Azure webjob - QueueTrigger stops triggering - azure

I am running an azure webjobs SDK console application (continuous) with the recommended setup:
public static void ProcessQueueMessage([QueueTrigger("logqueue")] string logMessage, TextWriter logger)
The azure queue I am running against has ~6000 messages in it and I am running the web-job locally, as a console application.
The problem I'm having is that the processing randomly stops after processing between zero and ~30 messages. The console stays open, but no more console messages are displayed.
For example, it might just process 2 messages:
Executing: 'Functions.ProcessQueueMessage' - Reason: 'New queue message detected on 'QueueName'.'
Executed: 'Functions.ProcessQueueMessage' (Succeeded)
Executing: 'Functions.ProcessQueueMessage' - Reason: 'New queue message detected on 'QueueName'.'
Executed: 'Functions.ProcessQueueMessage' (Succeeded)
And then, nothing. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with my internet connection and I can't trace the issues down to any particular messages.
Has anyone else had issues with this SDK?
Update:
I made sure that I was using the right versions of all of the dependencies by removing the nuget packages and then re-running install-package Microsoft.Axure.Webjobs. I am now using webjobs version 1.1.0 which has pulled in version 4.3 of azure storage.
As recommended by Matthew, I have pulled down the source code for azure webjobs to determine where the process is freezing up. Once the freez-up occurs, I pause execution and checked the running threads for what I believe is the culprit within Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Host.CompositeTraceWriter
protected virtual void InvokeTextWriter(TraceEvent traceEvent)
{
if (_innerTextWriter != null)
{
string message = traceEvent.Message;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(message) &&
message.EndsWith("\r\n", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
// remove any terminating return+line feed, since we're
// calling WriteLine below
message = message.Substring(0, message.Length - 2);
}
_innerTextWriter.WriteLine(message);
if (traceEvent.Exception != null)
{
_innerTextWriter.WriteLine(traceEvent.Exception.ToDetails());
}
}
}
The line it freezes on is line 66 : _innerTextWriter.WriteLine(message);
_innerTextWriter is an instance of System.IO.TextWriter.SyncTextWriter
Is it possible there is some deadlock issue with this class or the way it is being used?
Some notes:
I am running in the debugger, so in this case I believe the textwriter is forwarding to the console internally
I have my batchsize set to 1 via config.Queues.BatchSize = 1;, not sure if that could matter
I'm currently working on setting up an environment on another computer so that I can see if it is reproducible somewhere other than this machine (surface book).
Update
The issue was me not understanding how the new windows 10 command prompt works. Any time you click on the command window, it goes into "select" mode which completely pauses execution of the process.
Basically: https://superuser.com/questions/419717/windows-command-prompt-freezing-randomly?newreg=ece53f5584254346be68f85d1fd2f18d
You can tell it is in this state because it will prefix the window title with the word "Select":
You have to press enter or click again to get it going once again.
So, two final comments:
1) What an incredibly confusing and un-intuitive behavior for a command window!
2) I hope some admin will come take pity on the shame I have brought upon myself and my family by deleting this question.
To get rid of this strange behavior, you can disable QuickEdit mode:

Strange. When it is in this stuck state, can you try adding a new queue message to the queue and see if that triggers? Are you sure your function isn't hanging internally? What version of the SDK are you using? You might also try upgrading to v1.1.0 which we just released last week. If there are really a bunch of messages in the queue waiting to be processed, I can't think of anything that would cause this. The queue listener in the SDK should chug along, reading batches of messages in parallel and dispatching them to your function. Have you changed any of the JobHostConfiguration.Queues configuration knobs? You haven't force updated the version of the Azure SDK have you to something higher than the WebJobs SDK supports?
Another option if you can't figure this out might be to clone the SDK, build it and debug it locally. The repo is here. The main queue processing loop is here.

