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

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:

   <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>
   

2. Registered HandleErrorAttribute as a global action filter in the FilterConfig class as follows:

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

3. Created a custom error page for each of the above messages. The default one for 500 was already available out of the box.

4. Declared in each custom error page view that the model for the page is System.Web.Mvc.HandleErrorInfo

For 500, it shows the custom error page. For others, it doesn't.

Is there something I am missing?

It does look like this is not all there is to displaying custom errors as I read through the code in the OnException method of the HandleErrorAttribute class and it is handling only 500.

What do I have to do to handle other errors?

Answer 1

I've done pablo solution and I always had the error (MVC4)

The view 'Error' or its master was not found or no view engine supports the searched location.

To get rid of this, remove the line

 filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute());

in FilterConfig.cs

Answer 2

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 3

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 4

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 5

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>