Error while activating inbound port

Last week we received an error while trying to activate a previously working WCF inbound port. The error message was

The service '<SERVICE_NAME_HERE>' could not be generated.\n  Error: SysDictType object not initialized.

Stack trace

(S)\Classes\AifServiceDataTypeGenerator\generateType - line 76
(S)\Classes\AifServiceDataTypeGenerator\generateDataContractClass - line 127
(S)\Classes\AifServiceDataTypeGenerator\generateType - line 54
(S)\Classes\AifServiceDataTypeGenerator\generate - line 68
(S)\Classes\AifMessageContractGenerator\generate - line 22
(S)\Classes\AifServiceGenerator\generate - line 30
(S)\Classes\AifServiceGenerationManager\generateServices - line 102
(S)\Classes\AifPortManager\deployPort - line 22
(C)\Forms\AifInboundPort\Designs\DesignList\DeployPort\Methods\Clicked - line 12

The error message was shown on "AIF services" form "General" fast tab.

On investigation we found out that there was a code merge between two TFS branches and somehow one of the EDT used in the service contract was removed. When AIF was trying to generate service artifacts, it could not find the EDT and hence was throwing above error. Once the EDT was re-created, the error disappeared and service activated successfully.

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