In WCF, does a timeout fault the channel?

Question

In WCF, does a timeout on a request-response operation fault the channel at the client's end?

If a server times out when sending a response, is the channel faulted at the server's end?

Answer 1

Yes, a timeout will fault the channel - and there's always only one channel linking a client and a server - the server doesn't have a channel of its own...

You basically have:

+-----------+                       +-----------+
|           |_______________________|           |
|  Client   |     The Channel       |  Server   |
|           |-----------------------|           |
+-----------+                       +-----------+

There's really only one channel which connects the two bits. As for timeouts - if both ends define a different value for the same timeout, the smaller value will "win" and become relevant - the higher value (on the other end) isn't taken into account.

Answer 2

Correct, the timeout will fault the channel. You can set the max timeout time on both the client and the server side.