Question: I want to set a session timeout of 30 seconds.

To do so I wrote:

```
<wsHttpBinding>
    <binding name="ServicesBindings">
      <security mode="Message">
        <message clientCredentialType="Certificate"/>
      </security>
      <reliableSession enabled="true" inactivityTimeout="00:00:30"/>
    </binding>
  </wsHttpBinding>

```

But it don't work!

If I set in this way:

```
<wsHttpBinding>
    <binding name="ServicesBindings" receiveTimeout="00:00:30">
      <security mode="Message">
        <message clientCredentialType="Certificate"/>
      </security>
      <reliableSession enabled="true"/>
    </binding>
  </wsHttpBinding>

```

it's all correct.

Can someone explain this to me?

Thanks,

Alberto

Answer: 
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.servicemodel.reliablesession.inactivitytimeout.aspx>

The combination of the inactivity and receive timeout periods determines the behavior.
According to [this person](http://solatys.com/files/technotes/WCF%20Alive%20session.pdf), there is a bug where the receiveTimeout overrides the inactivityTimeout.