NewtonSoft.Json 10.0.3 needed, but getting 11.0.0.* - Breaking Durables

[pragnagopa]

From @GregLevenhagen on June 13, 2018 20:59

Yesterday our Durables started producing 500s because of the following NewtonSoft.Json reference on the assembly version. We are not including nor using any NewtonSoft.Json within our own code.

Investigative information

• Timestamp: 2018-06-13T20:50:33.457
• Function App version (1.0 or 2.0-beta): 2.0.11857-alpha
• Invocation ID: 71dd8324-4e48-485d-bad1-08078082a159, fbbf76fb-448d-4d2b-84e5-ed17da5d587d
• Region: Central US

Repro steps

Run any Durable Function

Expected behavior

For the Durable Function to correctly use NewtonSoft.Json 10.0.3

Starting Host (HostId=*-test-funcapp-tripgen, InstanceId=d5048ba1-7a5b-46c1-a22b-e29bb61b9ec2, Version=2.0.11776.0, ProcessId=5340, AppDomainId=1, Debug=False, ConsecutiveErrors=0, StartupCount=1, FunctionsExtensionVersion=beta)

Actual behavior

Exception while executing function: TripProcessingOrchestrator_HttpStart Could not load type 'Newtonsoft.Json.SerializationBinder' from assembly 'Newtonsoft.Json, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ad4fe6b2a6aeed'.

From the Portal Log window

2018-06-13T20:50:33.457 [Error] System.Private.CoreLib: Exception while executing function: TripProcessingOrchestrator_HttpStart. DurableTask.Core: Could not load type 'Newtonsoft.Json.SerializationBinder' from assembly 'Newtonsoft.Json, Version=11.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ad4fe6b2a6aeed'.
2018-06-13T20:50:33.509 [Error] Executed '*ProcessingOrchestrator_HttpStart' (Failed, Id=fbbf76fb-448d-4d2b-84e5-ed17da5d587d)

Known workarounds

No known work-arounds

We've tried manually including the 10.0.3 version of NewtonSoft.Json package.
We've tried manually setting the FUNCTIONS_EXTENSION_VERSION to a previous version, but all combinations of the value for previous versions fail. It detects the custom version, but says it's not valid. What is the format for the value to specify an exact version? I haven't found documentation other than (~1 or beta).

Related information

• Programming language used - C#

Copied from original issue: Azure/azure-functions-host#2998

[pragnagopa]

From @GregLevenhagen on June 13, 2018 21:9

Workaround by setting the following line in the Application Settings
FUNCTIONS_EXTENSION_VERSION ~2.0.11776
will show

Runtime version loaded from Application Settings: ~2.0.11776
Warning Unsupported Runtime Version Your custom runtime version is not supported. As a result 2.0.11776.0 runtime is being used.

but works for now.

[kashimiz]

Thanks for this wonderfully thorough issue, @GregLevenhagen! 😄 this is a known issue with the newest functions host release and we're tracking it here: #342 (comment)

Short version: There was a breaking change between Newtonsoft.Json v10 and v11. I've got a PR out to update our references to v11 but it requires updating some dependencies first. We're working on getting these out.

[pragnagopa]

@kashimiz - @GregLevenhagen filed the original issue. I just moved it to right place :)

[cgillum]

This is fixed in the v1.5.0 release.