FAQ / Troubleshooting

“Address already in use” / server won’t start listening

Another process is already bound to the chosen port, or a previous Server instance on the same port wasn’t properly disposed. Pick a different port or ensure the previous instance is stopped before starting a new one.

Client can’t connect from another machine

• Check that the server is bound to an address reachable from the client (e.g. 0.0.0.0 rather than 127.0.0.1 if you want connections from other machines).
• Check firewall rules on the server machine for the chosen TCP port.
• If running in a container/cloud environment, make sure the port is published/exposed.

ReceivedError fires instead of Received

Usually caused by a deserialization mismatch — the two sides don’t agree on the message type, or one side changed its INetworkSerializer/message contract without updating the other. Make sure both client and server:

• Use compatible serializers (see Configuration).
• Reference the same message/DTO types (or contract-compatible versions).

ClientAuthenticationException on connect

The server’s ClientAuthenticate handler did not set e.Authenticated = true for the given credentials. See Authentication — check your MyValidateMethod logic and that credentials are actually being sent by the client.

Is it safe to enable dynamic/polymorphic deserialization (TypeNameHandling.Auto)?

Only between trusted, authenticated peers. See the security note in Writing a custom serializer.

Does TagBites.Net support TLS/SSL?

Yes, natively — no need to wrap the socket stream yourself:

// Server: pass a certificate to enable SSL
var server = new Server("127.0.0.1", 82, myX509Certificate);

// Client: connect over SSL
var client = new Client("127.0.0.1", 82);
await client.ConnectSslAsync();          // or ConnectSslAsync("server-name") for cert name validation

Internally this wraps the socket in an SslStream and negotiates TLS 1.2 (and TLS 1.3 on .NET 7+). By default, the client rejects any certificate that has policy errors (e.g. self-signed, untrusted root). To accept such certificates (e.g. in development), subclass Client and override the protected virtual bool OnValidateServerCertificate(...) method.

Can I send binary data (files, byte arrays)?

Yes — byte[] is a special-cased message type: it’s sent as raw bytes without going through the configured INetworkSerializer at all, so it’s cheap compared to serializing an equivalent wrapper object.

There’s no hard message-size limit enforced by the library beyond what fits in a 32-bit length prefix, but there’s also no streaming/chunked-transfer API: the entire message is serialized/buffered in memory on both ends before being sent/after being received. For large files, chunk the data yourself (e.g. send fixed-size byte[] pieces) rather than sending one very large message.