I have two services and am sending pretty chunky messages between them (~100kb). Though the previously mentioned value is typical of the size of the message, it is possible for
sorry guys, after further trawling i discovered the source of the error! one of the classes in the datacontract had been changed (the [DataContract] attribute had been removed, but strangely [DataMemeber] had been left on the relevant properties! very odd!)
thanks for all your help anyways, especially rfor getting me to this point, where i can finally wash my hands of this damn project :-)