WCF Service Client: The content type text/html; charset=utf-8 of the response message does not match the content type of the binding

Question

I've got a WCF Service running on my local IIS server. I've added it as a service reference to a C# Website Project and it adds fine and generates the proxy classes automatically.

However, when I try and call any of the service contracts, I get the following error:

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ServiceModel.ProtocolException: The content type text/html; charset=utf-8 of the response message does not match the content type of the binding (application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8). If using a custom encoder, be sure that the IsContentTypeSupported method is implemented properly. The first 1024 bytes of the response were: ' function bredir(d,u,r,v,c){var w,h,wd,hd,bi;var b=false;var p=false;var s=[[300,250,false],[250,250,false],[240,400,false],[336,280,false],[180,150,false],[468,60,false],[234,60,false],[88,31,false],[120,90,false],[120,60,false],[120,240,false],[125,125,false],[728,90,false],[160,600,false],[120,600,false],[300,600,false],[300,125,false],[530,300,false],[190,200,false],[470,250,false],[720,300,true],[500,350,true],[550,480,true]];if(typeof(window.innerHeight)=='number'){h=window.innerHeight;w=window.innerWidth;}else if(typeof(document.body.offsetHeight)=='number'){h=document.body.offsetHeight;w=document.body.offsetWidth;}for(var i=0;i

I also have a console application which also communicates with the WCF Service and the console app is able to call methods fine without getting this error.

Below are excerpts from my config files.

WCF Service Web.Config:

<system.serviceModel>
   <services>
      <service name="ScraperService" behaviorConfiguration="ScraperServiceBehavior">
         <endpoint address=""
                   binding="wsHttpBinding" 
                   bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_IScraperService"
                   contract="IScraperService" />
         <endpoint address="mex" 
                   binding="mexHttpBinding" 
                   contract="IMetadataExchange" />
         <host>
            <baseAddresses>
                <add baseAddress="http://example.com" />
            </baseAddresses>
         </host>
      </service>
   </services>
   <bindings>
       <wsHttpBinding>
           <binding name="WSHttpBinding_IScraperService"
                    bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false"
                    hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                    maxBufferPoolSize="2000000" maxReceivedMessageSize="2000000"
                    messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8"
                    useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false">
               <readerQuotas 
                     maxDepth="2000000" maxStringContentLength="2000000" 
                     maxArrayLength="2000000" maxBytesPerRead="2000000"
                     maxNameTableCharCount="2000000" />
               <reliableSession 
                     enabled="false" ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" />
               <security mode="Message">
                   <message clientCredentialType="Windows"
                            negotiateServiceCredential="true"
                            algorithmSuite="Default"
                            establishSecurityContext="true" />
               </security>
            </binding>
          </wsHttpBinding>
      </bindings>
      <behaviors>
          <serviceBehaviors>
              <behavior name="ScraperServiceBehavior">
                  <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
                  <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />
              </behavior>
          </serviceBehaviors>
     </behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>

Website Project Service Client Web.Config:

<system.serviceModel>
   <bindings>
      <wsHttpBinding>
          <binding name="WSHttpBinding_IScraperService" 
              closeTimeout="00:01:00" openTimeout="00:01:00" 
              receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
              bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" 
              hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
              maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536" 
              messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8"
              useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false">
              <readerQuotas 
                  maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" 
                  maxArrayLength="16384" maxBytesPerRead="4096" 
                  maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
              <reliableSession enabled="false"
                  ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" />
              <security mode="Message">
                  <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" 
                       proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" />
                  <message clientCredentialType="Windows" 
                       negotiateServiceCredential="true"
                       algorithmSuite="Default" />
              </security>
          </binding>
       </wsHttpBinding>
    </bindings>
<client>
        <endpoint name="WSHttpBinding_IScraperService"
            address="http://example.com/ScraperService.svc"
            binding="wsHttpBinding" 
            bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_IScraperService"
            contract="ScraperService.IScraperService" >
           <identity>
               <servicePrincipalName value="host/FreshNET-II" />
           </identity>
        </endpoint>
     </client>
</system.serviceModel>

This is my first attempt at creating a WCF so it's all very new. Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Try browsing to http://localhost/ScraperService.svc in the web browser on the server hosting the service, using the same Windows credentials that the client normally runs under.

I imagine that IIS is displaying an html error message of some description instead of returning xml as expected.

This also can occur when you have an http proxy server that performs internet filtering. My experience with ContentKeeper is that it intercepts any http/https traffic and blocks it as "Unmanaged Content" - all we get back is an html error message. To avoid this, you can add proxy server exception rules to Internet Explorer so that the proxy doesn't intercept traffic to your site:

Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings > Advanced > Proxy Settings