What is wrong with my area routing in my bin deployed MVC4 app?

Question

I have just deployed an MVC4 .NET 4.0 app to my web host, for 'live' deployed testing. Non -area routes are working fine, e.g. my

@Html.ActionLink("Register as a Client", "Register", "Account", new { registrationType = "Client"}, null)

link works fine, and the link opens the correct page. However, with a link to an area based action like this:

@Html.ActionLink("Authors", "Index", "Home", new { Area = "Author", registrationType = "Author" }, null)

the link actually rendered to the browser is missing action and controller, i.e.

http://mylivedomain.com/?Area=Author&registrationType=Author

It may be worth noting that the css bundling feature of MVC4 was not working after deployment, and I rolled back to using classic style links to individual stylesheets.

MAYBE RELATED: My question: Why is unmodified template code in my MVC4 app trying to register areas twice?

JUST IN: Removing the default action from the area route mappings for the default rouite solved this problem. There was no default controller to start with, in the VS2012 template code.

Answer 1

Try checking this.ControllerContext.RouteData.DataTokens["area"] in your area's action methods.

I've had a situation with similar issue in which the area name was simply an empty string.

Setting the DataToken in the action method might provide you a quick fix but it doesn't answer the question why MVC doesn't set the area name.

Answer 2

In your case because you specify area in query string, the routes from Global.asax.cs should apply. I belive you have something like this there:

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
        context.MapRoute(
            "Default",
            "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        ).DataTokens.Add("area","Author");
    }

This code makes Home/Index default route and skips Home/Index in url. If you change controller = "Home" on something else for example controller = "Home2" you will have displayed full link for Home/Index and new default route Home2/Index. Similar apply to default routes in areas if you have them specified.

Answer 3

In your global.asax.cs make sure you have this line in your Application_Start:

AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

In each area, you should have AreaRegistration.cs something like this:

public class testAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
{
    public override string AreaName
    {
        get
        {
            return "test";
        }
    }

    public override void RegisterArea(AreaRegistrationContext context)
    {
        context.MapRoute(
            "test_default",
            "test/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
        );
    }
}

Answer 4

With the @Html.ActionLink

use this format

@Html.ActionLink("Authors", "Index", "Home", new { Area = "Author", registrationType = "Author" }, new{})

Solved my issue.

Answer 5

Do you happen to inherit PortableAreaRegistration from MvcContrib in any of your areas?

We used to have exactly the same symptoms (works locally, not on server) until we removed all the PortableAreaRegistrations from Portable Areas and reverted to using simply AreaRegistration since MVC4 can register a portable area without any additional libraries.