I have a web service that can be broken down into two main sections:
[WebMethod]
MyServiceCall()
{
//Do stuff the client cares about
//Do stuff I care about
}
What I'd like to do is run that 2nd part on another thread, so that the client isn't waiting on it: once the user's logic has completed, send them their information immediately, but continue processing the stuff I care about (logging, etc).
From a web service, what is the recommended way of running that 2nd piece asynchronously, to get the user back their information as quickly as possible? BackgroundWorker? QueueUserWorkItem?
You may want to look into Tasks which are new to .NET 4.0.
It lets you kick off an asynchronous operation, but also gives you an easy way to see if it's done or not later.
var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => DoSomeWork());
It'll kick off DoSomeWork() and continue without waiting so you can continue doing your other processing. When you get to the point where you don't want to process anymore until your asynchronous task has finished, you can call:
task.Wait();
Which will wait there until the task has completed. If you want to get a result back from the task, you can do this:
var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
Thread.Sleep(3000);
return "dummy value";
});
Console.WriteLine(task.Result);
A call to task.Result blocks until the result is available.
Here's a tutorial that covers Tasks in greater detail: http://www.codethinked.com/net-40-and-systemthreadingtasks
The easiest way to fire off a new thread is probably:
new Thread(() =>
{
/// do whatever you want here
}).Start();
Be careful, though - if the service is hit very frequently, you could wind up creating a lot of threads that block each other.
Related
Using ASP.NET Core .NET 5. Running on Windows.
Users upload large workbooks that need to be converted to a different format. Each conversion process is CPU intensive and takes around a minute to complete.
The idea is to use a pattern where the requests are queued in a background queue and then processed by background tasks.
So, I followed this Microsoft article
The queuing part worked well but the issue was that workbooks were executing sequentially in the background:
private async Task BackgroundProcessing(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
{
while (!stoppingToken.IsCancellationRequested)
{
var workItem =
await TaskQueue.DequeueAsync(stoppingToken);
try
{
await workItem(stoppingToken);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
_logger.LogError(ex,
"Error occurred executing {WorkItem}.", nameof(workItem));
}
}
}
If I queued 10 workbooks. Workbook 2 wouldn't start until workbook 1 is done. Workbook 3 wouldn't start until workbook 2 is done, etc.
So, I modified the code to run tasks without await and hid the warning with the discard operator (please note workItem is now Action, not Task):
while (!stoppingToken.IsCancellationRequested)
{
var workItem = await TaskQueue.DequeueAsync(stoppingToken);
_ = Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
try
{
workItem(stoppingToken);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
_logger.LogError(ex, "Error occurred executing {WorkItem}.", nameof(workItem));
}
}, TaskCreationOptions.LongRunning);
}
That works -- I get all workbooks starting processing around the same time, and then they complete around the same time too. But, I am not sure if doing this is dangerous and can lead to bugs, crashes, etc.
Is the second version a workable solution, or will it lead to some disaster in the future? Is there a better way to implement parallel workloads on the background threads in ASP.NET?
Thanks.
Using an external queue has some advantages over in-memory queueing. In particular, the queue message are stored in a reliable external store with features around retries, multiple consumers, etc. If your app crashes, the queue item remains and can be tried again.
In Azure, you can use several services including Azure Storage Queues and Service Bus. I like Service Bus because it uses push-based behavior to avoid the need for a polling loop in your code. Either way, you can create an instance of IHostedService that will watch the queue and process the work items in a separate thread with configurable parallelization.
Look for examples on using within ASP.NET Core, for example:
https://damienbod.com/2019/04/23/using-azure-service-bus-queues-with-asp-net-core-services/
The idea is to use a pattern where the requests are queued in a background queue and then processed by background tasks.
The proper solution for request-extrinsic code is to use a durable queue with a separate backend processor. Any in-memory solution will lose that work any time the application is shut down (e.g., during a rolling upgrade).
I have an async Task with a method signature defined like this:
public async Task<bool> HandleFooAsync()
When executing this task in an async way and discarding the results, exceptions happening in this task do not show up in our logs.
_ = _slackResponseService.HandleFooAsync();
When I await the execution of the task I see the error in our logs
var result = await _slackResponseService.HandleFooAsync();
Is this expected behaviour? Is there a way to achieve a solution in between: "do not wait for the result, but log errors nevertheless.." ? We invested hours debugging our logging setup, just to learn that our logging setup is correct, but discard means in dotnet that everything is discarded - even logs. Which is a quite a new perspective for us, coming from a Python background.
