A while ago, I blogged about pipeline components and what you need to pay attention to.  Stephen, in reply to this, was wondering (see his comment) how tracking came into play.  And… to be honest – I didn’t have a clue!  Only recently I managed to get the answer. 


It turns out that Stephen’s question actually was really valuable in helping me understand how exactly things work underneath… So, here’s my – somewhat delayed – response and comments to his question.


Assume that your pipeline component screws up and that tracking before the pipeline, is enabled.  What happens? 



  • if the message’s body stream is seekable:

    • it gets tracked

  • if the message’s body stream is *not* seekable:

    • it is *not* tracked

In both cases, the message ends up suspended.  The body might be in the suspended message if the body stream was seekable, otherwise not.  (You should always have the context.)


For example: in the case of HTTP, the stream will not be seekable and the body will not be tracked nor suspended in case of a fatal pipeline component failure.  (Note: the client will not get an HTTP either!)


So, the only advise I can give is: *never* screw up in your pipeline component :-)))

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