How can I work around this serialization issue with SimpleServiceModel.Role?

Question

I am getting this unhandled exception from the following callstack, but I don't know why it fails this way for me... (although may be something special about the way I am running it, yes...)

"Remoting call across appdomains fails with Type 'System.Xml.Linq.XElement' in Assembly 'System.Xml.Linq, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' is not marked as serializable"

Server stack trace: 
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers(RuntimeType type)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(Type type, StreamingContext context)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo()
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize(Type objectType, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, SerializationBinder binder)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.Serialize(Type objectType, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, SerializationBinder binder)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Write(WriteObjectInfo objectInfo, NameInfo memberNameInfo, NameInfo typeNameInfo)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Serialize(Object graph, Header[] inHeaders, __BinaryWriter serWriter, Boolean fCheck)
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize(Stream serializationStream, Object graph, Header[] headers, Boolean fCheck)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.CrossAppDomainSerializer.SerializeMessageParts(ArrayList argsToSerialize)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.SmuggledMethodCallMessage..ctor(IMethodCallMessage mcm)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.SmuggledMethodCallMessage.SmuggleIfPossible(IMessage msg)
   at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.CrossAppDomainSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage reqMsg)

Exception rethrown at [0]: 

   Source=mscorlib
   StackTrace:
     Server stack trace: 
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers(RuntimeType type)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(Type type, StreamingContext context)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo()
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize(Type objectType, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, SerializationBinder binder)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.Serialize(Type objectType, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, SerializationBinder binder)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Write(WriteObjectInfo objectInfo, NameInfo memberNameInfo, NameInfo typeNameInfo)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Serialize(Object graph, Header[] inHeaders, __BinaryWriter serWriter, Boolean fCheck)
        at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize(Stream serializationStream, Object graph, Header[] headers, Boolean fCheck)
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.CrossAppDomainSerializer.SerializeMessageParts(ArrayList argsToSerialize)
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.SmuggledMethodCallMessage..ctor(IMethodCallMessage mcm)
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.SmuggledMethodCallMessage.SmuggleIfPossible(IMessage msg)
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.CrossAppDomainSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage reqMsg)
     Exception rethrown at [0]: 
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
        at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type)

The failing call is from

         at Microsoft.ServiceHosting.Tools.MSBuildTasks.PackageCreator.CreateServiceApplicationPackage(String serviceRdFilePath, String processedServiceDefinitionFile, FileStream packageStream, Dictionary`2 namedStreams, Dictionary`2 rolesDictionary)

When I inspect the msg info being smuggled I see that argsToSerialize contains some MemoryStreams and

+       [0x00000000]    {[Kernel, Microsoft.ServiceHosting.Tools.Internal.SimpleServiceModel.Role]} System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair<string,Microsoft.ServiceHosting.Tools.Internal.SimpleServiceModel.Role>

Microsoft.ServiceHosting.Tools.Internal.SimpleServiceModel.Role is marked as [Serializable].

and it looks like the serialization is possibly in the middle of serializing a property of type Microsoft.ServiceHosting.Tools.Internal.SimpleServiceModel.RoleEnvironment

which contains an XElement... aha. Is this just broken because XElement shouldn't be in a [Serializable] class? But I wonder how this issue does not repro when I run cspack from the command line? How do I fix this?

Answer 1

I got in touch with someone who works on Azure SDK. He tells me bug that I encountered in SDK 2.5 is fixed in SDK 2.5.1, hooray! I haven't tested it yet.