Setting up .Net MVC http error codes for ajax calls

Question

I'm trying to setup my controllers so that they can use http error codes to send the responses to ajax calls. So for example I have my login ajax call and controller action:

[System.Web.Mvc.HttpPost, System.Web.Mvc.AllowAnonymous]
public ActionResult Login(string userName, string password, bool rememberMe, string returnUrl)
{
    [...]
    var loginError = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized)
    {
        Content = new StringContent("Lorem ipsum 2 " + ErrorMessages.LOGINERROR),
        ReasonPhrase = "Lorem ipsum 2 " + ErrorMessages.LOGINERROR
    };
    throw new HttpResponseException(loginError);
}

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: url,
    data: data,
    dataType: "text",
    success: callBack,
    error: function () { console.log("Error..."); },
    statusCode : {
        401: function (result) {
            console.log("Login failed (401): " + result);
        }
    }
});

I'm thinking there are a couple of things I'm not doing right, if someone can point them out that would be lovely!

Thanks!

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 05 '13 at 11:15

Instead of throw exception just return ActionResult that provide some content and setup response code. For your case you can create something that I call ExtendedJsonResult:

public class ExtendedJsonResult : JsonResult
{
    public ExtendedJsonResult(object data)
    {
        base.Data = data;
    }

    public int StatusCode { get; set; }

    public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
    {
        context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = this.StatusCode;
        base.ExecuteResult(context);
    }
}

and then in controller

return new ExtendedJsonResult("Some error")
{
    StatusCode = 401,
};

You can also just return existing HttpStatusCodeResult.

Thanks this helped me a lot. However, there was a few issues in the code and I fixed it. — NaveenBhat, Sep 05 '13 at 11:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

Look at this solution: ASP.NET MVC Ajax Error handling

Darin Dimitrov write very nice solutions with action filter:

public class MyErrorHandlerAttribute : FilterAttribute, IExceptionFilter
{
    public void OnException(ExceptionContext filterContext)
    {
        filterContext.ExceptionHandled = true;
        filterContext.Result = new JsonResult
        {
            Data = new { success = false, error = filterContext.Exception.ToString() },
            JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet
        };
    }
}

Then you could write your client error handling for all status codes and use it for ajax requests.

Setting up .Net MVC http error codes for ajax calls

2 Answers2