SignalR Server to Client only - asp.net

I setup SignalR in my application and it works very nice!
I have a Hub which is only supposed to push messages from the server to the client.
However, i can also call the method from the client back to the server, doing like this:
// this makes a call from the client to the server
$.connection.appplicationHub.server.productCreated();
Is there a way to prevent this?

This was a bad question.
To send messages from Server to Client, i don't need to create the method in the Hub class. Methods created in the Hub class are made for Client -> Server messages.

Related

Why is this SignalR messages being received multiple times?

I am using SignalR in a Blazor server-side app. I added the Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client Nuget package (v5.0.11) to the project, and used the following code to create the hub connection...
HubConnection hubConnection = new HubConnectionBuilder()
.WithUrl("url")
.Build();
await hubConnection.StartAsync();
I then send out a message with the following code (Debug.WriteLine added to confirm what's going on)...
Debug.WriteLine($"{DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString()} SignalR msg sent");
await hubConnection.SendAsync("Send", "Hello");
The component that is to handle such messages creates the hub connection and hooks up to the On handler as follows...
HubConnection hubConnection = new HubConnectionBuilder()
.WithUrl("url")
.Build();
hubConnection.On<string>("Receive", msg =>
Debug.WriteLine($"{DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString()} SignalR msg received - {msg}"));
await hubConnection.StartAsync();
When the message is sent out, it is definitely only being sent once (which I can confirm from the output panel, where I only see the "sent" output once), but it is received twice.
Searching around, it seems that a common reason for this is if jQuery was loaded twice. However, I have checked this, and it's not the case. It's only being loaded the once. Furthermore, one of the other developers on the team tried it, and he got the message received 15 times! Even if we had accidentally included jQuery twice, we certainly didn't include it 15 times. Also, he's using exactly the same code as me (checked out from source control), so we should get the same results if this were the issue.
Anyone any idea why this could be happening? Thanks
This can occur when you initialise a HubConnection within a component and don’t configure IDispose or IAsyncDispose on your component to dispose the HubConnection.
In a Blazor Server-Side application there is already a SignalR host pushing updates to the client.
If you want to push updates from a page you can use a Singleton Service to handle the communication.
If you set up your own SignalR hub and use the SignalR client in your components, your application is something like the diagram below:
As you can see, the client is actually running on the server. The SignalR hub you've added adds processing and memory overhead and does not add any value.
I created a simple sample app that uses a service that clients listen to for updates:
https://github.com/conficient/BlazorServerWithSignalR

Asp Net Core SignalR Exception thrown: 'System.IO.InvalidDataException' in Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Protocols.Json.dll

I get an exception from the SignalR client application(Exception thrown: 'System.IO.InvalidDataException' in Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Protocols.Json.dll).
This is happening when the signalR Hub send messages to a channel that the client is not configured to listening on. The functionality that i want is described below:
The Signalr server Hub sends messages into channels like "Test1","Test2","Test3".
The SingalR client want to receive messages only for the Test1 channel because the particular user screen/page is associated only with the Test1 channel's messages. Then, the other two unhandled channels throws exceptions. So, the client needs to listening to all channels that the server sends to? I thought the On<>() method is meant for the client in order to subscribe to the channels where he is interested.
What am i missing?
Thanks in andvance!
Ran into this issue for a SignalR hub connection with angular client and .net 5.0 server. Below is the screen shot of the error details on the server side. In this instance I was sending a decimal as part of the json payload like "value": 8.3. The issue went away once I converted the decimal to a string like this "value": "8.3"

How to establish one-to-one connection between the clients using signalr?

I was developing a webapplication using signalr but i am having problem sending text to specific user in the connection.
Please use the following :
Clients.Client(ConnectionId).OnMessage(MessageText)
Get current signalr hub
private IHubContext _hub =GlobalHost.ConnectionManager.GetHubContext<SignalRHubName>()
Send Message to client by invoking the method in client side
_hub.Clients.Client(signalrconnectionId).signalRMethodInClient(message);
Since you want to send a message to a specific client you can keep a mapping between singalrid and your client id and use that mapping to get the signalrconnectionId for a client when needed.

