SignalR not firing "disconnected" event - asp.net

I'm using SignalR to push updates out to connected web clients. I listen to the disconnected event in order to know when I should start my reconnection logic
$.connection.hub.disconnected(function() {
// Initiate my own reconnection logic
});
The SignalR hub is hosted in in IIS (along with my site)
[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(Startup))]
namespace MyNamespace.SignalR
{
public class Startup
{
public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
{
app.MapSignalR();
}
}
}
Upon connection, the client calls a server method to join a group
public class MyHub : Hub
{
public void JoinGroup(string groupName)
{
Groups.Add(Context.ConnectionId, groupName);
}
}
And then I push messages to this group:
context.Clients.Group(groupName).sendMessage();
If I manually recycle the application pool in IIS, SignalR starts trying to reconnect and I eventually receive a disconnected event on the client side if it fails (after the timeout).
However, my problem is that if I manually restart the website in IIS, I do not receive any disconnected event at all, and I can't see in the logs that SignalR has detected any connection problem at all. How can I detect that I have been disconnected?
I know I should probably persist the group connections somehow, since that is saved in memory I guess. But that shouldn't affect the initial problem that the client receives no notification of the disconnection? Shouldn't the client side signalr code throw some kind of exception/event?

disconnected fires first when the built in logic for reconnection have timed out. You also need to listen to the recconect event, something like i did here
https://github.com/AndersMalmgren/SignalR.EventAggregatorProxy/blob/ReconnectOnClosed/SignalR.EventAggregatorProxy.Client.JS/jquery.signalR.eventAggregator.js#L157

So I finally found out what the problem is and how to solve it. Some background though:
At the moment we manually release new versions of our application by going to "Basic settings..." under the website in IIS and changing the "Physical Path" from C:\websites\version1 to C:\websites\version2. Apparently this gives the same behavior as doing a restart of the website in IIS (not a hard reset, not stopping the website, not recycling the app pool) and according to this: "does NOT shut the site down, it merely removes the Http.sys binding for that port". And no matter how long we wait, the connected clients never receive any kind of indication that they should reconnect.
So the solution is to recycle the application pool after each release. The "lost" clients will receive disconnected events and reconnect to the new version of the site.

Related

SignalR client disconnected on Azure slots swap

I have web app on Azure with 2 slots.
Whenever the slot swap happens, all SignalR clients are disconnected and not even notified about the connection loss.
SignalR events such a Close, Error, Reconnected are never fired on the client.
How to prevent this or at least know when disconnect happens? (of course I need to avoid polling)
How to prevent this or at least know when disconnect happens?
We could enable SignalR tracing to view diagnositc infomration about events in your SignalR application. How to enable and configure tracing for SignalR servers and clients, we could refer to this document.
Detecting the reason for a disconnection
SignalR 2.1 adds an overload to the server OnDisconnect event that indicates if the client deliberately disconnected rather than timing out. The StopCalled parameter is true if the client explicitly closed the connection. In JavaScript, if a server error led the client to disconnect, the error information will be passed to the client as $.connection.hub.lastError.
C# server code: stopCalled parameter
public override System.Threading.Tasks.Task OnDisconnected(bool stopCalled)
{
if (stopCalled)
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Client {0} explicitly closed the connection.", Context.ConnectionId));
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Client {0} timed out .", Context.ConnectionId));
}
return base.OnDisconnected(stopCalled);
}
JavaScript client code: accessing lastError in the disconnect event.
$.connection.hub.disconnected(function () {
if ($.connection.hub.lastError)
{ alert("Disconnected. Reason: " + $.connection.hub.lastError.message); }
});
More details we could refer to Detecting the reason for a disconnection.
How to prevent this?
We could continuously reconnect it.
In some applications you might want to automatically re-establish a connection after it has been lost and the attempt to reconnect has timed out. To do that, you can call the Start method from your Closed event handler (disconnected event handler on JavaScript clients). You might want to wait a period of time before calling Start in order to avoid doing this too frequently when the server or the physical connection are unavailable. The following code sample is for a JavaScript client using the generated proxy.
$.connection.hub.disconnected(function() {
setTimeout(function() {
$.connection.hub.start();
}, 5000); // Restart connection after 5 seconds.
});
More details we could refer to How to continuously reconnect