Related

Core data and cloudkit sync wwdc 2019 not working for beta 3

I am trying to replicate the result of WWDC talk on syncing core data with cloud kit automatically.
I tried three approaches:
Making a new master slave view app and following the steps at in
wwdc 2019 talk, in this case no syncing happens
Downloading the sample wwdc 2019 app also in this case no symcing happens
I made a small app with a small core data and a cloud kit container in this case syncing happens but I have to restart the app. I suspected it had to do with history management so observed the NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange notification not nothing receives.
Appreciate any help.
I also played around with CoreData and iCloud and it work perfectly. I would like to list some important points that may help you go further:
You have to run the app on a real device with iCloud Acc We can now test iCloud Sync on Simulator, but it will not get notification automatically. We have to trigger manually by select Debug > Trigger iCloud Sync
Make sure you added Push Notification and iCloud capability to your app. Make sure that you don't Dave issue with iCloud container (in this case, you will see red text on iCloud session in Xcode)
In order to refresh the view automatically, you need to add this line into your Core Data Stack: container.viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true.
Code:
public lazy var persistentContainer: NSPersistentCloudKitContainer = {
/*
The persistent container for the application. This implementation
creates and returns a container, having loaded the store for the
application to it. This property is optional since there are legitimate
error conditions that could cause the creation of the store to fail.
*/
let container = NSPersistentCloudKitContainer(name: self.modelName)
container.viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true
container.loadPersistentStores(completionHandler: { (storeDescription, error) in
if let error = error as NSError? {
// Replace this implementation with code to handle the error appropriately.
// fatalError() causes the application to generate a crash log and terminate. You should not use this function in a shipping application, although it may be useful during development.
/*
Typical reasons for an error here include:
* The parent directory does not exist, cannot be created, or disallows writing.
* The persistent store is not accessible, due to permissions or data protection when the device is locked.
* The device is out of space.
* The store could not be migrated to the current model version.
Check the error message to determine what the actual problem was.
*/
fatalError("Unresolved error \(error), \(error.userInfo)")
}
})
return container
}()
When you add some data, normally you should see console log begin with CloudKit: CoreData+CloudKit: ..........
Sometimes the data is not synced immediately, in this case, I force close the app and build a new one, then the data get syncing.
There was one time, the data get synced after few hours :(
I found that the NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange notification is posted by the NSPersistentStoreCoordinator and not by the NSPersistentCloudKitContainer, so the following code solves the problem:
// Observe Core Data remote change notifications.
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
self, selector: #selector(self.storeRemoteChange(_:)),
name: .NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange, object: container.persistentStoreCoordinator)
Also ran into the issue with .NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange notification not being sent.
Code from Apples example:
// Observe Core Data remote change notifications.
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
self, selector: #selector(type(of: self).storeRemoteChange(_:)),
name: .NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange, object: container)
Solution for me was to not set the container as object for the notification, but nil instead. Is it not used anyway and prevents the notification from being received:
// Observe Core Data remote change notifications.
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
self, selector: #selector(type(of: self).storeRemoteChange(_:)),
name: .NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange, object: nil)
Update:
As per this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/60142380/3187762
The correct way would be to set container.persistentStoreCoordinator as object:
// Observe Core Data remote change notifications.
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
self, selector: #selector(type(of: self).storeRemoteChange(_:)),
name: .NSPersistentStoreRemoteChange, object: container.persistentStoreCoordinator)
I had the same problem, reason was that iCloudDrive must be enabled in your devices. Check it in the Settings of every your device
I understand this answer comes late and is not actually specific to the WWDC 19 SynchronizingALocalStoreToTheCloud Apple's sample project to which OP refers to, but I had syncing issues (not upon launch, when it synced fine, but only during the app being active but idle, which seems to be case 3 of the original question) in a project that uses Core Data + CloudKit with NSPersistentCloudKitContainer and I believe the same problems I had - and now apparently I have solved - might affect other Users reading this question in the future.
My app was built using Xcode's 11 Master-Detail template with Core Data + CloudKit from the start, so I had to do very little to have syncing work initially:
Enable Remote Notifications Background Mode in Signing & Capabilities for my target;
Add the iCloud capability for CloudKit;
Select the container iCloud.com.domain.AppName
Add viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true
Basically, I followed Getting Started With NSPersistentCloudKitContainer by Andrew Bancroft and this was enough to have the MVP sync between devices (Catalina, iOS 13, iPadOS 13) not only upon launch, but also when the app was running and active (thanks to step 4 above) and another device edited/added/deleted an object.Being the Xcode template, it did not have the additional customisations / advanced behaviours of WWDC 2019's sample project, but it actually accomplished the goal pretty well and I was satisfied, so I moved on to other parts of this app's development and stopped thinking about sync.
A few days ago, I noticed that the iOS/iPadOS app was now only syncing upon launch, and not while the app was active and idle on screen; on macOS the behaviour was slightly different, because a simple command-tab triggered sync when reactivating the app, but again, if the Mac app was frontmost, no syncing for changes coming from other devices.
I initially blamed a couple of modifications I did in the meantime:
In order to have the sqlite accessible in a Share Extension, I moved the container in an app group by subclassing NSPersistentCloudKitContainer;
I changed the capitalisation in the name of the app and, since I could not delete the CloudKit database, I created a new container named iCloud.com.domain.AppnameApp (CloudKit is case insensitive, apparently, and yes, I should really start to care less about such things).
While I was pretty sure that I saw syncing work as well as before after each one of these changes, having sync (apparently) suddenly break convinced me, for at least a few hours, that either one of those modification from the default path caused the notifications to stop being received while the app was active, and that then the merge would only happen upon launch as I was seeing because the running app was not made aware of changes.
I should mention, because this could help others in my situation, that I was sure notifications were triggered upon Core Data context saves because CloudKit Dashboard was showing the notifications being sent:
So, I tried a few times clearing Derived Data (one never knows), deleting the apps on all devices and resetting the Development Environment in CloudKit's Dashboard (something I already did periodically during development), but I still had the issue of the notifications not being received.
Finally, I realised that resetting the CloudKit environment and deleting the apps was indeed useful (and I actually rebooted everything just to be safe ;) but I also needed to delete the app data from iCloud (from iCloud's Settings screen on the last iOS device where the app was still installed, after deleting from the others) if I really wanted a clean slate; otherwise, my somewhat messed up database would sync back to the newly installed app.
And indeed, a truly clean slate with a fresh Development Environment, newly installed apps and rebooted devices resumed the notifications being detected from the devices also when the apps are frontmost.So, if you feel your setup is correct and have already read enough times that viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true is the only thing you need, but still can't see changes come from other devices, don't exclude that something could have been messed up beyond your control (don't get me wrong: I'm 100% sure that it must have been something that I did!) and try to have a fresh start... it might seem obscure, but what isn't with the syncing method we are choosing for our app?

