svcutil.exe. Error: Cannot obtain Metadata from http://localhost/WsdlTest/Wsdltest.svc?wsdl

Question

User-1977395405 posted

Hi. I'm new to WCF, working with VS2010 and .NET 4.0, and trying to create a http data service. I've successfully published my WCF service to my local version of IIS (IIS 7.5 on Windows 7). But I can't get svcutil.exe to work. I've been banging my head on the wall, going through all the documentation on exposing service endpoints for metadata, and it finally occurred to me to simply put "http://localhost/wsdltest/WsdlTest.svc?wsdl" in my browser. And presto, I got back an xml document that looks exactly like the wsdl documents I'm used to from .asmx web services. 

So the problem isn't with the service exposing the metadata at all. The problem is that for some reason the svcutil.exe utility can't see it. Anyone have any ideas as to what's going wrong? This project is named "WsdlTest" because after trying for half a day to get svcutil.exe. working with my professional project, I unloaded it and created a plain vanilla WCF service and published it just to remove all extraneous factors. This WsdlTest is the plain vanilla WCF Service Application template, and that is all it is. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to it outside of a change-all in the solution from "Service1" to "WsdlTest".

Answer 1

User-1000095884 posted

Hi,

You can use both a configuration file and using code to expose metadata for your service, you can refer document below to learn how to do.

#Publishing Metadata

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa751951.aspx

You can refer a thread with my response that provide a sample to download metadata with svcutil.exe.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wcf/thread/bf82000a-6e2e-4e04-b024-809ff86f028e/

Best Regards.

Answer 2

User-1039165553 posted

I had exactly the same problem. The key to a solution was activating in IIS the Error Pages for the web service. Then I got the following message:

ERROR 404.3 Not Found
The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.

Searching for info on this message I found this link: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4388066/the-page-you-are-requesting-cannot-be-served-because-of-the-extension-configura

The solution was to register the version of .NET framework with aspnet_regiis.exe. I had turned on the IIS feature after the install of .NET.