There was an error downloading metadata from the address

Question

I am trying to add service reference.

There was an error downloading metadata from the address

this is the error which is being displayed again and again?

Please help

Chalkstone

please publish the wsdl or send me in email – Lunna

if it is one small file paste it here. if it is big and have referenced files (e.g. "import" tags) send them all to me. I want to reproduce it – Lunna

basically after clicking on add service reference when i press ok it shows me a error : There was an error downloading metadata from the address please enter a valid URL – Chalkstone

Please post your web.config of the service you are trying to add. – Andre

<configuration> <system.web> <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" /> </system.web> <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name=""> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" /> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> – Chalkstone

does we require to add something in web config of Visual studio 2010 to make this error out.. – Chalkstone

Answer 1

There are atleast 4 possibilities:

• The metadata exchange mex endpoint is not defined
• metadata exchange is not enabled
• You are using the wrong address
• You are being blocked by some security setting

Try the url in a browser to see that it returns a wsdl

Broil

<configuration> <system.web> <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" /> </system.web> <system.serviceModel> <behaviors> <serviceBehaviors> <behavior name=""> <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" /> </behavior> </serviceBehaviors> </behaviors> <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" /> </system.serviceModel> </configuration> – Chalkstone

The type 'SilverlightApplication6.Web.Service1', provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive, or provided in the configuration element system.serviceModel/serviceHostingEnvironment/serviceActivations could not be found. – Chalkstone

Browser displays the above message while posting the URL. – Chalkstone

Answer 2

You may also just need to build / rebuild the project.

Bacolod

Answer 3

It was happening the same to me and I found that I've had forgotten to add the "Service Contract" and the "Operation Contract" annotations on the interface of my WCF service

Mariellamarielle

Same if you forgot [DataContract] on classes that you want to use. – Arellano

Answer 4

Just try to Build the project without any error and give service reference again.

Jason

This ans Helped for me – Vanya

Answer 5

In Web.config file I changed :

 <endpoint address="" binding="pollingDuplexHttpBinding"
    contract="IAsyncTaskService"/>

to this :

<endpoint address="" binding="pollingDuplexHttpBinding"
    contract="DuplexService.Web.IAsyncTaskService"/>

and error was removed. Zeni

Uncommonly

Answer 6

Try rebuilding the project first, if that does not fix it, try changing the property httpGetEnabled from FALSE to TRUE in your web.config.

  <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="serviceBehavior">
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
      <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
    </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>

Balustrade

Answer 7

Check IIS is serving the service URL. In my case, I had changed my Windows password, but had forgotten that these credentials were being used by IIS in both the application and the app pool.

Hippocrates

Answer 8

I know this is an oldie, but I thought I would add what worked for me so that I can find it again down the road ;)

In my case, the AppPool user didn't have access the %Windir%\temp, which apparently is necessary in order for the MEX data to be generated.

Shout out to Amy Peng in this thread for her tip!

Psycho

Answer 9

Another possibility in this situation is that there is no endpoint listening. I.e., the service you are trying to add isn't "up". I made this mistake when trying to add a reference to a WCF service I was working on, but I forgot to Open it.

Penneypenni

Answer 10

I had an issue like this one : Adding a service reference failed with a message "Method not allowed".

The wsdl worked fine in my browser..

The reason was that I configured the endpoint to listen on http://0.0.0.0:6000/mex, which the "Add Service Reference" tool doesn't seem to like. Changing it to a real IP address made it work (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:6000/mex)

Vasili