Previously working webservice stoped working

Question

All of a sudden we started to get this error in our webapplication. It's wierd because it has been working for months and months and noone has ever touched the code.

Does anyone have any idea why this error could occur all of a sudden?

Server Error in '/' Application.

System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x8007203A): The server is not operational.

at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind(Boolean throwIfFail) at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind() at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.get_AdsObject() at System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher.FindAll(Boolean findMoreThanOne) at System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher.FindOne() at AuthTools.GetUserMemberShip(String login) in D:\IIS\WWW_reports_WebServices\App_Code\AuthTools.vb:line 35

Answer 1

You are using some unmanaged COM object from your managed code. Could it be that this object changed? I.e. it's not your application, it's the unmanaged library you are using. I might be wrong, but that's all I can think of when looking at the stack trace.

Answer 2

Heh, it's a bit embarrassing but our webservice queries our active directory to find user groups, and due to a missconfiguration where a group had a member it was also a member of, our application ended up in an endless loop.

Answer 3

The .Net Framework BCL uses a lot of wrapper objects around legacy COM code to interact with ActiveDirectory and other LDAP sources. This can be caused by changed settings at the AD server, or there are issues with connection management to AD (are you properly closing your connections, for example.)

I would start investigating from the server-end and determine issues from there. The diagnostics/error-messages within the .Net Framework classes, because they bubble up through COM, aren't that helpful.