How to hit a method as soon as my IIS gets restart automatically

I have an application which sends continuous data through serial port on click of go button and have hosted in IIS .
I have set Auto Start mode to "Always Running " which will restart my IIS automatically but restarting stops sending data through port as i need to click again on go button to start sending data .
Is there any setting where auto re-start of IIS will hit my Go method and sending data can be continuous through port without any interruption.
In order to execute a method when the application pool starts, you could use the PreApplicationStartMethod attribute of System.Web assembly.
[assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(
typeof(Starter),
nameof(Starter.PreApplicationStartMethod))]
public class Starter
{
public static void PreApplicationStartMethod()
{
// startup code here
}
}
With this attribute, each time the application pool recycles, this method will be called. Be aware that during recycle, the application pool starts before the end of the other application. See IIS Process Recycling overlap for more information.

Signalr redis backplane updates not pushed to the clients

We have configured the redis backplane in owin startup code of the web app.
var config = new RedisScaleoutConfiguration(hangfireRedisConnection, scaleoutEventKey);
GlobalHost.DependencyResolver.UseRedis(config);
app.MapSignalR();
The web app runs a background job on a timer, that wakes up and notifies the client if an important event took place. After querying the backend, the background job calls into a simple HubService wrapper that takes IHubContext as a dependency and eventually calls Client.All.notify method on the hub to push down to the client:
HubService:
private readonly IHubContext applicationHub;
public HubService(IHubContext applicationHub)
{
this.applicationHub = applicationHub;
}
public void NotifyClient()
{
hubContext.Client.All.nofify(message); // <- this is always called, with and without the backplane, however with the backplane it doesn't make it to the client
}
HubContext is registered at the startup:
Container.RegisterInstance<IHubContext>(GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<ApplicationHub>());
This works fine without the backplane, but doesn't with the backplane configured. I have verified in the debugger that the call is being made, but it doesn't make it down to the client.
Also, if we call signalr hub from the client (outside of the web app) either through js or signalr.client clients, the backplane works as advertised.
Is there something missing in the scenario where we're calling directly into hub context from within the web app itself without initiating the call from the client first?

IIS App Pool cannot recycle when there is an open ASP.NET 4.5 Websocket

I have run into an issue which can be replicated in the following way (you need IIS8 so must be on Windows 8+ or Windows Server 2012 R2+):
Create a new website in IIS Manager, say TestWs on port 8881, pointing to a new folder, say C:\temp\testws, and add the following Web.config file in there
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation targetFramework="4.5"/>
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
Now add the following WsHandler.ashx file in the same folder
<%# WebHandler Language="C#" Class="WsHandler" %>
using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Web;
public class WsHandler : IHttpHandler
{
public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
context.AcceptWebSocketRequest(async webSocketContext =>
{
while (true)
{
await webSocketContext.WebSocket.ReceiveAsync(new ArraySegment<byte>(new byte[1024]), CancellationToken.None);
}
});
}
public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } }
}
Then create a websocket from within the developer toolbar in your browser like so
var ws = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:8881/wshandler.ashx");
ws.onclose = function() { console.log('closed'); };
In task manager you will see there is a w3wp.exe process for this application, if you kill it the client get the onclose event raised and the closed text will be printed.
However if you create a websocket as described above and go to IIS manager and recycle the application pool, the websocket will not be closed, and there will now be two w3wp.exe processes.
Closing the web socket ws.close(); or refreshing the browser will cause the original w3wp.exe process to be shut down.
It seems the presence of the open websocket is causing IIS to be unable to recycle the app pool correctly.
Can anyone figure out what to change in my code or what to change in IIS to get this to work?
As far as I know, while a WebSocket is open, IIS won't tear down the app domain, so you see this behaviour exhibited.
The best I can suggest is that you do some cross process signalling to force the old instance to shutdown. You could achieve this with an EventWaitHandle:
Create a named EventWaitHandle in your web application, and signal it at startup.
On a separate thread, wait on the wait handle
When it is signalled, call HostingEnvironment.InitiateShutdown to force any running old instance to shutdown.
Try setting "Shutdown Time Limit" to 1 second (App Pool > Advanced Settings > Process Model) [PS: I don't have IIS8. I'm checking the properties in IIS7.]
This property defines the time given to worker process to finish processing requests and shutdown. If the worker process exceeds the shutdown time limit, it is terminated.
I can see default value in IIS7 is 90 seconds. If that's the same value in IIS8 too, then it might be giving that much time to earlier worker process to finish it's work. After 90 seconds (1.5 mins) it will terminate that process and your web socket will get closed. If you change it to 1 second it will terminate the earlier worker process will get terminated almost instantly (as soon as you recycle app pool) and you will get the expected behavior.
As I had the same problem, here's the solution I figured out:
In your IHttpHandler you should have an static object which inherits IStopListeningRegisteredObject. Then use HostingEnvironment.RegisterObject(this) to get notified (via StopListening) when the Application Pool is recyled.
You'll also need a CancellationTokenSource (static, too), which you'll hand over in ReceiveAsync. In StopListening() you can then use Cancel() of the CancellationTokenSource to end the await. Then catch the OperationCanceledException and call Abort() on the socket.
Don't forget the Dispose() after the Cancel() or the App-Pool will still wait.