First call to Microsoft.Azure.ServiceBus.Core.MessageSender.SendAsync times out, subsequent calls don't

I have some code written to communicate with an azure service bus. It sends messages to a queue. It's in a project targeting .net standard 2.0
When I run it from a .net core terminal app it runs fine. But, when the same code is called from a .net framework 4.7.2 project then the first attempt to send a message results in the following exception after 30 to 90 seconds:
"The remote party closed the WebSocket connection without completing the close handshake."
But any further messages will be sent without problem.
// This is using Microsoft.Azure.ServiceBus, if that makes any difference...
MessageSender MessageSender = new MessageSender(ConnectionString, SendQueueName;
try
{
await MessageSender.SendAsync(new Message(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Test that won't work")));
}
catch(Exception e)
{
// Error will be caught here:
// "The remote party closed the WebSocket connection without completing the close handshake."
}
await MessageSender.SendAsync(new Message(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Test that will work")));
Does anybody know why the first call fails? And how to make it not fail? Or fail quicker? I've tried changing the OperationTimeout and RetryPolicy but they don'e seem to have any effect.
These first connections are via port 5671/56712, which Trend antivirus intercepts. Once these have timed out then the framework falls back to using 443, which works fine.
We tried turning Trend off and running testing the connection and its pretty much instantaneous.

Azure function goes idle when running in Consumption Plan with ServiceBus Queue trigger

I have also asked this question in the MSDN Azure forums, but have not received any guidance as to why my function goes idle.
I have an Azure function running on a Consumption plan that goes idle (i.e. does not respond to new messages on the ServiceBus trigger queue) despite following the instructions outlined in this GitHub issue:
The configuration for the function is the following json:
{
"ConnectionStrings": {
"MyConnectionString": "Server=tcp:project.database.windows.net,1433;Database=myDB;User ID=user#project;Password=password;Encrypt=True;Connection Timeout=30;"
},
"Values": {
"serviceBusConnection": "Endpoint=sb://project.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName=SharedAccessKeyName;SharedAccessKey=KEY_HERE",
}
}
And the function signature is:
public static void ProcessQueue([ServiceBusTrigger("queueName", AccessRights.Listen, Connection = "serviceBusConnection")] ...)
Based on the discussion in the GitHub issue, I believed that having either a serviceBusConnection entry OR an AzureWebJobServiceBus entry should be enough to ensure that the central listener triggers the function when a new message is added to the ServiceBusQueue, but that is proving to not be the case.
Can anyone clarify the difference between how those two settings are used, or notice anything else with the settings I provided that might be causing the function to not properly be triggered after a period of inactivity?
I suggest there are several possible causes for this behavior. I have several Azure subs and only one of them had issues with Storage/Service Bus-based triggers only popping up when app is not idle. So far I have observed that actions listed below will prevent triggers from working correctly:
Creating any Storage-based trigger, deleting (for any reason) the triggering object and re-creating it.
Corrupting azure function input parameters by deleting/altering associated objects without recompiling a function
Restarting functions app when one of the functions fails to compile/bind to trigger OR input parameter and hangs may cause same problems.
It has also been observed that using legacy Connection Strings setting for trigger binding will not work.
Clean deploy of an affected function app will most likely solve the problem if it was caused by any of the actions described above.
EDIT:
It looks like this is also caused by setting Authorization/Authentication on the functions app, but I have not yet figured out if it happens in general or when Auth has specific configuration. Tested on affected Azure sub by disabling auth at all - function going idle after 30-40 mins, queue trigger still initiates an execution, though with a delay as expected. I have found an old bug related to this, but it says issue resolved.

