sitemap.xml url returns 404 Error

Question

I have a large affiliate marketing site with millions of products hosted on Windows Azure. For SEO I have to provide a sitemap.xml which is dynamically created.

  public ActionResult SiteMap()
    {
        string sitemapUrl = "https://trendley.blob.core.windows.net/sitemap/sitemap.xml";

        byte[] bImage = null;
        using (WebClient wc = new WebClient())
        {
            bImage = wc.DownloadData(sitemapUrl);
        }
        return File(bImage, "application/octet-stream");
    }

I added the follwoing route to my RouteConfig:

   routes.MapRoute("Sitemap",
"sitemap.xml",
new { controller = "Home", action = "Sitemap" });

Unfortunately this is not workting. I get -> HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found

When I change "sitemap.xml" to sitemapxml (remove the extension) my controller method is invoked. Already did some research and played with my web.config but nothing seems to work.

First thing I tried was to add:

<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />

Second thing:

 <add
name="AdfsMetadata"
path="sitemap.xml"
verb="GET"
type="System.Web.Handlers.TransferRequestHandler"
preCondition="integratedMode,runtimeVersionv4.0" />

Can someone tell me how to acomplish this. Do I have to write my own Handler for this?

Cheers, Stefan

Finally I figured out that I've edited the wrong web.config :( — stefan, Dec 11 '13 at 22:40

iamkrillin · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-11T23:43:14.130

6

The reason that that route is not working is because by default .xml is handled by the "StaticFileHandler" in IIS so when the request comes in ASP.net is not invoked.

Option 1: Enable runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests - in your web .config add the following

<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />

It goes inside of the system.webserver node.

option 2: Add a mapping for .xml to IIS and force that file extension into the ASP.net pipeline. See here

edited Dec 11 '13 at 23:43

answered Dec 11 '13 at 22:14

iamkrillin

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-> was the first thing I tried but did not change anything. Also tried: Also get 404 – stefan Dec 11 '13 at 22:31
Finally I figured out that I've edited the wrong web.config :( – stefan Dec 11 '13 at 22:39

Saeed Mousavi · Answer 2 · 2015-12-19T20:33:36.500

Please follow these steps:

1- Delete sitemap.xml from root of website directory (if exists)

2- Put MapRoute for sitemap.xml over other MapRoutes like this :

 public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
         {
             routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

             routes.MapRoute(
             "Sitemap",
             "sitemap.xml",
              new { controller = "Home", action = "Sitemap" }
             );

             routes.MapRoute(
                 name: "Default",
                 url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                 defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id =      UrlParameter.Optional }
                 );

    }

The reason of error is when sitemap RouteMap is under other rules , MVC checks the /sitemap.xml with above RouteMap , then throws error 404 for no matching controller/action.

I have literally scoured every topic on this on here and other programming sites that have give me a million different ways to do this but none have worked. This however, works like a charm and is probably why a lot of people don't have much success since no proposed solution mentions this fact — Ian Murray, Feb 03 '16 at 17:03

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

I Know this is an old topic, but I have a solution that is better than "runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests".

Modules Preconditions:

The IIS core engine uses preconditions to determine when to enable a particular module. Performance reasons, for example, might determine that you only want to execute managed modules for requests that also go to a managed handler. The precondition in the following example (precondition="managedHandler") only enables the forms authentication module for requests that are also handled by a managed handler, such as requests to .aspx or .asmx files:
<add name="FormsAuthentication" type="System.Web.Security.FormsAuthenticationModule" preCondition="managedHandler" />
If you remove the attribute precondition="managedHandler", Forms Authentication also applies to content that is not served by managed handlers, such as .html, .jpg, .doc, but also for classic ASP (.asp) or PHP (.php) extensions. See "How to Take Advantage of IIS Integrated Pipeline" for an example of enabling ASP.NET modules to run for all content.

You can also use a shortcut to enable all managed (ASP.NET) modules to run for all requests in your application, regardless of the "managedHandler" precondition.

To enable all managed modules to run for all requests without configuring each module entry to remove the "managedHandler" precondition, use the runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests property in the <modules> section:
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" />    
When you use this property, the "managedHandler" precondition has no effect and all managed modules run for all requests.

You can learn more from it's original topic: runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests=“true” Meaning

So, the better way to set a HTTP handler for a .XML url on MVC is the following:

    <system.webServer>
        <handlers>
            <add name="Sitemap" path="sitemap.xml" type="System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory" verb="*" />
        </handlers>
    </system.webServer>

sitemap.xml url returns 404 Error

3 Answers3