Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'Home'

Question

I currently have two unrelated MVC3 projects hosted online.

One works fine, the other doesn't work, giving me the error:

Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'Home'. 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.

The way my hoster works is that he gives me FTP access and in that folder I have two other folder, one for each of my applications.

ftpFolderA2/foo.com

ftpFolderA2/bar.com

foo.com works fine, I publish my application to my local file system then FTP the contents and it works.

When I upload and try to run bar.com, the issue above fires and prevents me from using my site. All while foo.com still works.

Is bar.com searching from controllers EVERYWHERE inside of ftpFolderA2 and that's why it's finding another HomeController? How can I tell it to only look in the Controller folder as it should?

Facts:

Not using areas. These are two COMPLETELY unrelated projects. I place each published project into each respective folder. Nothing fancy.
Each project only has 1 HomeController.

Can someone confirm this is the problem?

Very unclear question. Are you using areas? Does the problem occur locally? — Darin Dimitrov, Oct 20 '11 at 21:12

Kirk Woll · Answer 1 · 2012-10-08T14:36:53.007

556

Here is another scenario where you might confront this error. If you rename your project so that the file name of the assembly changes, it's possible for you to have two versions of your ASP.NET assembly, which will reproduce this error.

The solution is to go to your bin folder and delete the old dlls. (I tried "Rebuild Project", but that didn't delete 'em, so do make sure to check bin to ensure they're gone)

edited Oct 08 '12 at 14:36

answered Sep 28 '12 at 04:22

Kirk Woll

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1

Other variation of this error is when you use resharper and you use some "auto" refactor options that include namespace name changing. This was what happen to me. – Sebastian 506563 Feb 20 '16 at 23:05
5

If you are getting this from an Azure App Service, go to https://.scm.azurewebsites.net/DebugConsole to log in and delete files. – Tom Blodget Jun 03 '16 at 14:36
5

Thx this was the problem for me. I'd created a "new" project by copy/pasting an existing project into a new folder; the old build dlls came with, deleting bin folder wiped it clean – brando Jul 20 '16 at 17:04
I got this when moving my project files to a second drive. Clearing out the bin folder solves it. Oddest darn thing. – Roberto Bonini Oct 17 '16 at 19:07
This occured for me when I had an OData controller and an MVC controller with the same name (different namespaces), except in my case the error message also said different namespaces are not supported for OData routes, and indeed, the OData route config does not accept a namespaces parameter like WebAPI config does. The error also ONLY OCCURED ON MY AZURE PRODUCTION SERVER, after combining code from a couple of projects. To fix the issue, I used FTP to connect to the Azure site, cleared the root dir, and redeployed. – Patrick Borkowicz May 31 '17 at 03:16
@TomBlodget Thank you. This was what I needed. I was able to set a delete previous files option on the publishing profile, but basically, it's the same as your solution. – AnotherDeveloper Jun 28 '17 at 16:21
Seems Clean and Rebuild don't clear bin folder. Manually we have to delete. – Saravanan Sachi Dec 04 '18 at 09:04
For me after clean up I had to modify Global.asax code behind – Milad Jul 01 '20 at 11:44
9 years later, and I just ran into this issue. Made a copy of a project with a new name. Published the new project. Was working fine in my new dev environment, but not when I overwrote the existing staging and prod sites. This was exactly the reason! Thanks so much! – suttonb1 Nov 10 '21 at 03:07

score 499 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 06 '17 at 22:10

499

This error message often happens when you use areas and you have the same controller name inside the area and the root. For example you have the two:

~/Controllers/HomeController.cs
~/Areas/Admin/Controllers/HomeController.cs

In order to resolve this issue (as the error message suggests you), you could use namespaces when declaring your routes. So in the main route definition in Global.asax:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new[] { "AppName.Controllers" }
);

and in your ~/Areas/Admin/AdminAreaRegistration.cs:

context.MapRoute(
    "Admin_default",
    "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
    new[] { "AppName.Areas.Admin.Controllers" }
);

If you are not using areas it seems that your both applications are hosted inside the same ASP.NET application and conflicts occur because you have the same controllers defined in different namespaces. You will have to configure IIS to host those two as separate ASP.NET applications if you want to avoid such kind of conflicts. Ask your hosting provider for this if you don't have access to the server.

edited Jun 06 '17 at 22:10

Junior Mayhé

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answered Oct 20 '11 at 21:17

Darin Dimitrov

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I'm not using areas at all. These are two completely unrelated applications residing in separate folder inside an FTP root folder. Maybe my application is looking for MVC controllers everywhere it can and that reach just so happens to extend to the other Home Controller. How can I tell it to not look anywhere but it's own Controller folder and disregard the rest? – Only Bolivian Here Oct 20 '11 at 21:19
2

@SergioTapia, it seems that they are pretty related your applications. Your hosting provider put them inside the same ASP.NET application. You will have to ask him split them in IIS as separate instances or you will have lots of problems. – Darin Dimitrov Oct 20 '11 at 21:20
13

Thanks. In ASP MVC 4.0 you need to pass named argument like namespaces: new[] {"AppName.Areas.Admin.Controllers" } – om471987 Nov 14 '12 at 12:02
1