WCF Service with SignalR

I have a web application which has few charts on dashboard. The data for charts is fetched on document.ready function at client side invoking a WCF service method.
What i want is now to use SignalR in my application. I am really new to SignalR. How can i call WCF methods from SignalR Hub or what you can say is that instead of pulling data from server i want the WCF service to push data to client every one minute.
Is there a way of communication between signalR and WCF service.
Also another approach can be to force client to ask for data from WCF Service every minute.
Any help will be really appreciated.
I have done following as of yet.
Client Side Function on my Dashboard page
<script src="Scripts/jquery.signalR-2.0.3.min.js"></script>
<!--Reference the autogenerated SignalR hub script. -->
<script src="/signalr/hubs"></script>
<a id="refresh">Refresh</a>
$(function() {
var dashboardHubProxy = $.connection.dashboardHub;
$.connection.hub.start().done(function() {
// dashboardHubProxy.server.refreshClient(parameters);
$("#refresh").click(function() {
dashboardHubProxy.server.refreshClient(parameters);
});
});
dashboardHubProxy.client.refreshChart = function (chartData) {
debugger;
DrawChart(chartData, 'Hourly Call Count For Last ' + Duration + ' Days', '#chartHourly', 'StackedAreaChart');
};
});
and my Dashboard Hub class is as follows
public class DashboardHub : Hub
{
private readonly ReportService ReportService = new ReportService();
public void RefreshClient(string parameters)
{
var chartData = ReportService.GenerateHourlyCallsTrendGraphicalReport(parameters);
Clients.All.refreshChart(chartData);
}
}
My SignalR startup class is as follows
[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(CallsPortalWeb.Startup), "Configuration")]
namespace CallsPortalWeb
{
public static class Startup
{
public static void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
{
ConfigureSignalR(app);
}
public static void ConfigureSignalR(IAppBuilder app)
{
app.MapSignalR();
}
}
}
When i click on refresh button and a debugger on RefreshClient method on hub the debugger doesn't get to the method which means i am unable to call server side method of SignalR.
Is there anything needs to be done in web.config?
I agree with AD.Net's comment. To elaborate slightly more though, the SignalR hubs can be hosted directly in your web project kinda the same way controllers are used. There is also a package out there so you can host the SignalR library on its own so it can act as a service all on its own. Either way you will need to hit the SignalR hub first as that is how it communicates then you would call your WCF service methods from within the hubs.
Brief explanation
Your HUB will have methods used by both your USER Client and your WCF Client. You may use something like UserConnected() for the user to call in and setup your logging of the connection. Then the WCF service may call your HUB with an UpdateUserStats(Guid connnectionId, UserStats stats) which would in turn call the USER client directly and provide the stats passed in like so Clients.Client(connectionId).updateStats(stats) which in turn would have a method on the USERS client named updateStats() that would handle the received information.
Initial page landing
What AD.Net provided is basic code that will be called when the user lands on the page. At this point you would want to log the ConnectionId related to that user so you can directly contact them back.
First contact with your hub touching WCF
From your Hub, you could call your WCF service as you normally would inside any normal C# code to fetch your data or perform action and return it to your user.
Method of updating the user periodically
SignalR removes the need for your client code to have to continually poll the server for updates. It is meant to allow you to push data out to the client with out them asking for it directly. This is where the persistence of the connections come into play.
You will probably want to create a wrapper to easily send messages to the hub from your application, since you are using WCF I would assume you have your business logic behind this layer so you will want the WCF service reaching out to your Hub whenever action X happens. You can do that by utilizing the Client side C# code as in this case your client is actually the user and the WCF service. With a chat application the other user is basically doing what you want your WCF service to do, which is send a message to the other client.
Usage example
You are running an online store. The dashboard displays how many orders there have been for the day. So you would wire up a call to the hub to send a message out to update the products ordered when a user places a new order. You can do this by sending it to the admin group you have configured and any admins on the dashboard would get the message. Though if these stats are very user specific, you will more then likely instead reach into the database, find the ConnectionId that the user has connected with and send the update message directly to that connectionid.
WCF Client Code Example
