WCF Transaction with multiple inserts - asp.net

Question

When creating a user, entries are required in multiple tables. I am trying to create a transaction that creates a new entry into one table and then pass the new entityid into the parent table and so on. The error I am getting is
The transaction manager has disabled its support for remote/network
transactions. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8004D024)
I believe this is caused by creating multiple connections within a single TransactionScope, but I am unsure on what the best/most efficient way of doing this is.
[OperationBehavior(TransactionScopeRequired = true)]
public int CreateUser(CreateUserData createData)
{
// Create a new family group and get the ID
var familyGroupId = createData.FamilyGroupId ?? CreateFamilyGroup();
// Create the APUser and get the Id
var apUserId = CreateAPUser(createData.UserId, familyGroupId);
// Create the institution user and get the Id
var institutionUserId = CreateInsUser(apUserId, createData.AlternateId, createData.InstitutionId);
// Create the investigator group user and return the Id
return AddUserToGroup(createData.InvestigatorGroupId, institutionUserId);
}
This is an example of one of the function calls, all the other ones follow the same format
public int CreateFamilyGroup(string familyGroupName)
{
var familyRepo = _FamilyRepo ?? new FamilyGroupRepository();
var familyGroup = new FamilyGroup() {CreationDate = DateTime.Now};
return familyRepo.AddFamilyGroup(familyGroup);
}
And the repository call for this is as follows
public int AddFamilyGroup(FamilyGroup familyGroup)
{
using (var context = new GameDbContext())
{
var newGroup = context.FamilyGroups.Add(familyGroup);
context.SaveChanges();
return newGroup.FamilyGroupId;
}
}

Answer 1

I believe this is caused by creating multiple connections within a single TransactionScope
Yes, that is the problem. It does not really matter how you avoid that as long you avoid it. A common thing to do is to have one connection and one EF context per WCF request. You need to find a way to pass that EF context along.
The method AddFamilyGroup illustrates a common anti-pattern with EF: You are using EF as a CRUD facility. It's supposed to me more like a live object graph connected to the database. The entire WCF request should share the same EF context. If you move in that direction the problem goes away.