"Object reference not set to an instance of an object" when reading C# GroupPrincipal.Members.Count




It seems that there is a bug in the .NET 3.5 managed library

System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.

When you try and view the Members.Count property of a Global group the system throws the following exception.

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.ADDNLinkedAttrSet.BookmarkAndReset()
at System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.PrincipalCollection.get_Count()
 
It is however possible to enumerate the members of the group
 
The following sample code demonstrates the issue where the domain is called demonstration.int and the group name is SampleGroup.
 
GroupPrincipal Group = GroupPrincipal.FindByIdentity(new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "demonstration.int"),"SampleGroup");
MessageBox.Show(Group.Members.Count.ToString());
 
If anyone has any further information please feel free to post a comment. I've not seen any other information on the issue on the net.

Comments

  1. Mohammed Fayed15 April 2013 at 08:18

    I faced the same problem and made a work around for it by using [GetMembers(true)] method of [GroupPrincipal] and get the count from the returned collection

    ReplyDelete

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