Atomic Operations, always getting 'null' on IList<OperationContainer> operations

[alnotas]

Greetings everyone, and thank you for your incredible work.

I'm trying for the first time to use the feature of Atomic Operations and though I'm certain I have done everything right, I keep getting bogus errors.
I have implemented several CRUD actions for my resources that work well for the past year.
Now I'm trying to find out how to perform Bulk actions, starting with the simplest scenario, a single "add" operation.
I've changed the content type to application/vnd.api+json; ext="https://jsonapi.org/ext/atomic"
I've created an sealed OperationsController that derives from JsonApiOperationsController and I have overridden the method PostOperationsAsync just to be able to debug (I know it is not necessary to override it).

I have a resource of type "ProductPricelistItem" and the following is my pretty simple payload:
{
"atomic:operations": [
{
"op": "add",
"data": {
"type": "ProductPricelistItem",
"attributes": {
"priceType": "CurrencyAmount"
}
}
}
]
}

Upon executing POST I get the error:
500
"ValidationVisitor exceeded the maximum configured validation depth '32' when validating property 'PublicName' on type 'JsonApiDotNetCore.Resources.Annotations.ResourceFieldAttribute'. This may indicate a very deep or infinitely recursive object graph. Consider modifying 'MvcOptions.MaxValidationDepth' or suppressing validation on the model type."

After following the messages advice (and as suggested elsewhere) I go to my services configuration and add
services.AddMvc().AddMvcOptions(options => { options.MaxValidationDepth = 99999; });

That seems to eliminate the particular problem and I see the debugger continues to PostOperationsAsync.
But there are two problems.

1. The "[FromBody] IList operations" parameter comes as 'null'
2. All my other already established and working endpoints, stop to work and I get a huge error
   

I also tried adding the Attribute [ValidateNever] at my Resource but that doesn't seem to do anything.
Also, as suggested elsewhere, I tried adding options.MaxModelValidationErrors = 999999; at my parameters but nothing.

I've tried several tweaks in my Payload, hoping it may have something to do with it but upon trying another scenario, where I omit the setup of MaxValidationDepth and I put a deliberate error in "attributes", writing the "priceType" as "priceTypeQQQ", the parser informs me the following, which is correct which makes me think that my original Payload is correct because I don't get that error with "priceType", only the "ValidationVisitor" error. Upon setting the MaxValidationDepth I don't get the parsing error but anyway the operations parameter always comes as 'null'

Am I missing something?
What could be the cause of the 'null' in operations parameter and how can I overcome the ValidatorVisitor problem and still keep my other endpoints working?

Please advise

VERSIONS USED

• JsonApiDotNetCore version: 5.5.1
• ASP.NET Core version: 8.0.6
• Entity Framework Core version: 8.0.4
• Database provider: SQL Server 14.0.2052.1

[bkoelman]

Hi @alnotas, thanks for reaching out.

I vaguely recall a similar problem, which was caused by calling unnecessary boilerplate methods at startup that mixed things up, such as AddControllers. Can you share what your startup code looks like?

[alnotas]

@bkoelman That's it... Upon removing 'AddControllers' everything worked. Thank you so much
And I don't even need to set up the MaxValidationDepth

Could you please explain to me what was happening?

[bkoelman]

I've never been able to reproduce it, so a minimal sample would help greatly. Perhaps we can fix it. Either way, let's leave this open as a reminder to add it to the Common Pitfalls documentation.

[bkoelman]

@alnotas Tried to reproduce the issue again this week, but I'm still unable to. I'd really like to get to the bottom of this. Is there anything you'd be able to provide? Are you using any third-party libraries? Can you share your full Program.cs?

[bkoelman]

@alnotas Can you please respond?

[alnotas]

Goodmorning. Sorry I didn't mean to ignore you. The fact is that my company has very strict rules regarding sharing code publicly. I would be glad to share Program.cs if you could give me an email I could send it to.

[bkoelman]

I'm fine handling this privately, though I don't want to publish my email address here on GitHub. How can I privately communicate my email address to you? I'll treat the code you send me confidentially.

Alternatively, can you provide a minimal repro based on what you've shared already?