The following sections have been defined but have not been rendered for the layout page

Question

This is an ASP.NET MVC 3 exception message. What it says? What should I do?

OK, I have this code:

@{
     Layout = \"~/_Layout.cshtml\";
     Page.Title          


        

Answer 1

When I received this error I was trying to conditionally include a section in my layout when it was defined by the view. Here is the layout:

@if (IsSectionDefined("header"))
{
    RenderSection("header");
}
else
{
    Html.RenderPartial("_Header");
}

I think @Jaider mentions this in his answer too, but you cannot place a RenderSection inside an if statement. The way to achieve my goal was to inverse the if and set the required parameter to false on the RenderSection method:

@RenderSection("header", false);
@if (!IsSectionDefined("header"))
{
    Html.RenderPartial("_Header");
}

If no setion is defined, the first line wont do anything and the If statement ensures a default header is rendered when no section is defined.