kfrost

Hello,

We are building a WCF model hosted via webservices. We are trying out the various things in Workflow to try and get a good feel of how to set our standards.

One problem we've ran into is debugging Declarative Rule conditions. As a matter of fact we aren't having much luck with setting break points in the designers. We can set them but the never break in.

The main problem is when we have problems where things in conditional activities aren't running, we need to obviously debug the values of the params used in the condition statements. However, with the breakpoints not breaking in within the designer I haven't found a reliable way to do this.

What I've resorted to is changing conditions to code based and setting the break points in the code behind file which works.

We like the idea of Declarative Rule Conditions for some of our environments but if there isn't a reliable way to debug these rules, then we can't use them

In the environment we use Unit tests for testing and I've tried attaching to the aspnet_wp with no luck. Actually doing this Visual Studio crashes after each subsequent attach if you don't bounce IIS.

The other way is to set a break point in the unit test and debug it and then step into the call into the workflow. But still do not get to anything in the declarative rule sections.

Looking for any ideas or thoughts of how to debug the aforementioned situations.

Thanks.




Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

Constantin Mihai - MSFT

Have you tried to break on branch activities of a conditional activity You can also break into specific methods in the code behind (methods, properties used by your rule condition/s) and check the values of your parameters at that point.

Let me know if this works for you.

Thanks,

-Constantin





Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

kfrost

Yes, I have tried break points on the conditions, branch conditions separately and at the same time.

A while back I recall setting break points on custom activities in a designer and having it work. However, just not working anymore.

Just not working now.






Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

Constantin Mihai - MSFT

Is it possible to test your workflow in a different hosting environment (a console app for instance) and see if it breaks there

-Constantin





Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

kfrost

Wouldn't really be relative because that's not how we're hosting it and whether it worked in another host would be irrelevant for us. Smile




Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

Constantin Mihai - MSFT

It would be helpful to identify whether your debugging problem is web hosting specific or not. It would narrow the problem pace.

Thanks





Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

kfrost

No it would waste some of my time. Smile Like I said, I've had the break points hit from time to time. For some time now they haven't been hitting even though there are no compile errors and everything seems to work fine.

There is quite a bit of quirckiness to the Workflow designer and related things.

No disrespect but I'm hoping somebody familiar with workflow has possibly ran into this scenario and possibly came up with a work around or has an explanation as to what might be going on. If not most likely just bag the Declarative Rules until MS fixes the flakiness.

Being a former MS employee myself, if you truly work with MS in support and are tasked with monitoring the forums, I would imagine that part of your task is to take reports like this and set up the repros and if you find bugs, forward them to QFE to better this product. Then generate a KB article.






Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

Kavita Kamani - MSFT

Have you considered tracing and tracking

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480193.aspx#introwork_topic7






Re: Windows Workflow Foundation Debugging Declarative Rule Condtions?

kfrost

Hello Kavita,

Thank you for the response. No I haven't tried these as of yet but will definitely give that a shot when I get a chance.

Thanks!