Why does this WSDL file generate an empty service proxy in VS2008?

Question

Why does this WSDL file generate an empty service proxy in VS2008?

If you look at the Reference.cs file generated, it's empty. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Try adding it as .NET 2.0 Web Reference.

Go to Add Service Reference, then click the "Advanced" button. Then you're given to option to add it as a .NET 2.0 Web Reference. I did this, and got it to work. I couldn't via the standard "Add Service Reference"

Answer 2

I don't see any <wsdl:portType> elements in your WSDL - that might be the problem.

Also, are you creating your service from a live URL, or some files on disk? If you're using "on disk" files: did you also get the "wsdl0" file as referenced in this line here:

<wsdl:import namespace="http://fliqz.com/services/search/20071001" location="http://services.fliqz.com/LegacyServices/Services/search/R20071001/service.svc?wsdl=wsdl0"/&gt;

Marc

Answer 3

Have you read your error list? I got the following:

Custom tool warning: There was a validation error on a schema generated during export:
    Source: 
    Line: 144 Column: 12
   Validation Error: Wildcard '##any' allows element 'http://search.yahoo.com/mrss:text', and causes the content model to become ambiguous. A content model must be formed such that during validation of an element information item sequence, the particle contained directly, indirectly or implicitly therein with which to attempt to validate each item in the sequence in turn can be uniquely determined without examining the content or attributes of that item, and without any information about the items in the remainder of the sequence.       

Custom tool warning: Cannot import wsdl:portType
Detail: An exception was thrown while running a WSDL import extension: System.ServiceModel.Description.XmlSerializerMessageContractImporter
Error: Cannot import invalid schemas. Compilation on the XmlSchemaSet failed.
XPath to Error Source: //wsdl:definitions[@targetNamespace='http://fliqz.com/services/search/20071001']/wsdl:portType[@name='IVideoSearchService']

Custom tool warning: Cannot import wsdl:binding
Detail: There was an error importing a wsdl:portType that the wsdl:binding is dependent on.
XPath to wsdl:portType: //wsdl:definitions[@targetNamespace='http://fliqz.com/services/search/20071001']/wsdl:portType[@name='IVideoSearchService']
XPath to Error Source: //wsdl:definitions[@targetNamespace='http://tempuri.org/']/wsdl:binding[@name='basicHttpBinding_IVideoSearchService_20071001']

Custom tool warning: Cannot import wsdl:port
Detail: There was an error importing a wsdl:binding that the wsdl:port is dependent on.
XPath to wsdl:binding: //wsdl:definitions[@targetNamespace='http://tempuri.org/']/wsdl:binding[@name='basicHttpBinding_IVideoSearchService_20071001']
XPath to Error Source: //wsdl:definitions[@targetNamespace='http://tempuri.org/']/wsdl:service[@name='VideoSearchService']/wsdl:port[@name='basicHttpBinding_IVideoSearchService_20071001']

Custom tool error: Failed to generate code for the service reference 'ServiceReference1'.  Please check other error and warning messages for details.

Edit: I did some digging, and I came across the following links:

• MSDN Question
• Blog Entry

I tried following the instructions by ScottAnderson in the first link, but was unable to generate a client proxy with them. Perhaps you can have better luck.

It appears the reason this doesn't work is because Fliqz is using XmlSerializer rather than DataContract/MessageContract for its contract definitions, and WCF doesn't want to play nicely with them and generates inappropriate WSDL. If you could control the original contract, you could probably fix the issue and be on your way; unfortunately, you may be entirely out of luck.

If you can get the ServiceContract interface and the types it exposes, you might be able to generate your own client by hand. Judging by some of the class names I see in there, it appears that Fliqz is exposing internal objects in their contract, so I doubt you could, you know, call them up and ask them for a .dll you can reference.

You could try to write out the interface and data / message contract types yourself by analyzing the WSDL and XSDs. Looks like it'd be a lot of work, though.

Sorry I can't help more. This seems to be a combination of poor WCF legacy support and poor architecture/design on the part of Fliqz.