Our logging setup follows the default logging setup for dotnet core 3 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/logging/?view=aspnetcore-3.1
Yes, it is an expected behavior. Call in that way can be considered like an anti-pattern. You can read about it C# Async Antipatterns
You need something which is called as "Fire and forget". One of its implementation can be find in repo AsyncAwaitBestPractices (nuget available too).
A Task in .net and netcore is meant to be awaited. If it is not awaited, the scope might be destroyed before the async method has finished.
If you want to run tasks in the background and not wait for a result you can use BackgroundService in .netcore or a third party such as Hangfire which supports fire and forget jobs out of the box
https://medium.com/#daniel.sagita/backgroundservice-for-a-long-running-work-3debe8f8d25b
https://www.hangfire.io/
One solution is to subscribe to the TaskScheduler.UnobservedTaskException event. It is not ideal because the event is raised when the faulted Task is garbage collected, which may happen long after the actual fault.
Another solution could be to use an extension method every time a task is fired and forgotten. Like this:
_slackResponseService.HandleFooAsync().FireAndForget();
Here is a basic implementation of the FireAndForget method:
public async static void FireAndForget(this Task task)
{
try
{
await task;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// log the exception here
}
}
All,
I am using Change Feed Processor Library.Want to know the best way to handle service failure along with the exceptions/errors scenario's in ProcessChangesAsync method. Below are the events am referring to.
1) Service failure - Service having the processor library crashed in the middle of some operation. How to start the process from the same document(doc on failure instance)? is there any inbuilt mechanism where change feed will start with the last failed documents? E.g. Let assume,in current batch we have 10 docs.5 processed successfully and then service breaks because of network failure or by some other reasons.Will my process starts with 6th document once service is re-started? How to achieve this?
2) Exception and Errors- Any errors in ProcessChangesAsync method can be handle using try catch at the global level but how to persist those failure records and make them available for the next batch? Again,looking for any available inbuilt mechanism in change feed process.
1) The Processor Library, by default, checkpoints after a successful run of ProcessChangesAsync. In the latest library version, you can customize the Checkpointer to do manual checkpoints in case you need it. If for some reason the processor shuts down before checkpointing, then it will start processing next from the the last successful checkpoint stored in the Leases collection. In your case, it will start with the first document again, so you will never lose a change but you could experience double processing (this is an "at least once" model).
2) There is no built-in mechanism that you can leverage, handling exceptions within the ProcessChangesAsync is your responsibility. You could not only add a global try/catch but, in the case you are looping over the documents, add a try/catch inside the loop, to handle a failing document (maybe send it to queue for later analysis/post-process) without losing the batch. If you require logging for those errors (I'm assuming that's what you mean by persisting errors?), then the latest version is compatible with LibLog, so plugging your own custom logging is as simple as:
using Microsoft.Azure.Documents.ChangeFeedProcessor.Logging;
var hostName = "SampleHost";
var tracelogProvider = new TraceLogProvider(); //You can use any provider supported by LibLog
using (tracelogProvider.OpenNestedContext(hostName))
{
LogProvider.SetCurrentLogProvider(tracelogProvider);
// After this, create IChangeFeedProcessor instance and start/stop it.
}
Source
Extra info for the comments
To avoid exceptions halting the batch or causing a batch to be reprocessed, you can have handling like this:
public async Task ProcessChangesAsync(IChangeFeedObserverContext context, IReadOnlyList<Document> documents, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
try
{
foreach(var document in documents)
{
try
{
// Do your work for the document
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
// Something happened with the current document, handle it, send it to a queue / another storage to analyze, log it. This catch will make the loop continue with the next.
}
}
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
// Something unhandled happened, log it and avoid throwing it again so the next batch is processed
}
}
I am writing a web app where the application runs a command on the system using System.Diagnostics class.
I wanted to display realtime output from a command which takes a lot of time to complete. After searching a bit, I found that BeginOutputReadLine can stream output to an event handler.
I am also using jquery ajax to call this method and have the process run asynchronously.