Just incase you want some code, this is directly from MS site on connecting with a .net client. You would use this in your WCF service, or wherever in your code you plan on connecting and then sending an update to your user.
var hubConnection = new HubConnection("http://www.contoso.com/");
IHubProxy stockTickerHubProxy = hubConnection.CreateHubProxy("StockTickerHub");
stockTickerHubProxy.On<Stock>("UpdateStockPrice", stock => Console.WriteLine("Stock update for {0} new price {1}", stock.Symbol, stock.Price));
await hubConnection.Start();
Here is a link directly to the .Net Client section: http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/signalr-20/hubs-api/hubs-api-guide-net-client
I am sure you have seen this link but it really holds all the good information you need to get started. http://www.asp.net/signalr
Here is a more direct link that goes into usages with code for you. http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/signalr-20/hubs-api/hubs-api-guide-server
ADDED: Here is a blog specific to Dashboards with SignalR and their polling.
http://solomon-t.blogspot.com/2012/12/signalr-and-interval-polling-for.html
ADDED: Here is a page on managing users signalR connections.
http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/signalr-20/hubs-api/mapping-users-to-connections
Update for your code update
The .Net Client library (in NuGet) gives your .net code access to the hub. Since you are a client you will need to connect to the hub just like the User who is also a client. Your hub would act as the server for this. So with the .Net Client I am assuming you would setup a windows service that would internally poll, or something event based that would call the .Net Client code portion of it which would reach out to your hub. Your hub would take the information provided, more than likely a ConnectionId or GroupId and broad cast the User (which is perhaps on a website so it would be the JS client) a method that would update the front end for the user client. Basically what I mention under "Brief Explanation".
Now, to directly respond to the code you posted. That is Javascript, I would expect a connect like you have done. Updating the chart on initial connection is fine as well. If this is all the code signalR wise though you are missing a client side method to handle the refresh. Technically, instead of calling Clients.Caller.RefreshChart() you could just return that data and use it, which is what your javascript is doing right now. You are returning void but it is expecting a your date.
Now, I would actually say correct your javascript instead of correcting the hub code. Why? Because having a method in JS on your client that is called "refreshChart()" can be reused for when you are having your server reach out and update the client.
So I would recommend, dropping anything that is related to updating the dashboard in your JS done statement. If you want to do a notification or something to the user that is fine but dont update the grid.
Now create a JS client function called "refreshChart", note the lower case R, you can call it with a big R in c# but the js library will lowercase it so when you make the function have it will receive your dashboard information.
Now, on the server polling, or executing on some action, your WCF would call a method on the hub that would be say "UpdateDashboar(connectionId,dashInfo)" and that method would then inside of it call the "refreshChart" just like you are doing in your RefreshClient method, accept instead of doing Clients.Caller you would use Clients.Client(connectionId).refreshChart(chartInfo).
Directly the reason your code is not working is because you need to turn that Void into the type you expect to be returned. If the rest is coded right you will have it update once. You will need to implement the other logic I mentioned if you want it constantly updating. Which is again why I asked about how you are persisting your connections. I added a link to help you with that if you are not sure what I am talking about.
You should use the SignalR Hub to push data to the client. Your hub can consume a WCF service (the same way your client can) to get the data.
from client:
hub.VisitingDashBoard();
on the hub in the VisitingDashBoard method:
var data = wcfClient.GetDashboardData()//may be pass the user id from the context
Clients.Caller.UpdateDashboard(data)
Of course your client will have a handler for UpdateDashboard call

Using ASP.NET readonly session with SignalR websockets

I am trying to use a readonly ASP.NET session as shown by David Fowler in this gist: https://gist.github.com/davidfowl/4692934
But does this also apply when using WebSockets as the transport> I am running IIS (Express) 8.0.
What I see is that the hub method is called before the Application_BeginRequest method is called or Application_BeginRequest is not called at all. (I am using SignalR version 1.1.0)
Which Application events are called when a SignalR request is received?
Begin request should be called once during the websocket handshake and never called again after that. Hub invocations do not imply an http request is being made.

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