Does ASP.NET MVC create default routes for areas

Question

I have a couple of areas in my MVC 3 application Auth and Users. I am using Phil Haacks Route Debugging tool to view a list of my routes and see which one gets selected based on my url.

However there are a couple of routes present that I have not created in either my AreaRegistration file or Globalasax and I don’t know where they have come from or how to get rid of them. The routes are highlighted in yellow below.

You can also see that I have created a default route in my Auth area (highlighted in green) which simply points to the Login action of my Auth controller. I have debugged the RouteTable and it gets added when the AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas(); method is called. However it does not get added in the AreaRegistration as have stepped through this also.

Does ASP.NET MVC add this as a default and if so can I remove it somehow?

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score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 06 '12 at 15:33

I don’t like to answer my own question but after a day of trying to solve this problem I thought I would post the answer in case anyone else has the same issue.

In the end I got rid of all my areas from my application and just had the basic Global.asax routing. When I ran the app I could see in the route debugger that the routing collection was still being populated with the routes from now non existing areas. After trying many things including deleting everything from my ASP.NET temp files, messing around with IIS AppPools and cleaning out browser data I finally came across the answer.

I deleted everything from the websites bin folder, did a rebuild and low and behold, the routes were gone. I reinstated my areas with the config described and everything is working as it should.

I have no idea why my MVC app was holding onto and populating the old routes but as soon as my bin was cleared and new dll’s created everything worked as it should. If anybody out there knows why this may be then I would be very interested.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 01 '11 at 11:27

2

Yes, each area has it's own AreaRegistration file that defines area routes. Look for it in your area root folder.

For your User area, look in Areas -> User -> UserAreaRegistration.cs

It should contain something like this:

    public class UserAreaRegistration : AreaRegistration
    {
        public override string AreaName
        {
            get
            {
                return "User";
            }
        }

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

answered Feb 01 '11 at 11:27

frennky

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Thanks frennky I already know this and have configured the area registration as described in my question. The default route in my AuthAreaRegistration.cs file is highlighted in green above. What I dont understand is that if I have configured my default routes in both my AreaRegistration.cs files and my Global.asax file where do the routes highlighted in yellow come from? Does MVC create them because I have edited my default routes thus turning them into custom routes? If so can I get rid of that default route? – Cragly Feb 01 '11 at 12:02
Can you provide us code of your route registrations in areas and in global.asax and Application_Start method. – frennky Feb 01 '11 at 13:15
The reason I posted this question was to try to find an answer to this question which details my code for both types of areas. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4855574/asp-net-mvc-area-not-picking-up-the-correct-route – Cragly Feb 01 '11 at 13:54
I don't know if it is how I have things set up and configured but this routing in areas seems so flaky to me. I have added an Index action method to my controller and done a RedirectToAction("LogIn") so no matter which default route it picks it gets the login controller. However I still do not get the login page each time. Sometimes I do other times I get a 404. If I close down the browser and then restart sometimes it works. No consistency at all. Its a shame but I am debating taking out my areas and just having everything in the main MVC project structure. – Cragly Feb 01 '11 at 13:59
Thanks for all your help on this one frennkky it was much appreciated. I have awarded you some up-votes for your comments as they are good valid comments and will be helpful to others. I have found the solution to my problem and have answered above. – Cragly Feb 01 '11 at 16:48

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 00:38

0

Did you rename your project? It loads the routes by reflection, probably by scanning everything in the bin folder. So if you refactored your code and changed the assembly name, you could have easily had old code being picked up and registering those routes.

JB

answered Feb 24 '11 at 00:38

J B

1

Thanks for the comment to try to clear this up but I never renamed the project, but understand it could have been due to some other refactoring changes. – Cragly Feb 24 '11 at 10:11

Does ASP.NET MVC create default routes for areas

3 Answers3

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