WCF – Inspect the messages being sent/received?

To view the message contents you must add a source for System.ServiceModel.MessageLogging in your configuration file. The message tab in the Trace Viewer will show the full message for a particular service call.

Here is a sample configuration file:

<configuration>

...

   <system.diagnostics>
      <sources>
         <source name="System.ServiceModel"
                      switchValue="All"
                      propagateActivity="true">
            <listeners>
               <add name="traceListener" />
            </listeners>
         </source>
         <source name="System.ServiceModel.MessageLogging"
                      switchValue="All">
            <listeners>
               <add name="traceListener" />
            </listeners>
         </source>
      </sources>
      <sharedListeners>
         <add name="traceListener"
                 type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener"
                 initializeData="c:\Traces.svclog" />
      </sharedListeners>
   </system.diagnostics>

   <system.serviceModel>
   <diagnostics>
      <messageLogging logEntireMessage="true"
                                  logMalformedMessages="true"
                                  logMessagesAtServiceLevel="true"
                                  logMessagesAtTransportLevel="true"
                                  maxMessagesToLog="500"/>
   </diagnostics>

...

</system.serviceModel>

...

</configuration>

See the Configuring Tracing topic on MSDN for more information. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733025.aspx