:
WebHost failed to process a request.
Sender Information: System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment+HostingManager/30607723
Exception: System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException: The service '/demo2/services/memberservice.svc' cannot be activated due to an exception during compilation. The exception message is: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key
   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentNullException(ExceptionArgument argument)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.FindEntry(TKey key)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.TryGetValue(TKey key, TValue& value)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetTransportSettings(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetAccessSslFlags(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHostedTransportConfiguration.GetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedTransportConfigurationManager.InternalGetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.CreateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.ActivateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.EnsureServiceAvailableFast(String relativeVirtualPath)
Process Name: w3wp
Process ID: 708

Followed by:

Event Type:   Error
Event Source:   System.ServiceModel 3.0.0.0
Event Category:   WebHost
Event ID:   3
Date:       30/01/2008
Time:       11:30:35
User:       NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:   ELGRECO
Description:
WebHost failed to process a request.
Sender Information: System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedHttpRequestAsyncResult/49972132
Exception: System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException: The service '/demo2/services/memberservice.svc' cannot be activated due to an exception during compilation. The exception message is: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key
   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentNullException(ExceptionArgument argument)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.FindEntry(TKey key)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.TryGetValue(TKey key, TValue& value)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetTransportSettings(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.MetabaseSettingsIis.GetAccessSslFlags(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHostedTransportConfiguration.GetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedTransportConfigurationManager.InternalGetBaseAddresses(String virtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.CreateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.ActivateService(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   at System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment.HostingManager.EnsureServiceAvailable(String normalizedVirtualPath)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at System.ServiceModel.AsyncResult.End[TAsyncResult](IAsyncResult result)
   at System.ServiceModel.Activation.HostedHttpRequestAsyncResult.End(IAsyncResult result)
Process Name: w3wp
Process ID: 708

After a bit of searching I found the following post http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1150859&SiteID=1 which states that WCF hosted in a precompiled ASP.Net site requires the site to be updatable. So adding the -u switch to our build scrip which calls aspnet_compiler solved the problem.

Cryptic error messges in WCF?

2008-01-14T00:25:00Z

I've recently started working with WCF on a project at work, I've read about it and played about with it but never got into any depth with it before now. So far it's going well except for a few cryptic errors I was getting when running my unit tests for a patictular service. The error in was:

Error    1    TestCase 'CPD.Services.Test.CourseTest.Test10'
failed: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException : An error occurred while receiving the HTTP response to https://lap001.office.aurion.co.uk/cpdengage/Services/CourseService.svc. This could be due to the service endpoint binding not using the HTTP protocol. This could also be due to an HTTP request context being aborted by the server (possibly due to the service shutting down). See server logs for more details.
----> System.Net.WebException : The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive.
----> System.IO.IOException : Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
----> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException : An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

Server stack trace:
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelUtilities.ProcessGetResponseWebException(WebException webException, HttpWebRequest request, HttpAbortReason abortReason)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.RequestChannel.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.SecurityChannelFactory`1.SecurityRequestChannel.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.RequestChannelBinder.Request(Message message, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel.Call(String action, Boolean oneway, ProxyOperationRuntime operation, Object[] ins, Object[] outs, TimeSpan timeout)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.InvokeService(IMethodCallMessage methodCall, ProxyOperationRuntime operation)
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelProxy.Invoke(IMessage message)

Exception rethrown at [0]:
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)
   at CPD.Services.Test.CourseServiceReference.CourseService.GetCourseHeader()
   at CPD.Services.Test.CourseServiceReference.CourseServiceClient.GetCourseHeader() in c:\users\damien.mcgivern\documents\dev\aurion\cpdengage\src\cpd.services.test\service references\courseservicereference\reference.cs:line 1027
   at CPD.Services.Test.CourseTest.Test10() in C:\Users\damien.mcgivern\Documents\dev\aurion\cpdengage\src\CPD.Services.Test\CourseTest.cs:line 157
--WebException
   at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
   at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.HttpRequestChannel.HttpChannelRequest.WaitForReply(TimeSpan timeout)
--IOException
   at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
   at System.Net.FixedSizeReader.ReadPacket(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
   at System.Net.Security._SslStream.StartFrameHeader(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
   at System.Net.Security._SslStream.StartReading(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
   at System.Net.Security._SslStream.ProcessRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
   at System.Net.TlsStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
   at System.Net.PooledStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
   at System.Net.Connection.SyncRead(HttpWebRequest request, Boolean userRetrievedStream, Boolean probeRead)
--SocketException
   at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags)
   at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)    c:\users\damien.mcgivern\documents\dev\aurion\cpdengage\src\cpd.services.test\service references\courseservicereference\reference.cs    1027

It was the first method that used a generic collection and at first I thought this may be to fault but testing other generic collections proved that I was using them correctly (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.serialization.collectiondatacontractattribute.aspx)

But just to make sure I wrote a test method that only returned the type that was being used for the generic collection items, and indeed it still failed with the same error.

This got me thinking that I must have defined the DataContract or DataMember attributes for the object incorrectly, going through each of them I noticed the following code:

[DataMember(IsRequired = true, EmitDefaultValue = false, Order = 5)]
public bool IsEnabled

The value for IsEnabled was always false in the test data, when I set this to true the error never happened and then changing the attributes IsRequired to false stopped the error altogether. Checking the code I found a few other value types that had IsRequired set to true these hadn't and so far no more errors. So setting a value type DataMember to true will cause thie error if the value is the value types default value, bool = false, int = 0 etc.

