Console application triggering event receiver

Question

I have console application collecting data from SQL and either creates or updates the item in a SP list.

I have added an event receiver to that list, this triggers if an item has been updated and finds a correlating item in another list and make changes to it.

The problem is that the even receiver is triggered, but not fully executed; it seems it is not able to get the list to modify. The event receiver works fine if I change an item manually.

It's a very simple event receiver, here is the code:

public override void ItemUpdated(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
  try
  {
    base.ItemUpdated(properties);
    this.EventFiringEnabled = false;

    SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate(){

      SPUserToken token = properties.ListItem.Web.Site.SystemAccount.UserToken;
      using(SPSite site = new SPSite(properties.SiteId, token)){

        using(SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(properties.Web.ID)){
          try
          {
            SPListItem listItem = web.Lists[properties.ListId].GetItemById(properties.ListItem.ID);

            string contactlisturl = web.ServerRelativeUrl + "/lists/Contacts";
            SPList contactlist = web.GetList(contactlisturl);
            SPListItemCollection contactItems = contactlist.GetItems();

            foreach(SPListItem item in contactItems){
              log.logToTextfile("Entered foreach");
              string id = "";
              string email = "";
              try
              {
                id = "" + GetFieldValueRegular(item, "ID");
                email = "" + GetFieldValueRegular(item, "EMail");
              }catch(Exception ex){
                log.logToTextfile(ex.ToString());
              }

              if(email.Trim() == listItem["Email"].ToString().Trim()){
                log.logToTextfile("The contact exsist");
                if (listItem["Unsubscribed"].ToString() == "True")
                {
                  item["UNSUBSCRIBED"] = true;
                }
                else
                {
                  item["UNSUBSCRIBED"] = false;
                }
              }
              item.Update();
            }
          }catch(Exception ex){
            log.logToTextfile(ex.ToString());
          }
        }
      }
    });
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    log.logToTextfile(ex.ToString());
  }
}

As I have mentioned the event receiver works fine if I do any changes to an item manually, but when triggered from the console application it seems unable to get the list and items:

        string contactlisturl = web.ServerRelativeUrl + "/lists/Contacts";
        SPList contactlist = web.GetList(contactlisturl);
        SPListItemCollection contactItems = contactlist.GetItems();

and it does not enter the foreach. The value of the item triggering the event receiver is listed in my log, so it's not Null. I am not getting any exceptions either.

Anyone have a clue why this happends? and what I may do wrong?

Answer 1

I managed to solve this by adding SequenceNumber and Synchronization in the Elements.xml file of the event receiver:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <Receivers ListUrl="Lists/members">
      <Receiver>
        <Name>MembersItemUpdated</Name>
        <Type>ItemUpdated</Type>
        <Assembly>$SharePoint.Project.AssemblyFullName$</Assembly>
        <Class>Members.Members</Class>
        <SequenceNumber>10001</SequenceNumber>
        <Synchronization>Synchronous</Synchronization>
      </Receiver>
  </Receivers>
</Elements>

When adding xml tags to the Element.xml an update of the wsp is not sufficient. You either have to reinstall the wsp or update the event receiver with powershell. I went with the powershell version like so:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

$web = Get-SPWeb "site url"

$a = $web.Lists.TryGetList("List name").Eventreceivers

Since I only had one event receiver in this list I could get the first from the array like so:

$a = $a[0] (or assign it to a new variable)
$a.Synchronization = "Synchronous"
$a.SequenceNumber = 10001
$a.Update()