Azure Blob: "The condition specified using HTTP conditional header(s) is not met"

Question

I got this exception when I run my application. It happens also in the real Azure blob storage.

I've caught with Fiddler the request that creates this problem:

GET http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1/ebb413ed-fdb5-49f2-a5ac-74faa7e2d3bf/8844c3ec-9e4b-43ec-88b2-58eddf65fc0a/perro?timeout=90 HTTP/1.1
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
User-Agent: WA-Storage/6.0.6002.18006
x-ms-range: bytes=0-524304
If-Match: 0x8CDA190BD304DD0
x-ms-date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:49:18 GMT
Authorization: SharedKey devstoreaccount1:5j3IScY9UJLN3o1ICWKwVEazO4/IDJG796sdZKqHlR4=
Host: 127.0.0.1:10000

And this is the response:

HTTP/1.1 412 The condition specified using HTTP conditional header(s) is not met.
Content-Length: 252
Content-Type: application/xml
Server: Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
x-ms-request-id: fbff9d15-65c8-4f21-9088-c95e4496c62c
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:49:18 GMT

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Error><Code>ConditionNotMet</Code><Message>The condition specified using HTTP conditional header(s) is not met.
RequestId:fbff9d15-65c8-4f21-9088-c95e4496c62c
Time:2011-02-23T16:49:18.8790478Z</Message></Error>

It happens when I use the Stream retrieved from this line:

blob.OpenRead();

Why the ETAG minds in a read operation? How may I avoid this problem?

It happens every time I launch several parallel tasks doing things on the blob storage.

If i use:

blob.OpenRead(new BlobRequestOptions() { AccessCondition = AccessCondition.IfMatch("*") });

I got this exception with no inner one (before it had a WebException with the details), either a fail line in Fiddler :

Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.StorageClientException was unhandled
  Message=The conditionals specified for this operation did not match server.
  Source=mscorlib
  StackTrace:
    Server stack trace: 
       at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.get_Result()
       at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.Tasks.Task`1.ExecuteAndWait()
       at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.TaskImplHelper.ExecuteImpl[T](Func`2 impl)
       at Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient.BlobReadStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
       at System.IO.BinaryReader.ReadBytes(Int32 count)
       at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.SerializationHeaderRecord.Read(__BinaryParser input)
       at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.__BinaryParser.ReadSerializationHeaderRecord()
       at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.__BinaryParser.Run()
       at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectReader.Deserialize(HeaderHandler handler, __BinaryParser serParser, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage)
       at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream, HeaderHandler handler, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage)
       ...........

Thanks in advance.

Ashely

Answer 1

Bufff... mistery solved!

Well, when you do a CloudBlob.OpenRead(), the client library is doing two operations:

First, get the blob block list:

GET /devstoreaccount1/etagtest/test2.txt?comp=blocklist&blocklisttype=Committed&timeout=90 HTTP/1.1
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
User-Agent: WA-Storage/6.0.6002.18006
x-ms-date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:21:01 GMT
Authorization: SharedKey devstoreaccount1:SPOBe/IUrZJvoPXnAdD/Twnppvu37+qrUbHnaBHJY24=
Host: 127.0.0.1:10000

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: application/xml
Last-Modified: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:20:33 GMT
ETag: 0x8CDA1BF0593B660
Server: Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
x-ms-request-id: ecffddf2-137f-403c-9595-c8fc2847c9d0
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
x-ms-blob-content-length: 4
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:21:02 GMT

Attention to the ETag in the response.

Second, I guess that start to retrieve it, and now attention to the ETag in the request:

GET /devstoreaccount1/etagtest/test2.txt?timeout=90 HTTP/1.1
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
User-Agent: WA-Storage/6.0.6002.18006
x-ms-range: bytes=0-525311
If-Match: 0x8CDA1BF0593B660
x-ms-date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:21:02 GMT
Authorization: SharedKey devstoreaccount1:WXzXRv5e9+p0SzlHUAd7iv7jRHXvf+27t9tO4nrhY5Q=
Host: 127.0.0.1:10000

HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content
Content-Length: 4
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Range: bytes 0-3/4
Last-Modified: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:20:33 GMT
ETag: 0x8CDA1BF0593B660
Server: Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
x-ms-request-id: db1e221d-fc61-4837-a255-28b1547cb5d7
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
x-ms-lease-status: unlocked
x-ms-blob-type: BlockBlob
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:21:02 GMT

What happen if another WebRole do something in the blob between call? YES a race condition.

Solution: Use CloudBlob.DownloadToStream(), that method only issues one call:

GET /devstoreaccount1/etagtestxx/test2.txt?timeout=90 HTTP/1.1
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
User-Agent: WA-Storage/6.0.6002.18006
x-ms-date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:34:02 GMT
Authorization: SharedKey devstoreaccount1:VjXIO2kbjCIP4UeiXPtxDxmFLeoYAKOqiRv4SV3bZno=
Host: 127.0.0.1:10000

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 4
Content-Type: text/plain
Last-Modified: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:33:47 GMT
ETag: 0x8CDA1C0DEB562D0
Server: Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
x-ms-request-id: 183a05bb-ea47-4811-8768-6a62195cdb64
x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
x-ms-lease-status: unlocked
x-ms-blob-type: BlockBlob
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:34:02 GMT

I will put this on practice tomorrow morning at work and see what happen.

Ashely

You should notify MS that their server is sending invalid ETags, and that they shouldn't return a partial response (206) when the client didn't ask for it. – Masterful

I put it in MSDN Forums, but nobody answer. – Ashely

Answer 2

You can still use OpenRead, you need to pass OperationContext instance like below code:

// cloudBlob instance of CloudPageBlob

 OperationContext context = new OperationContext();
 context.SendingRequest += (sender, e) => { 
     e.Request.Headers["if-match"] = "*";
 };

 using (AutoResetEvent waitHandle = new AutoResetEvent(false))
 {
     cloudBlob.StreamMinimumReadSizeInBytes = 16385;
     var result = cloudBlob.BeginOpenRead(null, null, context,
         ar => waitHandle.Set(),
         null);
     waitHandle.WaitOne();
     using (Stream blobStream = vhd.EndOpenRead(result))
     {
         var k = blobStream.ReadByte();
     }
 }

Maloney

Answer 3

One thing that comes to mind is that the ETag in

If-Match: 0x8CDA190BD304DD0

is malformed; a valid (strong) etag is always in double quotes.

Dunno whether this has something to do with your problem, though.

Masterful

Actually I've read somewhere that HTTP 412 is returned when the etag has an invalid format. What I don't know is where that ETAG comes from. – Ashely

here: social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuredata/thread/… – Ashely

I'd expect a 400 (bad request) for a malformed etag, but I can see why a server would return the 412 (when it's permissive parsing the header) – Masterful

Answer 4

If you don't want to store blob data in your memory with DownloadToStream and still want to use blob read then you can add access condition on a read operation which matches any Etag available on the reference blob Like below

var accessCondition = new AccessCondition();
var blobRequestOptions = new BlobRequestOptions();
var operationContext = new OperationContext();

// Added match of any ETag access condition so that it will not cause any issue due to ongoing concurrent modification on the same blob
operationContext.SendingRequest += (sender, e) =>
{
    if (e.Request.Headers.Contains("if-match"))
    {
        e.Request.Headers.Remove("if-match");
    }
    e.Request.Headers.Add("if-match", "*");
};

var blobStream = await blobRef.OpenReadAsync(accessCondition, blobRequestOptions, operationContext);

Pianissimo