Binary Data Coming in

Question

Binary Data Coming in

Rivka Bard 0

Hi, we are using the Azure Service Bus Namespace; sometime in the past month the data that was getting ssent in to us changed and it started coming in as BinaryData when it used to send it in as a JSON (as least thats how it seems to me). Is there something that changed on your end or is there any reason this started happening? See below graph

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Pashikanti Kumar 1,725 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-04T18:21:25.5233333+00:00
Hi Rivka Bard,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum

Azure Service Bus itself has not made any changes to how it handles or formats data being sent or received. Service Bus is a transport mechanism and does not alter the payload being sent by the sender application. The issue you're experiencing with data coming in as BinaryData instead of JSON is likely due to changes in the sender application or how the data is being serialized before being sent to the Service Bus.

Check the Sender Application Code

Inspect the application or service that is sending messages to the Service Bus.

Verify how the data is being serialized before being sent. If the sender switched to using BinaryData for serialization (e.g., in .NET or other SDKs), this could explain the change.

Verify Message Content:

If the sender is using the Azure SDK, check if the message body is being set as BinaryData instead of a JSON string

var message = new ServiceBusMessage(BinaryData.FromString(jsonString));

If BinaryData is being used, the receiver application will need to deserialize the data explicitly.

Use Azure Portal to Inspect Messages

Go to Azure Portal > Service Bus Namespace > Queues/Topics > Messages.

View the message payload in the portal to confirm whether the data is binary or JSON.

No Recent Azure Service Bus Platform Changes. There are no known recent platform-level changes by Microsoft that would automatically change your incoming message format from JSON to BinaryData. This suggests the change is likely on the sending or receiving application’s side

Reference

Azure Service Bus messages, payloads, and serialization - Azure Service Bus | Microsoft Learn

I hope the provided answer is helpful,

Please "Up Vote" if the information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

Thank you.
Silvio Lorenzo Torre 165 Reputation points

2026-10-30T12:38:34.56+00:00
Seeing BinaryData does not necessarily mean the message format changed. If you are using the .NET Azure.Messaging.ServiceBus SDK, ServiceBusReceivedMessage.Body is a BinaryData object even when its contents are JSON.

If the sender publishes UTF-8 JSON, you can read it as text:

string json = receivedMessage.Body.ToString();

Microsoft uses this pattern in the Service Bus .NET SDK documentation.

This means a receiver SDK upgrade or a different display in your tooling could explain what you see without any change to the actual payload. To confirm, which SDK/package version and tool are showing BinaryData? Does the expression above still return the expected JSON?

The message serialization documentation explains how payload bytes and serialization formats relate.

I hope is helpful,

Please "Up Vote" if the information helped you and, please note:
This was written in english with assistance from AI
Ciao

Pashikanti Kumar 1,725 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-11-04T18:21:25.5233333+00:00

Hi Rivka Bard,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum

Azure Service Bus itself has not made any changes to how it handles or formats data being sent or received. Service Bus is a transport mechanism and does not alter the payload being sent by the sender application. The issue you're experiencing with data coming in as BinaryData instead of JSON is likely due to changes in the sender application or how the data is being serialized before being sent to the Service Bus.

Check the Sender Application Code

Inspect the application or service that is sending messages to the Service Bus.

Verify how the data is being serialized before being sent. If the sender switched to using BinaryData for serialization (e.g., in .NET or other SDKs), this could explain the change.

Verify Message Content:

If the sender is using the Azure SDK, check if the message body is being set as BinaryData instead of a JSON string

var message = new ServiceBusMessage(BinaryData.FromString(jsonString));

If BinaryData is being used, the receiver application will need to deserialize the data explicitly.

Use Azure Portal to Inspect Messages

Go to Azure Portal > Service Bus Namespace > Queues/Topics > Messages.

View the message payload in the portal to confirm whether the data is binary or JSON.

No Recent Azure Service Bus Platform Changes. There are no known recent platform-level changes by Microsoft that would automatically change your incoming message format from JSON to BinaryData. This suggests the change is likely on the sending or receiving application’s side

Reference

Azure Service Bus messages, payloads, and serialization - Azure Service Bus | Microsoft Learn

I hope the provided answer is helpful,

Please "Up Vote" if the information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

Thank you.
Silvio Lorenzo Torre 165 Reputation points

2026-10-30T12:38:34.56+00:00

Seeing BinaryData does not necessarily mean the message format changed. If you are using the .NET Azure.Messaging.ServiceBus SDK, ServiceBusReceivedMessage.Body is a BinaryData object even when its contents are JSON.

If the sender publishes UTF-8 JSON, you can read it as text:

string json = receivedMessage.Body.ToString();

Microsoft uses this pattern in the Service Bus .NET SDK documentation.

This means a receiver SDK upgrade or a different display in your tooling could explain what you see without any change to the actual payload. To confirm, which SDK/package version and tool are showing BinaryData? Does the expression above still return the expected JSON?

The message serialization documentation explains how payload bytes and serialization formats relate.

I hope is helpful,

Please "Up Vote" if the information helped you and, please note:
This was written in english with assistance from AI
Ciao