Spent a few days battling an error on an HTTP Send Port.  We've been having messages suspend when posting data to Siebel.  The funny part is that the messages got accross ok.  We were only getting the error on the ACK from the send port.  The error message on the suspended message was:

The server committed a protocol violation. Section=ResponseHeader Detail=CR must be followed by LF

We brough this up to the Siebel guys but they were a little slow moving on the informatio that they were sending us bad responses.  After a few days I got nervous that the problem may have not been on their end.  So I dragged out NetMon.  And here's what I saw:

  Frame:
+ Ethernet: Etype = Internet IP (IPv4)
+ Ipv4: Next Protocol = TCP, Packet ID = 50895, Total IP Length = 467
+ Tcp: Flags=...PA..., SrcPort=HTTP(80), DstPort=1427, Len=427, Seq=2928398986 - 2928399413, Ack=4246831364, Win=64240 (scale factor not found)
- Http: Response, HTTP/1.1, Status Code = 204
  - Response:
     ProtocolVersion: HTTP/1.1
     StatusCode: 204, No content
     Reason: No Content
     Date:  Thu, 15 May 2008 20:28:51 GMT
     Server:  Microsoft-IIS/6.0
     XPoweredBy:  ASP.NET
     process instance id:  1-1DEHL5
     user-agent:  Microsoft (R) BizTalk (R) Server 2006 3.0.1.0
     datahandlingsubsystem:  HRFQADProductInbound
     transporttype:  HTTP
     expect:  100-continue
     object id:  1-Z02HX
     connection:  Keep-Alive
     cache-control:  no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0
     Pragma:  no-cache
     Host:  mlbsbltst1vm
     HeaderEnd: CRLF

So I dragged out RFC 2616 to go over what the HTTP Header should look like.  I found that the header field name should be a token and that the definition of a token is:

So, in the aforementioned header the following fields are of interest:

     process instance id:  1-1DEHL5

     object id:  1-Z02HX

They are bad.  BizTalk is right.  Working on the Siebel guys to take out these custom header fileds (or make them compliant at the least). 

The problem troubleshooting something like this is that BizTalk chokes on the message in the pipeline and it doesn't get captured anywhere.  I had to reproduce it in an environment where I could use NetMon to grab the actual data from the wire. 

So Microsoft comes to the Orange County Convention Center for two weeks in June (aka TechEd).  They paid for the thing for two whole weeks.  The weekend between the IT Pro Week and the Dev Week is part of that two weeks and the aforementioned facility will be sitting idle.  What so you do?  Let the community have it...

Microsoft Commmunity Summit 2008

We had a lively evening last night (see our house in the picture above).  A brush fire in the preserve behind our home came very very close.  But the amazing response from all of the fire departments in Brevard County saved every home that was threatened.  An amazing job by these guys with special thanks to the Titusville unit who setup in our yard.  The strategy is apparently to let it burn all it wants to burn, but stop it short of the house.  The less fuel left means less work later. 

It was also an amazing night out to connect with neighbors and show support for each other.  I got to talk with atleast 20 of my neighbors at various times throughout the night.  An incredible example of community.

I got the word today that my manager would sign off on me attending TechEd this year!  Very excited!  I've attended VS Live in the past and am anxious to see how Tech Ed compares.  Just looking at the conference agenda makes me think I will be burning out by Day 4.  If anybody from the Space Coast .Net User Group is going, drop me a line so we can hook up.  I am on the Tech Ed community site as well.

I experienced the power of the Blog for the first time last week.  An entry I wrote concerning HTTP Send Port timeouts and message re-transmits came home.  I got an email from somebody in my employer's government division regarding my post.  The 3rd party vendor they use for a procurement system has BizTalk as part of the solution.  they were seeing multiple message posts to a web service.  The tech support guy at the 3rd party vendor sent them a link to my blog.  The government division folks recognized my name and emailed me.  A short teleconference later and the problem was understood and solved.  Small wide world.

I am speaking tonight with a colleague at the Space Coast .Net User Group.  The meeting is at 6:30 PM at the Space Coast Credit Union's Headquarters Building.  George Tomek will be presenting on WF and I will be doing Practical Adapter Pattern.  Hope to see some familiar faces.