How to make custom error pages work in ASP.NET MVC 4

📝 Blog Post: How to Make Custom Error Pages Work in ASP.NET MVC 4

😕 Are you struggling to make custom error pages work in your ASP.NET MVC 4 application? 🤔 Don't worry, you're not alone! Many developers face issues when trying to set up and display custom error pages for different HTTP error codes.

🚀 In this blog post, we'll provide you with easy-to-follow steps and solutions to get your custom error pages up and running smoothly. Let's dive in!

Common Issues and Solutions

🔍 Issue: Custom error pages not being displayed for 404 and 403 errors. 🔧 Solution: Make sure to add the appropriate error handlers in the web.config file. The web.config file is essential for configuring error handling in your ASP.NET MVC application. Check if the following code snippet is present within the <system.web> tag:

<customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/Views/Shared/Error.cshtml">
    <error statusCode="403" redirect="~/Views/Shared/UnauthorizedAccess.cshtml" />
    <error statusCode="404" redirect="~/Views/Shared/FileNotFound.cshtml" />
</customErrors>

Make sure that the redirect paths are correct and point to the respective custom error pages.

🔍 Issue: Custom error pages only working for 500 errors. 🔧 Solution: Register the HandleErrorAttribute as a global action filter. The HandleErrorAttribute is responsible for handling exceptions and redirecting to the appropriate error page. To enable it globally, open the FilterConfig class and add the following code:

public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
{
    filters.Add(new CustomHandleErrorAttribute());
    filters.Add(new AuthorizeAttribute());
}

This will ensure that the HandleErrorAttribute is applied to all actions in your application and handles any exception that occurs.

🔍 Issue: Custom error page views not properly defined. 🔧 Solution: Set the model for each custom error page view to System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo. For each custom error page view (e.g., UnauthorizedAccess.cshtml and FileNotFound.cshtml), make sure to declare the model as System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo. This allows the necessary error information to be passed to the custom error pages.

Going Beyond the Default Error Handling

⚡ Great job! By following the above solutions, you should now have working custom error pages for 403, 404, and 500 errors. However, if you want to handle other types of errors, additional steps are required.

1. Create a new action method in your controller that will handle the specific error code. For example, if you want to handle a 401 error, you can create a method like Unauthorized().

2. Decorate the new action method with the [AllowAnonymous] attribute to allow non-authenticated users to access the error page.

3. Create a corresponding view for the new error page (e.g., Unauthorized.cshtml) and customize it as desired.

4. Add a new <error> entry in the web.config file, similar to the previous examples, for the desired error code and point it to the newly created action method.

🌟 With these additional steps, you can extend your custom error handling capabilities and provide a more tailored user experience for various error scenarios.

📢 We hope this guide has helped you in successfully setting up custom error pages in your ASP.NET MVC 4 application. If you have any questions or run into further issues, feel free to leave a comment below. Happy coding! 💻💪

Note: Share this guide with other developers who might be struggling with custom error pages in ASP.NET MVC 4!