ASP NET MVC Area routing/multiple routes issue in VB

Question

I'm pretty inexperienced with .net and have just started learning MVC. I've hit an issue concerning multiple controllers being found:

"Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'reviews'. This can happen if the route that services this request ('{controller}/{action}/{id}') does not specify namespaces to search for a controller that matches the request. If this is the case, register this route by calling an overload of the 'MapRoute' method that takes a 'namespaces' parameter."

I've recently added a new "Admin" area to my app and within that I have a "ReviewController". There is also a "ReviewController" within the main app folder:

ah - as a new user I can't post an image, but basically I have a "ReviewController" in "Controllers" and in "Areas/Admin/Contollers".

I have 2 routes set up so far:

Default route in Global.asax.vb

  Shared Sub RegisterRoutes(ByVal routes As RouteCollection)
      routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}")

     ' MapRoute takes the following parameters, in order: 
     ' (1) Route name
     ' (2) URL with parameters
     ' (3) Parameter defaults

     routes.MapRoute( _
       "Default", _
       "{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
       New With {.controller = "Home", .action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}, _
       {"PowellCasting/Controllers"}
     )

  End Sub

  Sub Application_Start()

    AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas()

    System.Data.Entity.Database.SetInitializer(New System.Data.Entity.DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges(Of Models.PowellCastingEntites))
    Database.SetInitializer(Of PowellCastingEntites)(New PowellCastingInitializer())

    RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters)
    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes)

    ControllerBuilder.Current.DefaultNamespaces.Add("PowellCasting/Controllers")

  End Sub

Area route in AdminAreaRegistration

Namespace PowellCasting.Areas.Admin
  Public Class AdminAreaRegistration
    Inherits AreaRegistration

    Public Overrides ReadOnly Property AreaName() As String
      Get
        Return "Admin"
      End Get
    End Property

    Public Overrides Sub RegisterArea(ByVal context As System.Web.Mvc.AreaRegistrationContext)
      context.MapRoute( _
        "Admin_default", _
        "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
         New With {.Controller = "Dashboard", .action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}
       )
    End Sub
  End Class
End Namespace

After reading around the issues I was having, I have added a number of bits of code:

My Admin controllers have the right namespace defined

Namespace PowellCasting.Areas.Admin rather than simply PowellCasting.
I have RegisterAllAreas set in the global
ControllerBuilder.Current.DefaultNamespaces.Add("PowellCasting/Controllers") is in place to specify the default route.

The specific problem I have now is that when I go to "/Reviews" I get the multiple controllers error shown above, specifically:

*The request for 'reviews' has found the following matching controllers: PowellCasting.PowellCasting.Areas.Admin.ReviewsController

PowellCasting.PowellCasting.ReviewsController*

I've enabled the route debugger and that only shows one match:

ah - as a new user I can't post an image but it shows:

Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id} as FALSE

and

{controller}/{action}/{id} as TRUE

This is as expected so I don't know why I'm receiving the issue.

I have read about overloading the maproute method with the namespace, but couldn't find an example in VB (loads in c#). But I tried this:

Public Overrides Sub RegisterArea(ByVal context As System.Web.Mvc.AreaRegistrationContext)
  context.MapRoute( _
      "Admin_default", _
     "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
      New With {.Controller = "Dashboard", .action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}, _
      vbNull,
      {"PowellCasting/Areas/Admin/Controllers"}
  )
End Sub

and

Shared Sub RegisterRoutes(ByVal routes As RouteCollection)
routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}")

' MapRoute takes the following parameters, in order: 
' (1) Route name
' (2) URL with parameters
' (3) Parameter defaults

routes.MapRoute( _
    "Default", _
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
    New With {.controller = "Home", .action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}, _
    vbNull,
    {"PowellCasting/Controllers"}
)

End Sub

but without success.

I'm sure this should be straightforward and I've tried a number of things - it very frustrating. Any help would be really appreciated.

My first post on here - Hi! :)

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 14 '11 at 23:13

If you read carefully the error message you are getting:

The request for 'reviews' has found the following matching controllers: PowellCasting.PowellCasting.Areas.Admin.ReviewsController PowellCasting.PowellCasting.ReviewsController

you will notice that PowellCasting is repeated twice.

So in your main Global.asax route registration:

routes.MapRoute( _
    "Default", _
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
    New With {.controller = "Home", .action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}, _
    vbNull,
    {"PowellCasting.Controllers"}
)

this assumes that your ReviewController in the root is defined like this:

Namespace Controllers
    Public Class ReviewController
        Inherits System.Web.Mvc.Controller

        Function Index() As ActionResult
            Return View()
        End Function
    End Class
End Namespace

Notice the absence of the PowellCasting prefix in the namespace definition (that's a VB subtility which adds it automatically, I suppose that's the name of your application)

and inside the AdminAreaRegistration.vb:

context.MapRoute( _
    "Admin_default", _
    "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}", _
    New With {.action = "Index", .id = UrlParameter.Optional}, _
    vbNull, _
    {"PowellCasting.Areas.Admin.Controllers"}
)

which assumes that your ReviewController in this area is defined like so

Namespace Areas.Admin.Controllers
    Public Class ReviewController
        Inherits System.Web.Mvc.Controller

        Function Index() As ActionResult
            Return View()
        End Function
    End Class
End Namespace

Once again notice the absence of the PowellCasting prefix in the namespace definition.

Thanks for the quick response - this worked!! :) I'm still trying to get my head around it all, but it's starting to make sense. I tried going to "/admin" and that failed but it was also down to my namespace containing "PowellCasting". Once I took that out it worked as well. Thanks again for your help. — Ian, Sep 15 '11 at 00:09

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 16:24

I too had a similar problem.

I had an application where i had two areas : Common , Products

And when i opened the application , the Common_default route was being called, but when i saw the RoutesCollection.Routes, it showed me 4 routes. Actually i defined only 2 routes - one for common , one for Products.

After reading the above comments, i just gave it a try my changing the project properties for my website.

I changed the default namespace from "MyWebsite.Web" to "MyWebsite" . And it did the trick. My applciation was up and running.

The bottomline is never have "." in the default namespace for your MVC4 website project.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 12 '13 at 03:15

DealerNetworksAreaRegistration.cs : //Add Area

context.MapRoute(
                "DealerNetworks_default",
                "DealerNetworks/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                new { controller = "Dealer", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
            );

RouteConfig.cs

//Add Namespace

routes.MapRoute(
                name: "Default",
                url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                defaults: new {controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                //passing the namespace of the HomeController in the Main area using namespace parameter.
                namespaces: new[] { "SMART.Controllers" }
            );

Global.asax.cs

//Register Areas

AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

            WebApiConfig.Register(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration);
            FilterConfig.RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
            RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
            BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles);
            AuthConfig.RegisterAuth();

ASP NET MVC Area routing/multiple routes issue in VB

3 Answers3