BizTalk 2010 Recipes : Administration and Operations - Resuming Inbound Message Processing

5/21/2011 3:52:38 PM

1. Problem

BizTalk has encountered an error and suspended the processing of an inbound message. You need to fix the error and resume message processing to receive it successfully.

2. Solution

This example demonstrates the resumable inbound message-processing capabilities of BizTalk. BizTalk initially receives a message that has no recipients. In the publish/subscribe architecture of the MessageBox, the error message will indicate that BizTalk cannot find a subscriber to the message. After creating the appropriate subscription, this example resumes processing and successfully delivers the message.

Begin by creating the receive port and receive location that will accept the message:

Open the BizTalk Server Administration Console.
Right-click the Receive Ports folder under an application, and select New => One-Way Receive Port from the context menu.
Enter SuspendedMessagesExampleIn for the name of the new receive port.
Add a receive location to the receive port, using the default PassThroughReceive pipeline.
Using the File transport type, specify C:\SuspendedMessagesExample\In as the receive folder. Create the folder if necessary.
Grant the BizTalk Application Users group full control to the C:\SuspendedMessagesExample folder.
Enable the receive location.

BizTalk can now receive messages, but the administrator has not specified where BizTalk should deliver the messages. BizTalk will raise an error to the event log and suspend messages received through the SuspendedMessagesExampleIn receive port. Follow these steps:

Place an XML file in the C:\SuspendedMessagesExample\In folder.
In the left tree view of the BizTalk Server Administration Console, click the BizTalk Group to show the Group Hub page. Press the F5 key to refresh the Group Overview page. Note that you will be able to see the count of suspended messages, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Suspended message counts in the Group Hub page
Click the Suspended Service Instances link to open the Suspended tab. The Suspended tab will display all resumable suspended service instances, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Resumable service instance

Now that there is a suspended message in BizTalk, create a send port to deliver the message and resume message processing:

Create a new static one-way send port in the same BizTalk application as the receive port was created in.
Enter SuspendedMessagesExampleOut for the name of the send port, and configure the File adapter to deliver messages to the C:\SuspendedMessagesExample\Out folder. Create the folder if necessary. Use the default PassThruTransmit send pipeline.
In the left pane of the SuspendedMessagesExampleOut – Send Port Properties dialog box, select Filters.
Define a filter where BTS.ReceivePortName equals SuspendedMessagesExampleIn, as shown in Figure 3 . This will create a subscription for all messages received through the SuspendedMessagesExampleIn receive port.

Figure 3. Defining a message subscription
Enlist and start the SuspendedMessagesExampleOut send port.
On the Group Hub page, return to the Suspended tab.
Select the Suspended (Resumable) query results to display the suspended SuspendedMessagesExampleIn service instance.
Right-click the suspended service instance, and select Resume Instance from the context menu. Click Yes when prompted to confirm. If the Resume Instance option is not available, verify that the selected service instance's status is Suspended (Resumable) under the query results.
Verify that BizTalk successfully delivered the XML message to the C:\SuspendedMessagesExample\Out folder.

3. How It Works

BizTalk supports resumable inbound interchange processing. It suspends the message while receiving it, and the administrator can resume the message after fixing the configuration error. The BizTalk administrator can perform extensive troubleshooting to identify the cause of a suspended message. Double-clicking the Suspended (resumable) service instance shown in Figure 10-25 opens a Service Details dialog box containing detailed information about the suspended message. The Error Information tab, shown in Figure 4 , displays detailed error information indicating that the message was suspended because BizTalk could not identify a subscriber.

Figure 4. Viewing error information

The Messages tab displays all the messages in the suspended service instance. Double-clicking a message opens the Message Details dialog box. Select Context in the left pane of the Message Details dialog box to display the message's context properties, as shown in Figure 5. BizTalk can use the Promoted context properties to identify the subscriber of a message.

Figure 5. Message context properties

Back on the Suspended tab of the Group Hub page, the BizTalk administrator can right-click a suspended message and navigate the Troubleshoot Routing Failure submenu to identify the cause of a routing failure.

Although most suspended messages in BizTalk are resumable, in some situations, BizTalk cannot resume message processing. One example is when BizTalk uses order delivery messages in the same order BizTalk receives them. In this situation, resuming a message would also deliver it out of order, so BizTalk prevents resuming the message.