What bugs me is that this seems to be a serialisation issue, in that the object doesn't match the requirements defined in the DataContract, however the error message doesn't seem to indicate this at all.

Updated 24 June 2008: also see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa347792.aspx#Mtps_DropDownFilterText - states that SerializationException is thrown. Although the exception details don't make it down to the client.

Job: ASP.Net 2.0 Developer

2007-06-18T08:53:00Z

I'm looking to fill a position at work for an ASP.Net 2.0 developer with 2 years experience who will be based in South Belfast (Ormeau Road). Salary will be dependent on experience. If you who would like more information on the post or wish to apply please email me at admin@nimtug.org

Required Skill Set:

Visual Studio 2005
ASP.Net (C#) 2.0

Desirable Skill Set:

WAI Accessibility Standards
Test Driven Development

JavaScript
CSS

MS SQL Server (2000/2005)

IIS (Windows Server 2003)

Software Testing

Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 for Windows Vista Released

2007-06-06T22:41:00Z

Just noticed that the Windows Mobile Devices Center has been updated today.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx

Seems to be mainly a bug fix and compatability release.

Just installing now.

NIMTUG moves to a new server and gets an upgrade

2007-05-07T15:04:00Z

I've finally gotten some time this weekend to move the server from my previous error prone host to a new dedicated server supplied by Microsoft Ireland and Hosting 365.Due to changes within Community Server 2007's the new theme model I had to rewrite the events code, I had been meaning to fix some bugs in it for a while so this gave me an excuse to start afresh and ditch allot of the old ASP.Net 1.1 code.It not completely finished yet though so some content wont be available for a day or two.

ASP.Net Developer Position Available

2007-01-11T00:51:00Z

I'm currently looking for an ASP.Net developer for a full time position in the Banbridge, N. Ireland area. If you and interested and meet the requirements email me (Damien McGivern) your CV to admin AT nimtug DOT org and make sure the subject is entitled 'ASP.Net Developer' otherwise it may not get through to me.

Job Spec

Responsibilities:

Gather requirements and translate them into technical specifications
Designing, developing and maintaining databases
Designing, developing, deploying and maintaining web applications
Working on your own initiative, within deadlines

Managing web server

Required Skill Set:

Third level qualification in a Software Engineering related subject with excellent communication skills and at least 2 years post-graduate development experience working with:

Visual Studio 2003/2005

IIS (Windows Server 2003)
ASP.Net (C#) 2.0
MS SQL Server (2000/2005)
HTML/XHTML
JavaScript
CSS
XML

Desirable Skill Set:

WAI Accessibility Standards
Test Driven Development

Vista Beta testers get free copy of Vista Ultimate Edition

2006-11-17T06:08:00Z

Kudos to Microsoft for rewarding us beta testers who actually submitted bugs with a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, either 32 or 64 Bit. All I have to do now is get around to upgrading my graphics card so I can finally get glass working.

Martin Woodward awarded Team System MVP

2006-10-05T14:42:00Z

Congratulations to Martin Woodward on being awarded the title of Team System Most Valuable Professional (MVP). He joins Cathal Connolly to become NIMTUG’s second MVP member.

Martin Woodward TS MVP

http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/archive/2006/10/02/Team-System-MVPs-Awardees-for-October.aspx

http://www.woodwardweb.com/personal/000287.html

Free energy? Prove it

2006-08-20T10:59:00Z

Steorm, an Irish company, has claimed to create a technology that under certain conditions is greater than 100% efficient i.e. free energy! They've set a challenge to the scientific community to test their technology and validate their claims. There's not much information on the site about how the technology is supposed to work so naturally I sceptical as we've heard the free energy clam many times before but the fact that they're being so open about the validation process, allowing anyone to apply to be part of it, makes me think that they may have an ace up their sleeve.

Steorm: http://www.steorn.net/

Movie: http://www.steorn.net/en/downloads.aspx?p=6

The challenge: http://www.steorn.net/challenge.aspx?p=1

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET™ 2003 Service Pack 1 Released

2006-08-19T22:35:00Z

It seems that SP1 for VS.Net has been released, I hope MS don't take another 3 years to release SP1 for VS.Net 2005!

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=69d2219f-ce82-46a5-8aec-072bd4bb955e&displaylang=en

Bug Fix List: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;918007

Adding syntax highlighting to Community Server (CS)

2006-08-19T19:51:00Z

Using dp.SyntaxHighlighter you can enable syntax highlighting in Community Server (CS) with just a couple of lines of code

1) Download code from http://www.dreamprojections.com/SyntaxHighlighter/ and save to ~/SyntaxHighlighter in your CS root directory

2) Enable the textarea tags to be included as content in posts update the MarkUp/Html section in the communityserver.config file to include <textarea name="true" class="true" rows="true" cols="true" />

3) Include the required JavaScript and CSS files by adding the code below to the setting: Administration > Settings > Site Content > Raw Header

4) You can find how to use the SyntaxHighlighter at http://www.dreamprojections.com/SyntaxHighlighter/Usage.aspx