Unable to serialize the session state. Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchTypes.SearchResultItem

Question

Introduction

After implementing private and shared outProc sessions states, I'm receiving the following error. This is a Sitecore 8.1 Update 3 environment. We are using SOLR as our indexer. We are also utilizing EXM. I decided to implement this when a slew of errors in the Content Delivery servers were indicating locked Contact records by the cluster, even though all of the CD's are in the same Analytics.ClusterName.

Error

Unable to serialize the session state. In 'StateServer' and 'SQLServer' mode, ASP.NET will serialize the session state objects, and as a result non-serializable objects or MarshalByRef objects are not permitted. The same restriction applies if similar serialization is done by the custom session state store in 'Custom' mode.

[SerializationException: Type 'Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchTypes.SearchResultItem' in Assembly 'Sitecore.ContentSearch, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' is not marked as serializable.]
System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.InternalGetSerializableMembers(RuntimeType type) +970
System.Runtime.Serialization.FormatterServices.GetSerializableMembers(Type type, StreamingContext context) +306
System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitMemberInfo() +188 System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.InitSerialize(Object obj, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, ObjectWriter objectWriter, SerializationBinder binder) +250
System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.WriteObjectInfo.Serialize(Object obj, ISurrogateSelector surrogateSelector, StreamingContext context, SerObjectInfoInit serObjectInfoInit, IFormatterConverter converter, ObjectWriter objectWriter, SerializationBinder binder) +96
System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.Serialize(Object graph, Header[] inHeaders, __BinaryWriter serWriter, Boolean fCheck) +710 System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize(Stream serializationStream, Object graph, Header[] headers, Boolean fCheck) +208 System.Web.Util.AltSerialization.WriteValueToStream(Object value, BinaryWriter writer) +2262

Configuration Settings

Below are the configurations setup. This is a local environment. My environment is currently setup as a single instance, but with private and shared session state enabled. The intended production environment is a distributed environment.

Content Delivery Web.config

<sessionState mode="Custom" customProvider="mssql" cookieless="false" timeout="20" sessionIDManagerType="Sitecore.SessionManagement.ConditionalSessionIdManager">
  <providers>
    <add name="mongo" type="Sitecore.SessionProvider.MongoDB.MongoSessionStateProvider, Sitecore.SessionProvider.MongoDB" sessionType="Standard" connectionStringName="session" pollingInterval="2" compression="true" />
    <add name="mssql" type="Sitecore.SessionProvider.Sql.SqlSessionStateProvider, Sitecore.SessionProvider.Sql" sessionType="private" connectionStringName="session" pollingInterval="2" compression="true" />
  </providers>
</sessionState>

Content Delivery Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.config

<sharedSessionState patch:source="Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.config" defaultProvider="mssql">
<providers>
<clear/>
<add name="InProc" type="System.Web.SessionState.InProcSessionStateStore"/>
<add name="mssql" type="Sitecore.SessionProvider.Sql.SqlSessionStateProvider,Sitecore.SessionProvider.Sql" connectionStringName="session" pollingInterval="2" compression="true" sessionType="shared" patch:source="Client.config"/>
</providers>
<manager type="Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.SharedSessionState.SharedSessionStateManager, Sitecore.Analytics">
<param desc="configuration" ref="tracking/sharedSessionState/config"/>
</manager>
<config type="Sitecore.Analytics.Tracking.SharedSessionState.SharedSessionStateConfig, Sitecore.Analytics">
<param desc="maxLockAge">5000</param>
<!--
 If an item in session state is already locked, this parameter is the time in milliseconds that the system is idle before making another attempt to apply a lock. 
-->
<param desc="timeoutBetweenLockAttempts">10</param>
</config>
</sharedSessionState>

Intended Environment Setup

• 1 Primary CM Server
• 1 Secondary CM Server / Processing
• 3 Content Delivery Servers, load balanced.
  • Heavy use of Analytics and xDB Contact Records

Research Done

On Sitecore's Known Issues for Sitecore 8, there is a mention of what seems to be a similar issue. But they don't list a Public Reference Number.

A number of dialogs could not be opened on Content Management servers with out-of-process session-state configured. This happened because the pipeline arguments were not serialized correctly. This has been fixed to ensure that these dialogs function properly, however please note that other Sitecore functions (in an out-of-process session-state server configuration) may not be supported as a result of this fix.

Summary

This looks like a bug in the Sitecore Content Search DLL. Has anyone come across this? I can't imagine that no one else uses OutProc private / sharesession states in a distributed environment.

Answer 1

Background

What the error message means is that an object of type SearchResultItem could not be serialized as part of a session that is saved to a session store. There are two types of sessions used by Sitecore: private session (a.k.a. ASP.NET session) and shared session.

SearchResultItem is a class that is used to retrieve results when querying indexes through the Sitecore search API. Sitecore does not store these objects in sessions out of the box, which means that some code in your solution does.

As your question is described right now, and without going through your code base, it is impossible to provide you with a concrete solution. So here's the general solution:

Do not attempt to put non-serializable objects into session.

Below you can find some concrete advise on finding the offending code.

Look through all usages of both ASP.NET session API and Sitecore session API

• See where and how HttpContext.Current.Session is used;
• Check if your code uses Sitecore's SharedSessionStateManager directly;

• Check if your code attaches any custom objects to:

  • Tracker.Current.Interaction;
  • Or Tracker.Current.Session.Interaction;

• Check if your code attaches any custom objects to:

  • Tracker.Current.Contact;
  • Or Tracker.Current.Session.Contact.

The reason you need to check Interaction and its child objects is because the current interaction is saved to the ASP.NET session at the end of every request.

The reason you need to check Contact and its child objects is because the current contact is saved to the Sitecore shared session at the end of every request.

For all of the above instances, verify that no custom objects that may be saved to the session are of class SearchResultItem, and that no custom objects contain SearchResultItem objects at any nesting level.

Look through all usages of SearchResultItem

Perform a solution-wide search for "SearchResultItem" and see where and how it is used. If you see that these objects may be saved into private or shared session, review this approach:

• Consider whether you need to store these objects, at all;
• If you do, then consider storing them elsewhere;
• If you, for some reason, do need to store them in the session, then create a custom serializable type that is stored instead of the Sitecore native SearchResultItem.