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

Question

I want a custom error page shown for 500, 404 and 403. Here\'s what I have done:

1. Enabled custom errors in the web.config as follows:

Answer 1

Here is my solution. Use [ExportModelStateToTempData] / [ImportModelStateFromTempData] is uncomfortable in my opinion.

~/Views/Home/Error.cshtml:

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Error";
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

<h2>Error</h2>
<hr/>

<div style="min-height: 400px;">

    @Html.ValidationMessage("Error")

    <br />
    <br />

    <button onclick="Error_goBack()" class="k-button">Go Back</button>
    <script>
        function Error_goBack() {
            window.history.back()
        }
    </script>

</div>

~/Controllers/HomeController.sc:

public class HomeController : BaseController
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    public ActionResult Error()
    {
        return this.View();
    }

    ...
}

~/Controllers/BaseController.sc:

public class BaseController : Controller
{
    public BaseController() { }

    protected override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
    {
        if (filterContext.Result is ViewResult)
        {
            if (filterContext.Controller.TempData.ContainsKey("Error"))
            {
                var modelState = filterContext.Controller.TempData["Error"] as ModelState;
                filterContext.Controller.ViewData.ModelState.Merge(new ModelStateDictionary() { new KeyValuePair<string, ModelState>("Error", modelState) });
                filterContext.Controller.TempData.Remove("Error");
            }
        }
        if ((filterContext.Result is RedirectResult) || (filterContext.Result is RedirectToRouteResult))
        {
            if (filterContext.Controller.ViewData.ModelState.ContainsKey("Error"))
            {
                filterContext.Controller.TempData["Error"] = filterContext.Controller.ViewData.ModelState["Error"];
            }
        }

        base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
    }
}

~/Controllers/MyController.sc:

public class MyController : BaseController
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    public ActionResult Details(int id)
    {
        if (id != 5)
        {
            ModelState.AddModelError("Error", "Specified row does not exist.");
            return RedirectToAction("Error", "Home");
        }
        else
        {
            return View("Specified row exists.");
        }
    }
}

I wish you successful projects ;-)

Answer 2

I would Recommend to use Global.asax.cs File.

 protected void Application_Error(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var exception = Server.GetLastError();
    if (exception is HttpUnhandledException)
    {
        Server.Transfer("~/Error.aspx");
    }
    if (exception != null)
    {
        Server.Transfer("~/Error.aspx");
    }
    try
    {
        // This is to stop a problem where we were seeing "gibberish" in the
        // chrome and firefox browsers
        HttpApplication app = sender as HttpApplication;
        app.Response.Filter = null;
    }
    catch
    {
    }
}

Answer 3

There seem to be a number of steps here jumbled together. I'll put forward what I did from scratch.

1. Create the ErrorPage controller

   public class ErrorPageController : Controller
   {
       public ActionResult Index()
       {
           return View();
       }
   
       public ActionResult Oops(int id)
       {
           Response.StatusCode = id;
           return View();
       }
   }
   

2. Add views for these two actions (right click -> Add View). These should appear in a folder called ErrorPage.

3. Inside App_Start open up FilterConfig.cs and comment out the error handling filter.

   public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters)
   {
       // Remove this filter because we want to handle errors ourselves via the ErrorPage controller
       //filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute());
   }
   

4. Inside web.config add the following <customerErrors> entries, under System.Web

   <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/ErrorPage/Oops">
       <error redirect="~/ErrorPage/Oops/404" statusCode="404" />
       <error redirect="~/ErrorPage/Oops/500" statusCode="500" />
   </customErrors>
   

5. Test (of course). Throw an unhandled exception in your code and see it go to the page with id 500, and then use a URL to a page that does not exist to see 404.

Answer 4

It seems i came late to the party, but you should better check this out too.

So in system.web for caching up exceptions within the application such as return HttpNotFound()

  <system.web>
    <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly">
      <error statusCode="404" redirect="/page-not-found" />
      <error statusCode="500" redirect="/internal-server-error" />
    </customErrors>
  </system.web>

and in system.webServer for catching up errors that were caught by IIS and did not made their way to the asp.net framework

 <system.webServer>
    <httpErrors errorMode="DetailedLocalOnly">
      <remove statusCode="404"/>
      <error statusCode="404" path="/page-not-found" responseMode="Redirect"/>
      <remove statusCode="500"/>
      <error statusCode="500" path="/internal-server-error" responseMode="Redirect"/>
  </system.webServer>

In the last one if you worry about the client response then change the responseMode="Redirect" to responseMode="File" and serve a static html file, since this one will display a friendly page with an 200 response code.

Answer 5

In web.config add this under system.webserver tag as below,

<system.webServer>
<httpErrors errorMode="Custom" existingResponse="Replace">
  <remove statusCode="404"/>
  <remove statusCode="500"/>
  <error statusCode="404" responseMode="ExecuteURL" path="/Error/NotFound"/>
  <error statusCode="500" responseMode="ExecuteURL"path="/Error/ErrorPage"/>
</httpErrors>

and add a controller as,

public class ErrorController : Controller
{
    //
    // GET: /Error/
    [GET("/Error/NotFound")]
    public ActionResult NotFound()
    {
        Response.StatusCode = 404;

        return View();
    }

    [GET("/Error/ErrorPage")]
    public ActionResult ErrorPage()
    {
        Response.StatusCode = 500;

        return View();
    }
}

and add their respected views, this will work definitely I guess for all.

This solution I found it from: Neptune Century

Answer 6

My current setup (on MVC3, but I think it still applies) relies on having an ErrorController, so I use:

<system.web>
    <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="~/Error">
      <error redirect="~/Error/NotFound" statusCode="404" />
    </customErrors>
</system.web>

And the controller contains the following:

public class ErrorController : Controller
{
    public ViewResult Index()
    {
        return View("Error");
    }
    public ViewResult NotFound()
    {
        Response.StatusCode = 404;  //you may want to set this to 200
        return View("NotFound");
    }
}

And the views just the way you implement them. I tend to add a bit of logic though, to show the stack trace and error information if the application is in debug mode. So Error.cshtml looks something like this:

@model System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo
@{
    Layout = "_Layout.cshtml";
    ViewBag.Title = "Error";
}
<div class="list-header clearfix">
    <span>Error</span>
</div>
<div class="list-sfs-holder">
    <div class="alert alert-error">
        An unexpected error has occurred. Please contact the system administrator.
    </div>
    @if (Model != null && HttpContext.Current.IsDebuggingEnabled)
    {
        <div>
            <p>
                <b>Exception:</b> @Model.Exception.Message<br />
                <b>Controller:</b> @Model.ControllerName<br />
                <b>Action:</b> @Model.ActionName
            </p>
            <div style="overflow:scroll">
                <pre>
                    @Model.Exception.StackTrace
                </pre>
            </div>
        </div>
    }
</div>