SignalR Connect Returns 504

I have a weird behavior going on with SignalR, I have a hub defined like so:
public class NotificationHub : Hub
{
//Empty
}
on my js I have the following:
function blabla {
// bla bla
$.connection.NotificationHub.client.AppendNewStory = function (story) {
// appends a new story, long jquery code
};
$.connection.hub.start().done(function () {
_ConnectionStarted = true; // there must be some built in way
});
}
I call js from a class on my mvc project
public SomeClass
{
private IHubContext _context;
public SomeClass()
{
_context = GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<NotificationHub>();
}
public void Notify(SomeData ...)
{
_context.Clients.User(userId).AppendNewStory(data);
}
}
Problem has two symptoms:
Server to client class fail intermittently (can't figure out a scenario).
My web server seems to get VERY SLOW, subsequent ajax calls and regular webrequests timeout.
Using fiddler I found the following:
SignalR/hubs call succeeds.
SignalR negotial call succeeds.
connect with WebSockets transport failed with HTTP 504!
subsequent connect calls try foreverFrame and long polling, both succeed with 200.
a poll request is issued and NEVER RETURNS! after that everything becomes slow or hangs.
Something that might aid the debugging, server hangs if i'm opening 2 tabs or more. a single tab seems ok.
I'm also using IE 11 and chrome, same problem except chrome tries serverSentEvents instead of foreverFrame.
Any ideas on how to debug this issue, see why I get 504? or why the server hangs? I have Windows 8.1 Update 1, IIS 8, SignalR 2.0, .NET 4.5.1.
Did you install WebSockets in Windows 8.1? Do this under add/remove features. I had similar random issues connecting until I did this. I also had to enable the following setting in the web.config:
<add key="aspnet:UseTaskFriendlySynchronizationContext" value="true"/>
Is there anything in between your server and browser. Some proxies have trouble with web sockets and server sent events. Try choosing the transports in the javascript. I saw similar things with Firefox over OpenIG. OpenIG didn't like server sent events and just hung.
One possibility that you'll want to investigate is whether you're running into a limit on the number of connections allowed to IIS. I'm not sure whether websocket connections are included in that limit, but normal connections - and a long polling connection will consume one of those - are typically limited to "3" on a the "Basic" version of Windows 8 (and are limited to 10 on the Professional and other versions). I'm guessing that your long polling connection(s) are consuming all the available connections, and that's what is causing everything else to time out.
See here for more details:
http://www.jpelectron.com/sample/WWW%20and%20HTML/IIS-%20OS%20Version%20Limits.htm
I'd either upgrade to Professional (if you're already at "Professional", then discount this answer), or install Websockets and see if that helps things.
Ok thanx to everyone who answered, you all helped debug the issue, unfortunately nothing worked.
problem turned out I needed to set the targetFramework attribute in web.config:
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5.1">
Everything worked smoothly afterwards.

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