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Intermittent NullReferenceException in .NET 6 Web API when accessing Dependency Injected Service

πŸ‘€ Views: 224 πŸ’¬ Answers: 1 πŸ“… Created: 2025-06-05
c# .net dependency-injection web-api C#

I'm attempting to set up I'm writing unit tests and I've looked through the documentation and I'm still confused about I'm working with an intermittent `NullReferenceException` in my .NET 6 Web API when trying to access a service that is injected via Dependency Injection. This exception seems to occur randomly, and I'm struggling to pinpoint the cause. Here’s a snippet of my code: ```csharp public class MyController : ControllerBase { private readonly IMyService _myService; public MyController(IMyService myService) { _myService = myService ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(myService)); } [HttpGet] public IActionResult GetData() { var data = _myService.GetData(); // Throws NullReferenceException intermittently return Ok(data); } } ``` The `IMyService` is registered in the `Startup.cs` like this: ```csharp services.AddScoped<IMyService, MyService>(); ``` I have verified that `MyService` is a valid concrete implementation and that it's not returning null when instantiated. However, when debugging, I sometimes see `_myService` as null, which leads to the exception being thrown. I’ve added logging to both the controller and the service, and the logs show that the controller is hit before the service is requested, but I need to see any pattern to when this occurs. Is there a possibility that my service is being disposed of before the controller accesses it, or could this be related to how the DI container handles scoped services? I also tried changing the service lifetime to `AddSingleton`, but that caused another scenario where the state of the service was shared across requests, which is not what I want. Any insights on what might be causing this intermittent behavior would be greatly appreciated! Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm working on a web app that needs to handle this. Am I missing something obvious? I'm developing on Linux with C#. I'm open to any suggestions.