Service Bus Explorer

Hi Paolo,

Thanks for the great tool. It makes working with SB so much easier.

Do you know the best approach for unattended automated deployment of service bus queues, topics and subscriptions? In the BizTalk world, we have the BizTalk Deployment Framework, for example. I see your tool has import and export functions but need something that will work with TFS end to end builds.

Thanks and regards,

Rob

Thanks for the tool, it's great!

I have just one problem related to metrics. When I configure them for a queue and click "Get Metrics", I get some errors:

An error occurred while retrieving (incoming) metric data for the [Queues/myqueue/metrics] entity: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.

After this "Object reference not set" is shown on the log. The metrics window opens after this but it's empty.

Any ideas?

Hi Mikael, 
I'm investigating the problem right now. Metrics was working fine till a couple of weeks ago. I'll publish a fixed version as soon as I find the issue! Stay tuned!
Ciao
Paolo

Hi Paolo,

Thanks for the great tool! I wish it was advertised more via Azure Portal. 

I have a question about messages sent to the queue via WCF service contract. For some reason I cannot peek or receive messages sent via contracts.

Do you know what might be a reason for that? Thanks!

Hi mate, 
thanks a lot for the compliments. When using the NetMessagingBinding and WCF to send messages to a queue or a topic, the body of the message gets encoded using the BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement. Likewise, when using WCF and the NetMessagingBinding to receive a message from a queue or a topic, the body  is decoded using the BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement. This means, that a consumer app that uses the .NET SB API (e.g. a MessageReceiver object) to receive a message  from a queue or a subscription that has been sent by a publisher app that uses NetMessagingBinding cannot read the message, unless the latter is decoded using the BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement. Likewise, a consumer app that uses WCF and the NetMessagingBinding cannot read a message sent by a publisher app sent by an app using the SB .NET API (e.g. using the MessageSender class). However, I implemented a trick in the Service Bus Explorer that makes it possible: you can read more about it on the original article on MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh532261%28v=vs.103%29.aspx. In a nutshell, if you want to send a message to a WCF receiver, you need to select WCF as Body Type under the Send tab in my tool. This tells the tool to encode the message with the BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement before sending out. Likewise, when receiving a message from a WCF app, the tool decodes its body using the BinaryMessageEncodingBindingElement . Hope this helps! :)
Ciao
Paolo

In your final statement you say that Service Bus Explorer 2.0 is not compatible with Service Bus for Windows Server 1.0, which from what I can find, is the thing that everyone can download and install.

So is there a later version of Service Bus somewhere that we need to install? Where is it?

Hi there,
at the moment there's no new version for the Service Bus for Windows Server. The product Group is working to a new version that will re-introduce the simmetry between the cloud and on-premises version of the Service Bus. I can't disclose any dates though for the new version. In the meantime, as I wrote in the notes, you can use the old version of the Service Bus Explorer based on Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll 1.8. 
Ciao
Paolo

I'm running the service on my local virtual machine.  The connection seem to work in the sample code below:
            string SBConnString = "Endpoint=sb://WIN-LH8V8RAM74J/MSExample;StsEndpoint=https://WIN-LH8V8RAM74J:9355/MSExample;RuntimePort=9354;ManagementPort=9355";
            ServiceBusConnectionStringBuilder connBuilder = new ServiceBusConnectionStringBuilder(SBConnString);

            string userName = "myUserName";
            string password = "myPassword";

            TokenProvider localUserTokenProvider = WindowsTokenProvider.CreateWindowsTokenProvider(
                connBuilder.StsEndpoints,
                new System.Net.NetworkCredential(userName, password));

            MessagingFactory factory = MessagingFactory.Create(
                        connBuilder.GetAbsoluteRuntimeEndpoints(), localUserTokenProvider);
            NamespaceManager namespaceManager = new NamespaceManager(
                        connBuilder.GetAbsoluteManagementEndpoints(), localUserTokenProvider);

However, when I tried to connect using the service bus explorer, I keep getting the token provider was unable to provide a security token while accessing 'https://win-lh8v8ram74j/$STS/Windows/' error.  I have the local admin right on the virtual machine, and have tried to connect using with and without the user ID/pw in the connection string. 

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Hi HuaHsin
as I wrote in the notes for the last update, the Service Bus 2.0 temporarily interrupts the simmetry between the cloud and on-premises version of the Service Bus. In other words, the Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll 2.0 client library is not compatible with the Service Bus for Windows Server 1.0. For this reason, I included the old version of the Service Bus Explorer in a zip file called 1.8 which in turn is contained in the zip file of the current version. The old version of the Service Bus Explorer uses the Microsoft.ServiceBus.dll 1.8 which is compatible with the Service Bus for Windows Server. Hope this help to solve your problem!
Ciao
Paolo

From the Queue Information I can see I have message in the dead letter queue.  But when I click "Peek dead letter Queue messages" I do not see details of these messages.  I just get "<19:01:23> Messages read: Count=[0]".  Note this says "read" and not "peak".

I’ve implemented some changes to this Service Bus Explorer MainForm.cs recevieMessages_Click method for our support team purposes:

- I throw a NotSupportedException when clicking “Receive All Messages” or “Receive Top 10 Messages” as I don’t want support personnel removing messages from the queue.
- I have fixed both “Peek Deadletter Queue Messages” and “Receive DeadLetter Queue Messages” so that it actually uses the DeadLetter queue (not the regular queue).  A very scary bug that thankfully I did not find in production.
 - I have added an “Are you sure yes\no prompt” on the “Receive DeadLetter Queue Messages”.

Hi Charlie, thanks for your feedbacks. As far as I know, the product team is planning to make the content of a queue or Subscription "browsable". If and when will this happen, I'll review the "peek all messages" and "peek top 10 messages" functions. Feel free to write directly to me. You find my email in the About form. Could you please contact me offline and let me know how you use the Service Bus Explorer and any suggestions to improve the tool? Thanks!
Ciao
Paolo

Hi,
i am running the Windows Service Bus on my computer and i am trying to connect to if from the service bus explorer and i just can't.
This is the connection string i am using in my worker roles:

Endpoint=sb://asus-PC/ServiceBusDefaultNamespace;StsEndpoint=https://asus-PC:9355/ServiceBusDefaultNamespace;RuntimePort=9354;ManagementPort=9355

Thanks,
Roi

Hi Roi, I'll soon publish a new version that supports connection strings for both cloud and on-premises Service Bus. With this version it will be much easier to specify connections strings for both cloud and on-premises namespaces. You'll have the option to define the connection string in the configuration file or on the fly in the Connect form of tool. 
Ciao,
Paolo

<add key="Namespace3" value="endpoint=sb://namespace3.servicebus.windows.net/;sharedSecretIssuer=owner;sharedSecretValue=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX=""/>

results in Error	20	Application Configuration file "App.config" is invalid. Name cannot begin with the '"' character, hexadecimal value 0x22. Line 9, position 141.	G:\Service Bus Projects\Service Bus Explorer\C#\App.config	9	141	ServiceBusExplorer


has to be

<add key="Namespace3" value="endpoint=sb://namespace3.servicebus.windows.net/;sharedSecretIssuer=owner;sharedSecretValue=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX="/>

Hi,

Thanks for the effort you spend on providing the ServiceBusExplorer. Since I needed some more information about entries of DeadLetterQueue I add some more information to your tool. 

Hi, thanks for the feedback and sorry for the delay. It would be great if you could send me your customized version so that I can integrate it my future developments. My plans is to update the tool soon, so it would be great if I could integrate your capabilities. Feel free to contact me at paolos@microsoft.com, thanks!
Cheers,
Paolo