Azure Queue - Visibility Time-Out - Triggered WebJob

I like to change the timespan a Q-message is invisible in the scenario where a webjob is triggered upon arrival of a message in the Queue.
I need this in the dev-stage while debugging. Sometimes an old Q-msg re-appears due to a bug but I already cleaned up the blob-storage-item the message was refering to. Hence WebJob crashes because it tries to get that not existing blob-object.
If I could set that the Q-messages are again visible after 1 min, that would be helpfull.
public partial class Functions
{
public static void ProcessBulkFileQ(
[QueueTrigger(AppConst.Q_BULKFILES)] JobInfo JobInfo,
[Blob(AppConst.CONTAINER_BULKFILES + "/{BlobName}", FileAccess.Read)] Stream InputStream,
[Blob(AppConst.CONTAINER_BULKFILES + "/{BlobName}")] CloudBlockBlob BlobToDelete
)
{
In the latest v1.1.0 release of the SDK we've added the ability for you to add custom QueueProcessors to control various aspects of message processing. You can see an example of what you're looking to do here in our tests.
In that example, for failed messages, you can explicitly set the visibility to your own value based on the error details. You can register custom QueueProcessors by creating your own factory and setting it on JobHostConfiguration.Queues.QueueProcessorFactory.

Azure Document Db Worker Role

I am having problems getting the Microsoft.Azure.Documents library to initialize the client in an azure worker role. I'm using Nuget Package 0.9.1-preview.
I have mimicked what was done in the example for azure document
When running locally through the emulator I can connect fine with the documentdb and it runs as expected. When running in the worker role, I am getting a series of NullReferenceException and then ArgumentNullException.
The bottom System.NullReferenceException that is highlighted above has this call stack
so the nullReferenceExceptions start in this call at the new DocumentClient.
var endpoint = "myendpoint";
var authKey = "myauthkey";
var enpointUri = new Uri(endpoint);
DocumentClient client = new DocumentClient(endpointUri, authKey);
Nothing changes between running it locally vs on the worker role other then the environment (obviously).
Has anyone gotten DocumentDb to work on a worker role or does anyone have an idea why it would be throwing null reference exceptions? The parameters getting passed into the DocumentClient() are filled.
UPDATE:
I tried to rewrite it being more generic which helped at least let the worker role run and let me attached a debugger. It is throwing the error on the new DocumentClient. Seems like some security passing is null. Both the required parameters on initialization are not null. Is there a security setting I need to change for my worker role to be able to connect to my documentdb? (still works locally fine)
UPDATE 2:
I can get the instance to run in release mode, but not debug mode. So it must be something to do with some security setting or storage setting that is misconfigured I guess?
It seems I'm getting System.Security.SecurityExceptions - only when using The DocumentDb - queues do not give me that error. All Call Stacks for that error seem to be with System.Diagnostics.EventLog. The very first Exception I see in the Intellitrace Summary is System.Threading.WaitHandleCannotBeOpenedException.
More Info
Intellitrace summary exception data:
top is the earliest and bottom is the latest (so System.Security.SecurityException happens first then the NullReference)
The solution for me to get rid of the security exception and null reference exception was to disable intellitrace. Once I did that, I was able to deploy and attach debugger and see everything working.
Not sure what is between the null in intellitrace and the DocumentClient, but hopefully it's just in relation to the nuget and it will be fixed in the next iteration.
unable to repro.
I created a new Worker Role. Single instance. Added authkey & endoint config to cscfg.
Created private static DocumentClient at WorkerRole class level
Init DocumentClient in OnStart
Dispose DocumentClient in OnStop
In RunAsync inside loop,
execute a query Works as expected.
Test in emulator works.
Deployed as Release to Production slot. works.
Deployed as Debug to Staging with Remote Debug. works.
Attached VS to CloudService, breakpoint hit inside loop.
Working solution : http://ryancrawcour.blob.core.windows.net/samples/AzureCloudService1.zip

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