microsoft/aspire · error · InvalidDataException

Service should have valid address at this point

Error message

Service {svc.Metadata.Name} should have valid address at this point

What it means

This is an internal-invariant failure: DCP Service objects should always have a complete allocated address before this code runs, because the model builder waits for addresses before processing. A null/empty svc.AllocatedAddress here means an internal bug or race, not a user-actionable configuration problem.

Solutions

Restart the AppHost and the Aspire environment (aspire run again) to reset DCP allocation state.
Check dashboard/DCP logs for the named Service to see why allocation never completed (e.g. port pool exhaustion, docker failure).
Update Aspire packages; if reproducible, file a bug — the code comments explicitly say 'we have a bug without a workaround'.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try
{
    await appHost.StartAsync();
}
catch (InvalidDataException ex) when (ex.Message.Contains("should have valid address at this point"))
{
    // restart DCP/AppHost; if reproducible, report an Aspire bug with DCP logs
}

Prevention

Keep the container runtime and DCP healthy (restart docker if allocation stalls).
Avoid deleting/restarting resources while the AppHost model is still building.
Update Aspire packages regularly; this path is by-design unreachable.

When it happens

Trigger: TryAddLocalhostAllocatedEndpoint is called (via TryAddWorkloadAllocatedEndpoints or ApplyServiceAddressToEndpoint) with allowPending=false while svc.AllocatedAddress is null/empty — i.e. the DCP Service was expected to have finished port allocation but did not.

Common situations: A slow or wedged DCP/docker environment where the service never completed allocation; a race where a resource was deleted or restarted mid-model-build; genuine Aspire/DCP bugs.

Understand the failure class

Background: "This is a bug, please report it": internal invariant violations, unreachable panics, and SNH errors explained — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of microsoft/aspire@25830f84bd (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/818281bf88c73319. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/Aspire.Hosting/Dcp/DcpModelUtilities.cs:181

    {
        var svc = sp.DcpResource;
        var allocatedPort = svc.AllocatedPort ?? fallbackPort;

        if (sp.EndpointAnnotation.AllocatedEndpoint is not null)
        {
            return true;
        }

        if (!svc.HasCompleteAddress && sp.EndpointAnnotation.IsProxied)
        {
            if (allowPending)
            {
                return false;
            }

            // This should never happen; if it does, we have a bug without a workaround for the user.
            // We should have waited for the service to have a complete address before getting here.
            throw new InvalidDataException($"Service {svc.Metadata.Name} should have valid address at this point");
        }

        if (!sp.EndpointAnnotation.IsProxied && allocatedPort is null)
        {
            if (allowPending)
            {
                return false;
            }

            throw new InvalidOperationException($"Service '{svc.Metadata.Name}' needs to specify a port for endpoint '{sp.EndpointAnnotation.Name}' since it isn't using a proxy.");
        }

        if (allocatedPort is null || string.IsNullOrEmpty(svc.AllocatedAddress))
        {
            if (allowPending)
            {
                return false;
            }

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