If you can tell me the magic google term that instantly gives me clarification, that would be helpful.

Here's the part that's throwing an issue when I try to manually deserialize from a string:

xsi:type="ns1:errorObject" xmlns:ns1="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"
xsi:type="ns2:errorObject" xmlns:ns2="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"
xsi:type="ns3:errorObject" xmlns:ns3="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"

Here's how I'm deserializing by hand to test it: (in an aspx.cs page with a label on the front to display the value in that I can verify by reading source) (second block of XML duplicates the first but without the extra namespaces)

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

public partial class test : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        string sourceXml = @"<?xml version=""1.0""?>
    <InitiateActivityResponse xmlns=""http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"">
      <InitiateActivityResult>
        <errorObject errorString=""string 1"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.775Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object1"" xsi:type=""ns1:errorObject"" xmlns:ns1=""http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"" />
        <errorObject errorString=""string 2"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.791Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object2"" xsi:type=""ns2:errorObject"" xmlns:ns2=""http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"" />
        <errorObject errorString=""string 3"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.806Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object3"" xsi:type=""ns3:errorObject"" xmlns:ns3=""http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"" />
      </InitiateActivityResult>
    </InitiateActivityResponse>
";
        sourceXml = @"<?xml version=""1.0""?>
    <InitiateActivityResponse xmlns=""http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"">
      <InitiateActivityResult>
        <errorObject errorString=""string 1"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.775Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object1"" />
        <errorObject errorString=""string 2"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.791Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object2"" />
        <errorObject errorString=""string 3"" eventTime=""2010-05-21T21:19:15.806Z"" nounType=""Object"" objectID=""object3"" />
      </InitiateActivityResult>
    </InitiateActivityResponse>
";
        InitiateActivityResponse fragment = new InitiateActivityResponse();
        Type t = typeof( InitiateActivityResponse );
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        TextWriter textWriter = new StringWriter( sb );
        TextReader textReader = new StringReader( sourceXml );
        XmlTextReader xmlTextReader = new XmlTextReader( textReader );
        XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer( t );
        object obj = xmlSerializer.Deserialize( xmlTextReader );
        fragment = (InitiateActivityResponse)obj;
        xmlSerializer.Serialize( textWriter, fragment );
        //I have a field on my public page that I write to from sb.ToString();
    }
}

Consuming a webservice, I have a class like thus: (all examples foreshortened to as little as possible to show the problem, if boilerplate is missing, my apologies) (this is where I think I want to remove the troublespot)

[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute( "code" )]
[System.Web.Services.WebServiceBindingAttribute( Name = "MyServerSoapSoapBinding", Namespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0" )]
public partial class MyServer : System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol {
  public MsgHeader msgHeader { get; set; }
  public MyServer () {
    this.Url = "localAddressOmittedOnPurpose";
  }

  [System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHeaderAttribute( "msgHeader" )]
  [System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapDocumentMethodAttribute( "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0/InitiateActivity", RequestNamespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0", ResponseNamespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0", Use = System.Web.Services.Description.SoapBindingUse.Literal, ParameterStyle = System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapParameterStyle.Wrapped )]
  [return: System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute( "InitiateActivityResponse" )]
  public InitiateActivityResponse InitiateActivity(string inputVar) {
      object[] results = Invoke( "InitiateActivity", new object[] { inputVar } );
      return ( (InitiateActivityResponse)( results[0] ) );
  }
}

Class descriptions

[System.SerializableAttribute]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute( "code" )]
[XmlType( Namespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0", TypeName = "InitiateActivityResponse" )]
[XmlRoot( Namespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0" )]
public class InitiateActivityResponse {

    [XmlArray( ElementName = "InitiateActivityResult", IsNullable = true )]
    [XmlArrayItem( ElementName = "errorObject", IsNullable = false )]
    public errorObject[] errorObject { get; set; }
}

[System.SerializableAttribute]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute( "code" )]
[XmlTypeAttribute( Namespace = "http://www.example.org/Version_3.0" )]
public class errorObject {
    private string _errorString;
    private System.DateTime _eventTime;
    private bool _eventTimeSpecified;
    private string _nounType;
    private string _objectID;

    [XmlAttributeAttribute]
    public string errorString {
        get { return _errorString; }
        set { _errorString = value; }
    }

    [XmlAttributeAttribute]
    public System.DateTime eventTime {
        get { return _eventTime; }
        set { _eventTime = value; }
    }

    [XmlIgnoreAttribute]
    public bool eventTimeSpecified {
        get { return _eventTimeSpecified; }
        set { _eventTimeSpecified = value; }
    }

    [XmlAttributeAttribute]
    public string nounType {
        get { return _nounType; }
        set { _nounType = value; }
    }

    [XmlAttributeAttribute]
    public string objectID {
        get { return _objectID; }
        set { _objectID = value; }
    }
}

SOAP as it's being received (as seen by Fiddler2)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Header>
    <MsgHeader soapenv:actor="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/actor/next" soapenv:mustUnderstand="0" AppName="AppName" AppVersion="1.0" Company="Company" Pwd="" UserID="" xmlns="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"/>
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body>
    <InitiateActivityResponse xmlns="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0">
      <InitiateActivityResult>
        <errorObject errorString="Explanatory string for request 1" eventTime="2010-05-24T21:21:37.477Z" nounType="Object" objectID="12345" xsi:type="ns1:errorObject" xmlns:ns1="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"/>
        <errorObject errorString="Explanatory string for request 2" eventTime="2010-05-24T21:21:37.493Z" nounType="Object" objectID="45678" xsi:type="ns2:errorObject" xmlns:ns2="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"/>
        <errorObject errorString="Explanatory string for request 3" eventTime="2010-05-24T21:21:37.508Z" nounType="Object" objectID="98765" xsi:type="ns3:errorObject" xmlns:ns3="http://www.example.org/Version_3.0"/>
      </InitiateActivityResult>
    </InitiateActivityResponse>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Okay, what should I have not omitted? No I won't post the WSDL, it's hosted behind a firewall, for a vertical stack product. No, I can't change the data sender. Is this somehow automagically handled elsewhere and I just don't know what I don't know?

I think I want to do some sort of message sink leading into this method, to intercept the soapenv:Body, but obviously this is for errors, so I'm not going to get errors every time. I'm not entirely sure how to handle this, but some pointers would be nice.