WCF LOB Adapter Exception: "Connect from SAP gateway to RFC server failed"

If the WCF LOB Adapter Pack receives a RFC_ERROR_COMMUNICATION from SAP saying "Connect from SAP gateway to RFC server failed", you have to double check that all network settings are correct so that send and receive are possible. In our case that NATting of the response did not reach us, while we could track our call successfully on the firewall.
Other reasons might be SAP configuration or missing entries in services file.

Encrypt XML Content with X.509 Certificates

On MSDN, there is some help how to encrypt XML elements with certificates, for example here: How To: Encrypt XML Element with X.509 Certificates

However, what is missing, is advice about how to encrypt XML content, i.e. in the famous XML example
<root>
  <creditcard>
    <number>19834209</number>
    <expiry>02/02/2002</expiry>
  </creditcard>
</root>

you might not want to decrypt the whole <creditcard> element, but rather its two subnodes <number> and <expiry>. This is necessary when the http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#Content standard is used.

I just reuse the code from the how-to-article and add specific lines for the content-encryption:

For Encryption, you use this method:

public static XmlDocument Encrypt(XmlDocument doc, string elementToEncryptName, X509Certificate2 cert)
{
    // Check the arguments.
    if (doc == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("doc");
    if (elementToEncryptName == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("elementToEncryptName");
    if (cert == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("cert");

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // Find the specified element in the XmlDocument
    // object and create a new XmlElemnt object.
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////
    XmlElement elementToEncrypt = doc.GetElementsByTagName(elementToEncryptName)[0] as XmlElement;

    // Throw an XmlException if the element was not found.
    if (elementToEncrypt == null)
    {
        throw new XmlException("The specified element was not found");

    }

    //////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // Create a new instance of the EncryptedXml class
    // and use it to encrypt the XmlElement with the
    // a new random symmetric key.
    //////////////////////////////////////////////////

    // Create a 256 bit Rijndael key.
    RijndaelManaged sessionKey = new RijndaelManaged();
    sessionKey.KeySize = 128;

    // Set RSA crypto provider to certificate's public key
    RSACryptoServiceProvider alg = (RSACryptoServiceProvider) cert.PublicKey.Key;

    // Encrypt the content of the XML element
    EncryptedXml eXml = new EncryptedXml();
    byte[] encryptedElement = eXml.EncryptData(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(elementToEncrypt.InnerXml), sessionKey);

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // Construct an EncryptedData object and populate
    // it with the desired encryption information.
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////

    EncryptedData edElement = new EncryptedData();
    edElement.Type = EncryptedXml.XmlEncElementContentUrl;
    //edElement.Id = encryptionElementId;

    // Create an EncryptionMethod element so that the
    // receiver knows which algorithm to use for decryption.
    edElement.EncryptionMethod = new EncryptionMethod(EncryptedXml.XmlEncAES128Url);

    // Encrypt the session key and add it to an EncryptedKey element.
    EncryptedKey ek = new EncryptedKey();

    byte[] encryptedKey = EncryptedXml.EncryptKey(sessionKey.Key, alg, true);

    ek.CipherData = new CipherData(encryptedKey);

    ek.EncryptionMethod = new EncryptionMethod(EncryptedXml.XmlEncRSAOAEPUrl);

    edElement.KeyInfo.AddClause(new KeyInfoEncryptedKey(ek));

    //// Create a new KeyInfo element.
    KeyInfo ki = new KeyInfo();
    ki.AddClause(new KeyInfoX509Data(cert, X509IncludeOption.EndCertOnly));

    // Add the KeyInfoName element to the
    // EncryptedKey object.
    ek.KeyInfo = ki;

    // Add the encrypted element data to the
    // EncryptedData object.
    edElement.CipherData.CipherValue = encryptedElement;

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // Replace the element from the original XmlDocument
    // object with the EncryptedData element.
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    EncryptedXml.ReplaceElement(elementToEncrypt, edElement, true);
    sessionKey.Clear();

    return doc;
}

The decryption can be taken from the MSDN example:
public static XmlDocument Decrypt(XmlDocument doc)
{
    // Check the arguments. 
    if (doc == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("doc");

    // Decrypt the XML document, with the help of the private key from the certification store
    EncryptedXml exml = new EncryptedXml(doc);
    exml.DecryptDocument();

    return doc;
}

The calling code will be:

X509Certificate2 cert = new X509Certificate2("xxx.pfx", "xxx");
var encrypted = Encrypt(xmlDoc, "creditcard", cert);
var decrypted = Decrypt(encrypted);

SftpException "List remote directory error"

If you get this error message in the BTS2013 SFTP adapter:

The Messaging Engine failed to add a receive location "TestFTP_FTPOUTIN" with URL "sftp://ehavftp6402.eha.net:22/IN/*.xml" to the adapter "SFTP". Reason: "Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.SftpInvoker.SftpException: List remote directory error.

... the adapter can't find the directory at the remote server. Just add a slash ("/") before the folder name in the FolderPath field of the Receive Location adapter configuration.

