Scenario: I recently added a component to my ASP.NET MVC app that allows them to upload files into the database. Since these files average more than 2MB, I elected to use FILESTREAMs. I save the HttpPostedFileBase
to a temp file, do some business logic, then upload the file. After upload, the user is redirected to a page that views the file, inline in the browser. Here is the relevant upload code:
var DocContext = new DocumentEntities();
var dbFile = new File
{
DocumentID = Guid.NewGuid(),
Name = fileName,
Type = file.ContentType
};
DocContext.Document.Add(dbFile);
DocContext.SaveChanges();
using (var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, new TransactionOptions { IsolationLevel = IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted }))
using (var sqlFS = dbFile.Open(DocContext, FileAccess.Write))
using (var tempFS = tempFile.OpenRead())
{
tempFS.CopyTo(sqlFS);
scope.Complete();
}
Here is the relevant viewing/download code:
public ActionResult File(Guid? id = null)
{
if (id == null)
return RedirectToActionPermanent("Index");
return File(DocContext.Document.Find(id.Value) as File);
}
private ActionResult File(File file)
{
if (file == null)
throw new HttpException(404, "Unknown document type");
var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, new TransactionOptions { IsolationLevel = IsolationLevel.RepeatableRead });
Disposing += d => { scope.Complete(); scope.Dispose(); };
var fs = file.Open(DocContext, FileAccess.Read);
Disposing += d => fs.Dispose();
return new Misc.InlineFileStreamResult(fs, file.MimeType) { FileDownloadName = file.FileName, Inline = true };
}
And the Open method:
public partial class File
{
public SqlFileStream Open(DocumentEntities db, FileAccess access)
{
var path = db.Database.SqlQuery<string>(
@"SELECT FileData.PathName() FROM [File] WHERE DocumentID = @docID",
new SqlParameter("docID", DocumentID)).First();
var context = db.Database.SqlQuery<byte[]>(
@"SELECT Get_FILESTREAM_TRANSACTION_CONTEXT() FROM [File] WHERE DocumentID = @docID",
new SqlParameter("docID", DocumentID)).First();
return new SqlFileStream(path, context, access);
}
}
Viewing a previously uploaded file works beautifully. Viewing a file that a user has uploaded themselves (recently?), the following exception occurs:
The transaction operation cannot be performed because there are pending requests working on this transaction.
What's going on?
UPDATE: I assume because I'm a SQL sysadmin, I can upload files and view them fine.
When the database entry had a MIME type instead of an extension in the Type column, I was using IIS and web.config to deduce what extension to give the file. But normal users didn't have permission to read the web.config. So, when a non server admin user tried to view a file that was stored with a MIME type instead of an extension, my routine would throw a permission exception, which would somehow trigger the transaction operation exception. No clue how.