So far, I am trying to do it this way:
Process p2= new Process();
p2.OutputDataReceived += new DataReceivedEventHandler(opHandler);
p2= Process.Start (psi2);
p2.BeginOutputReadLine();
I have declared a class with a static variable to store the output of the command as a Label on the page wont be accessible from a static method.
public class ProcessOutput
{
public static string strOutput;
[WebMethod]
public static string getOutput()
{
return strOutput;
}
}
In the event handler for BeginOutputReadLine, set the variable with the line from output.
private static void opHandler(object sendingProcess,DataReceivedEventArgs outLine)
{
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(outLine.Data))
{
ProcessOutput.strOutput= outLine.Data;
}
}
and from the aspx page, I am calling the method to get the value of strOutput
$(document).ready(function() {
setInterval(function() {
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "newscan.aspx/getOutput",
data: "",
success: function(msg){
$('#txtAsyncOp').append(msg.d);
}
});
}, 1000);
});
I dont know why, but the lable is not getting updated. If I put alert, I get 'undefined' in the alert box every 10 seconds.
Can anybody suggest me how to do it correctly?
Each request begins a new thread as a part of the Request pipeline. This is by design. Each thread has its own stack and can't access each others stacks. When a thread starts running a new method it stores the arguments and local variables in that method on its own stack. Long story short you won't be able to assign that variable and expect to retrieve its value from another Request.
There are a couple approaches you can take, you can scope it to the session variable (most common) with:
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Session["variable"] = value ;
Or you set it to application scope using:
if (System.Web.Caching.Cache["Key1"] == null)
System.Web.Caching.Cache.Add("Key1", "Value 1", null, DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(60), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, CacheItemPriority.High, onRemove);
Alternatively, you can log the output to a database or file and echo out the results via the WebMethod. If your long running process is running asynchronously, you won't have access to the HttpContext -- so the Session state bag will not be available; the application Cache could be used, however it is generally not used for this type of mechanism (cache is available for performance reasons, not a persistence mechanism -- its important to remember that you cannot control when your web application recycles).
I'd highly suggest writing to a database or log file. Asynchronous processes commonly require logged output or trace to diagnose potential problems and to validate results.
Furthermore, because you cannot control when the web app recycles, you can easily lose control of that child process you're launching. A better design would start an asynchronous method in-process, or an out-of-process application or service that polls a database to pick up jobs (possibly use the task scheduler or cron depending on your platform).
is it possible to stop a web service from executing?
I have a flex web application that searches clients with both full name and client id, when searching by name sometimes the usuer just types the last name and it takes a long time.
Since the app is used when clients are waiting in line, I would like to be able to stop the search and use their full name or id instead, and avoid waiting for the results and then having to search the user manually within the results.
thanks
edit: Sorry, I didn't explain myself correctly, when I meant "web service" I actually meant mx.rpc.soap.mxml.WebService, I want to stop it from waiting for the result event and the fault event. thanks.
There is actually a cancel(..) method explicitly for this purpose, though it is a little burried. Using the cancel method will cause the result and fault handlers not to be called and will also remove the busy cursor etc.
Depending on how you run your searches (ie. separate worker process etc), it is also possible to extend this by added in a cancelSearch() web service method to kill these worker processes and free up server resources etc.
private var _searchToken:AsyncToken;
public function doSearch(query:String):void
{
_searchToken = this.searchService.doSearch(query);
}
protected function doSearch_resultHandler(event:ResultEvent):void
{
trace("doSearch result");
trace("TODO: Do stuff with results");
_searchToken = null;
}
protected function doSearch_faultHandler(event:FaultEvent):void
{
trace("doSearch fault: " + event.fault);
_searchToken = null;
}
public function cancelSearch():void
{
var searchMessageId:String = _searchToken.message.messageId;
// Cancels the last service invocation or an invokation with the
// specified ID. Even though the network operation may still
// continue, no result or fault event is dispatched.
searchService.getOperation("doSearch").cancel(searchMessageId);
_searchToken = null;
trace("The search was cancelled, result/fault handlers not called");
// TODO: If your web service search method is using worker processes
// to do a search and is likely to continue processing for some time,
// you may want to implement a 'cancel()' method on the web service
// to stop any search threads that may be running.
}
Update
You could use disconnect() to remove any pending request responders, but it also disconnects the service's connection. Then call initialize().
/Update
You cannot stop the web service from executing, because that's beyond the Flex app's control, but you can limit the processing of the web service's response. For instance on the app, have a button like Cancel Search which sets a boolean bSearchCanceled to true.
The result handler for the web service call checks bSearchCanceled; if true just return.