ActionNotSupported after WSCF

After using WSCF to generate code from a WSDL, I receveied an ActionNotSupported-Fault from the webservice. The exception said furthermore (in German):
Die Nachricht mit Action "http://www.energylink.at/datenplattform/ws20/ENERGYLINKTransaction" kann aufgrund einer fehlenden ContractFilter-Übereinstimmung beim EndpointDispatcher nicht verarbeitet werden. Mögliche Ursachen: Vertragskonflikt (keine Action-Ãœbereinstimmung zwischen Sender und Empfänger) oder ein Bindung/Sicherheit-Konflikt zwischen dem Sender und dem Empfänger.  Stellen Sie sicher, dass Sender und Empfänger über den gleichen Vertrag und die gleiche Bindung verfügen (einschließlich Sicherheitsanforderungen, z. B. "Message", "Transport", "None")

If you run into this exception, check the Action, that has been generated in the code for the interface. Most probably, a wrong action had been created. It has to be the same that is written in your WSDL.

Visual Studio 2013 enables Build and Deploy after Migration

Just to know when you migrate from VS2010 to VS2012: The configuration manager can change an inactive project so that it would be build and deployed. So just check the configuration manager after migrating.

EDIOverride Properties have been renamed

Short info: When migrating from BizTalk 2010 to BizTalk 2013, you have to adapt the EDIOverride properties. For example, the property Unb21 is now called UNB2_1.
The EDIOverride properties are stored in Microsoft.BizTalk.Edi.BaseArtifacts.dll.

Error "There was an authentication failure"

Whenever our POP3 Receive Location read a signed mail, it throwed the following exception and suspended the instance:

A message received by adapter "POP3" on receive location "yyy" with URI "POP3://yyy#yyy\yyy" is suspended.
Error details: There was an authentication failure. "The status of the certificate authority that issued the certificate used to sign the message is unknown.".

The reason behind was, that the certificate was found, but the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) from the Internet could not be opened, because the server had no Internet access. Since the CRL is saved in public available CRL files, we only had to open the firewall for these types of files, and BizTalk could accept the mails.

BatchComplete-Error in Biztalk Base Adapter

After migrating from Biztalk 2006 to Biztalk 2010, our custom adapters threw new errors when a message suspended:

One from MS CoreAdapter

Batch.BatchComplete hrStatus:c000010x00c00001: BTS_S_EPM_MESSAGE_SUSPENDED (Transport Proxy)

... the other one in our customer Adapter:

[26] ERROR [(null)] BIZTALK_StammdatenTransfers_XferDBAdapter_StammdatenTransfer - Beim Versenden des Batches [BatchInfo(00d6d71f), Batch(00e70a8e)]trat ein Problem auf:

12582913-0x00c00001: BTS_S_EPM_MESSAGE_SUSPENDED (Transport Proxy)

The reason was a missing bugfix that Microsoft introduced in BTS2010 into the BaseAdapter. If you get the new version (however, with the same version number 1.0.2) from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010\SDK\Samples\AdaptersDevelopment\BaseAdapter\v1.0.2, the problem should be fixed.

BizTalk 2010 Tracking error: Receive and Send Ports do not track

We've just run into the problem that our receive and send ports did not track anything, although we've checked all tracking options and all needed database jobs were running. After analysing the problem for a while, we found out that orchestrations and custom pipelines track, but not the Biztalk system pipelines XmlTransmit, XmlReceive and PassThru pipeline.

With the help of the Biztalk support team, we found that somehow the database was screwed up - while the UI showed us all tracking checks enabled, the exported binding file showed only PipelineEvents as TrackingOption, while ServiceStartEnd and MessageSendReceive were missing.

The actual error was in table TraceTrackingInfo where imgData had the value 0x10000000 instead of 0x13000000. You can change it with SQL but keep in mind that the column is in hexadecimal format. Manipulate the table hence like this (after making a backup):

begin transaction
update BizTalkMgmtDb.dbo.StaticTrackingInfo set imgData = 0x13000000 where strServiceName in (
'Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLTransmit',
'Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive',
'Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruTransmit',
'Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.PassThruReceive')
--commit

Addition 24.10.2012: Two actions had changed the pipeline:

First, the wrong field value had been inserted by another, self-written script during a deplyoment step, so this is not a Biztalk error.

Second, when importing a binding file where TransmitPipeline had only the TrackingOption="PipelineEvents", this pipeline was modified to the wrong value.

If you now run into the same problem, you can check (and correct) imgData; then, you should also check which routine in your system might have modified imgData before.

Reading current UNB Reference numbers from Biztalk

While migrating EDIFACT partners from Biztalk 2006 to 2010, we had to read the current UNB Reference numbers from the Biztalk 2006 database. They are stored in the BiztalkMsgBoxDb database in table EdiSequenceNumbers. Using the column PartyId, one can link the numbers to the EDI party information from database BiztalkMgmtDb, table EdiPartnerEdifactInterchange. BTW, beginning from Biztalk 2009, you can directly set the UNB Reference number before sending the EDIFACT XML to the EDI Send Pipeline, hence it might be useful to create the number by oneself.