Enable Yellow Screen of Death on MVC 3

Question

I had to take over an MVC 3 project from another developer. One of the first things he did was to stop the yellow screen of death so that all exceptions are only logged to a file. You now only get a generic message saying an error has occurred.

I would like to switch it back on (since it gets really annoying having to check through the logfiles the whole time) - how do I do this.

I checked through the web.config but I can't see where this happens.

I did try doing customerrors=off, but that didn't do anything. Also removed the global error handling attribute, didn't do anything.

On further clarification, it seems if an exception occurs in a controller I do get the yellow screen of death, but if it occurs in a (razor) view I just get a standard generic error.

You can see the web.config here You can see the global.asax here

My guess is that he implemented a global exception handler. If that's what he did, all you need to do is unhook the handler, and you should get your yellow screen back. You can read about it here: http://www.developer.com/net/asp/article.php/961301/Global-Exception-Handling-with-ASPNET.htm — Mia Clarke, Feb 09 '11 at 12:38
I checked - there is no global exception handler being registered in global.asax — Jaco Pretorius, Feb 09 '11 at 13:43

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 18 '13 at 12:57

6

This question is a little old, but maybe this will help someone. In addition to setting <customerErrors mode="Off" />, also set this under <system.webServer>: <httpErrors errorMode="Detailed" />

<system.webServer>
   <httpErrors errorMode="Detailed"/>
</system.webServer>

edited Apr 18 '13 at 12:57

TheTechGuy

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answered Apr 18 '11 at 16:01

Chad

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score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 09 '11 at 12:36

5

Normally you set this in web.config in the customErrors element under system.web. Just try to set mode=Off:

<customErrors mode="Off" />

answered Feb 09 '11 at 12:36

Jan

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score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 17 '11 at 10:15

4

In Global.asax you can remove filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute()); from public static void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters).

As pointed out in the comments - the problem was with a Custom Base controller overriding the OnException Method.

edited Feb 17 '11 at 10:15

Jaco Pretorius

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answered Feb 09 '11 at 12:40

Filip Ekberg

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Can you please paste your web.config and Global.asax? – Filip Ekberg Feb 09 '11 at 12:43
@Jaco, OK, What does the Action look like that throws the exception? – Filip Ekberg Feb 09 '11 at 13:03
It wasn't an action throwing the exception. I actually checked it now - if an action throws the exception I do get YSOD, but if an error occurs in the view it fails... – Jaco Pretorius Feb 09 '11 at 13:14
@Jaco, You mean a runtime exception? If you step through the View, where does it give you an error? – Filip Ekberg Feb 09 '11 at 13:33
Well it doesn't really matter does it? If I put something like @{ throw Exception("bob"); } into my view, I should see that exception – Jaco Pretorius Feb 09 '11 at 13:50
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Yes it should display an error page. Does your Controller derive from some custom class that has any overrides on the i.e. OnActionExecuting or any of those execution methods? – Filip Ekberg Feb 09 '11 at 14:33
How come you can debug my code better than me? :-) Thanks Filip - I updated your answer to include your comment. – Jaco Pretorius Feb 17 '11 at 10:14
@FilipEkberg I have a project in my hand, this wasn't there and I off the CustomError and I still didn't see YSOD. – Anirudha Gupta Apr 07 '18 at 09:56

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 28 '14 at 16:32

None of this worked for me. Check if someone might have added code to clear the error in the application error event handler.

    protected void Application_Error(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Exception lastException = Server.GetLastError().GetBaseException();

        Log.Error("Global.asax: WebApplication error", lastException);

        //****Server.ClearError();
    }

Enable Yellow Screen of Death on MVC 3

4 Answers4