Submit button not working as expected

Question

I have a form with a submit button on a registration page that will not work when pressed, have been at it for a while now? I put a break point on the creat method and it doesn't get called

This is the Creat Metod in the controller

   public ActionResult Create()
    {
        return View();
    }

    //
    // POST: /RegsterDetails/Create

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Create(User user )
    {
        if(ModelState.IsValid)
        try
        {
            db.Users.Add(user);
            db.SaveChanges();
            return RedirectToAction("RegisterStats", "RegisterStats");
        }
        catch(Exception)
        {
            return View();
        }
        return View(user);

This is The View

    @model Fitness_Friend.Web.Models.User

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

<h2>RegisterDetails</h2>

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {
    @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
    @Html.ValidationSummary(true)

    <fieldset>
        <legend>User</legend>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.FirstName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.FirstName)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.FirstName)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.LastName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.LastName)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.DOB)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.DOB)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.DOB)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Address)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Address)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Address)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Email)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Email)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Email)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Gender)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Gender)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Gender)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.UserName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.UserName)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.UserName)
        </div>

        <p>
            <input type="Submit" name="Create" value="Register Details" />
        </p>
    </fieldset>
}

<div>
    @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index","Home")
</div>

@section Scripts {
    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jqueryval")
}

We will need the complete **View** for any of this to make sense — Simon Rapilly, Aug 11 '13 at 16:50
ActionLink and submit are not the same...Have you seen this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3449807/mvc-make-action-link-perform-a-submit ? — David Tansey, Aug 11 '13 at 16:55
sorry just trying something, the submit button still won't work? — CodeSurfer, Aug 11 '13 at 17:07
Is validation working on submit? for instance, if you left a required field invalid, it should display an error message. — Varun K, Aug 11 '13 at 17:11
Have you tried adding a [HttpGet] Action Filter to the first Create action in the controller? — pwdst, Aug 11 '13 at 17:52
tried the [HttpGet] which doesn't work,still can't figure it out — CodeSurfer, Aug 11 '13 at 20:23

Joe Brunscheon · Answer 1 · 2013-08-11T17:49:18.807

2

For some reason, your form is not hooking up to your action properly. In order to eliminate some of the possibilities for what is going on, I suggest that you actually specify what Action and Controller the form will use to post to.

@Html.BeginForm("CreateUser", "ControllerWithCreateUserMethod")
{
    //insert your HTML here.
    //submit button here
    <input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
}

edited Aug 11 '13 at 17:49

answered Aug 11 '13 at 17:12

Joe Brunscheon

1,949
20
21

1

Action and Controller are optional. If none are specified the default is to post to the same controller/action the view was called from. – Erik Philips Aug 11 '13 at 17:31
I don't disagree, but I've always found that specifying the controller and action for the form works better, and there's never any question about where the form will be posting to. – Joe Brunscheon Aug 11 '13 at 17:34
It literally can't *work better*, it can only work the same. As for making the code more readable and maintainable, I'd agree, and I do the same. However, your statement *there is nothing hooked up to the submit button* is incorrect. – Erik Philips Aug 11 '13 at 17:36
Should have been clearer: when I said "works better", I meant more readable and results in less ambiguity as to what is going on when things are not working. Now, according to his question, the submit button isn't doing anything, meaning that it, in fact, isn't hooked up to anything. OP said he put a break point on the method, and got nothing: so, not hooked up. – Joe Brunscheon Aug 11 '13 at 17:45
You sentence *You have no Action or Controller specified for your form, so there is nothing hooked up to the submit button* implies that because there is no Action or Controller, the submit button does not work. This is not why the submit button does not work, so it is incorrect. – Erik Philips Aug 11 '13 at 17:47
I will edit the original sentence to be clearer. Thanks for pointing that out. – Joe Brunscheon Aug 11 '13 at 17:48

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 11 '13 at 17:42

1

In a HTML form, you need a submit button to post the data, like this

<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>

or

<button type="submit">Submit</button>

If you don't like those, you can choose something like this

<a onclick="$('#formId').submit();">Submit</a>

and of course you can optionally specify in form tag where the data is to be posted

@Html.BeginForm("Action", "Controller")
{
   ...
}

edited Aug 11 '13 at 17:42

Erik Philips

53,428
11
128
150

answered Aug 11 '13 at 17:24

Abbas Amiri

3,074
1
23
23

2

Action and Controller are optional. If none are specified the default is to post to the same controller/action the view was called from. – Erik Philips Aug 11 '13 at 17:31
Still doesn't work, when I specified where the data was to be posted in the form tag it said the resource wasn't found – CodeSurfer Aug 11 '13 at 20:51
@user2594784 Could you check with Firebug or something else that the data has been posted into correct URI, maybe there is something wrong with the generated URI. – Abbas Amiri Aug 12 '13 at 02:48

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 11 '13 at 17:52

I've duplicated this code as below:

Controller + Model (bad design don't do this):

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Create()
    {
        return View();
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Create(MyUser user)
    {
        // break point next line works
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
            try
            {
                //db.Users.Add(user);
                //db.SaveChanges();
                return RedirectToAction("RegisterStats", "RegisterStats");
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                return View();
            }
        return View(user);
    }

    public class MyUser
    {
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
    }
}

With this view:

@model MvcApplication3.Controllers.HomeController.MyUser

@using (Html.BeginForm()) {
    @Html.AntiForgeryToken()
    @Html.ValidationSummary(true)

    <fieldset>
        <legend>User</legend>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.FirstName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.FirstName)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.FirstName)
        </div>

        <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(model => model.LastName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.LastName)
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.LastName)
        </div>

        <p>
            <input type="Submit" name="Create" value="Register Details" />
        </p>
    </fieldset>
}

And it works without issue.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 28 '14 at 15:12

I'm very late to this but I think I know why this Controller Method doesn't get called.

If a form is passing the data for a Model back to the controller, then the Model class needs to have a constructor which takes no parameters. I'm willing to bet that in the above example the class User does not have such a constructor.

Submit button not working as expected

4 Answers4

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