UDPClient Receive method not working in a service

Question

I've been experimenting the UDP sending and receiving in C# and have a strange issue. The code works fine in a console app, but the client.Receive method is blocked when I try to use the exact same code in a Service. The Service runs normally and doesn't abort, and I have logging writing to a text file, so I know it gets to the Receive. Anyone have any ideas? Code below...

public partial class Service1 : ServiceBase
{
    private bool serviceStarted = false;
    Thread listenerThread;

    public Service1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();      
    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        serviceStarted = false;
        WriteLog("UDPListener Service Starting");

        ThreadStart thread = new ThreadStart(StartListening);
        listenerThread = new Thread(thread);

        serviceStarted = true;
        listenerThread.Start();
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        WriteLog("UDPListener Service Stopping");

        serviceStarted = false;
        listenerThread.Join(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5));
    }

    private void StartListening()
    {
        WriteLog("Worker thread spawned.");

        UdpClient client = new UdpClient(40000);

        while (serviceStarted)
        {
            WriteLog("Service is started.  Getting endpoint.");
            IPEndPoint remoteIPEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 40000);
            WriteLog("Thread is listening...");

            byte[] content = client.Receive(ref remoteIPEndPoint);
            WriteLog("Receive unblocked.");

            if (content.Length > 0)
            {
                string message = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(content);
                WriteLog("UDPListener Message = " + message);
            }
        }
        Thread.CurrentThread.Abort();
    }

    private void WriteLog(string strMessage)
    {
        FileStream filestream = new FileStream(@"c:\temp\UDPClientLog.txt", 
                                       FileMode.OpenOrCreate, 
                                       FileAccess.Write);
        StreamWriter streamwriter = new StreamWriter(filestream);
        streamwriter.BaseStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);

        streamwriter.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToLongDateString() +
            " at " +
            DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString() +
            ": " +
            strMessage +
            "\n");

        streamwriter.Flush();
        streamwriter.Close();
    }
}

Answer 1

That's because UdpClient.Receive is blocking (i.e. synchronous) operation, and thread would be blocked until you receive data:

The Receive method will block until a datagram arrives from a remote host. When data is available, the Receive method will read the first enqueued datagram and return the data portion as a byte array. This method populates the remoteEP parameter with the IPAddress and port number of the sender.

If you want nonblocking behaviour you can use asynchronous version: UdpClient.BeginReceive method.

Answer 2

Finally figured this out. Windows Firewall was blocking the incoming connection and apparently the service isn't allowed to interactively ask for permission to unblock it.