+1 - Works well. I didn't realize there was a separate area for route registration in areas. Everywhere I look it seems there is a quality answer from Darin :) – Travis J May 07 '13 at 19:42
Is there a way of doing something similar in Web Api 2? The fourth argument for the Routes.MapHttpRoute only takes constraints and doesn't understand the namespace argument. – keithl8041 Nov 21 '15 at 13:37
hi, I've tried yours code, but it comes an error again The request for 'Health' has found the following matching controllers: Lovefreerangeeggs.Areas.Admin.Controllers.HealthController Lovefreerangeeggs.Controllers.HealthController, **What should I do?** – Karthic G Sep 26 '16 at 13:24
3

If you are using areas and want to namespace the controllers, you need to namespace **both** the routes inside the area **and** outside. Only namespacing the area route still gave me this issue. – Gavin Ward Jul 18 '17 at 13:14
i was facing the similar issue. and main reason was that i had the same controller in two different Area – Satish Kumar sonker Sep 13 '17 at 04:50
1

"AppName.Controllers" is actually "MyNamespace.Controllers" for clarity, in case you are looking for the AppName registered somewhere, it's just the namespace of the controller that should be the default route handler. – ransems May 18 '21 at 10:13

score 66 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 20 '14 at 11:00

In MVC4 & MVC5 It is little bit different, use following

/App_Start/RouteConfig.cs

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

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

and in Areas

context.MapRoute(
                "Admin_default",
                "Admin/{controller}/{action}/{id}",
                new { action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
                new[] { "MyNamespace.Areas.Admin.Controllers" }
            );

score 38 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 06 '12 at 11:13

38

Watch this... http://www.asp.net/mvc/videos/mvc-2/how-do-i/aspnet-mvc-2-areas

Then this picture (hope u like my drawings)

enter image description here

answered Jul 06 '12 at 11:13

Tom

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Solved the issue..! :) – Aruna Feb 05 '14 at 13:24
1

@ppumkin tell that to a blind programmer. The text can be read by screen readers though – Carlos Muñoz Mar 17 '19 at 17:34
Hi Carlos. Yes I understand the situation. It is already tough explaining it people without visibility disabilities. I am not even sure any kind of assistive software would be able to describe what is going on in the picture well to any body. It does bring to attention that the answer should probably have text at least trying to describe what is going on. – Piotr Kula Mar 18 '19 at 08:59

score 34 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 20 '17 at 03:01

34

in your project bin/ folder

make sure that you have only your PROJECT_PACKAGENAME.DLL

and remove ANOTHER_PROJECT_PACKAGENAME.DLL

that might appear here by mistake or you just rename your project

answered Sep 20 '17 at 03:01

Sruit A.Suk

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Exactly my issue. Thank you. – Detilium Dec 28 '18 at 08:00
Worked for me! thnks! – eyal Jan 05 '20 at 11:38
1

I had changed the assembly name and had some old dlls sitting in the bin. Thanks – apc Feb 20 '20 at 16:26
Thank you! I cannot believe I missed something so simple. – Vash Mar 25 '20 at 11:01

Dr TJ · Answer 6 · 2015-12-04T23:22:24.500

32

What others said is correct but for those who still face the same problem:
In my case it happened because I copied another project n renamed it to something else BUT previous output files in bin folder were still there... And unfortunately, hitting Build -> Clean Solution after renaming the project and its Namespaces doesn't remove them... so deleting them manually solved my problem!

edited Dec 04 '15 at 23:22

answered Nov 30 '14 at 05:24

Dr TJ

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your suggestion saved me – Abhimanyu Feb 25 '15 at 02:59
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me too, thanks , clean dosnt actually mean clean , grrrr – katesky8 Apr 28 '15 at 17:43
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Thank you @DrTJ This was soooooo frustrating! You expect the dang clean process to work and expectations is the root of failure. This saved me pulling out my hair further! – Mike Jul 31 '17 at 13:25

score 24 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 01 '15 at 23:10

24

Check the bin folder if there is another dll file that may have conflict the homeController class.

edited Sep 01 '15 at 23:10

Marko

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answered Jul 20 '14 at 05:56

Amir Shrestha

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This bit me when copying a project and renaming it... the old project named dll was still in the bin, a cleanup didn't remove it... I had to manually delete it! – Paul Zahra Nov 25 '14 at 15:49
2

This was the problem for me. A colleague added by mistake a reference from one front-end project to another creating this issue. He removed the reference, thus Visual Studio also removing the dll files on his disk. I pulled the update from Git, references were gone, but the dll files remained, evenafter a clean. Simply because my VS didn't see the reference anymore. But when running IIS saw the files and used them. Removing them from my disk helped. – Yeronimo Jul 20 '18 at 14:33

score 13 · Answer 8 · answered May 10 '12 at 21:28

13

Another solution is to register a default namespace with ControllerBuilder. Since we had lots of routes in our main application and only a single generic route in our areas (where we were already specifying a namespace), we found this to be the easiest solution:

ControllerBuilder.Current
     .DefaultNamespaces.Add("YourApp.Controllers");

answered May 10 '12 at 21:28

Ben Foster

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This was the case for me. If you truly have multiple controllers with the same name, this may be needed after you've added namespaces to your route definitions. For example, for your homepage where the controller and area aren't explicitly chosen by the path. – Jason Beck Mar 31 '17 at 22:25
In the project I work on, we have a main turnkey backoffice with areas for custom client work. Each one has a 'settings' controller. This answer is a great alternative to having to define a route for the settings controller for each area. – Derreck Dean Apr 09 '18 at 14:38

score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 20 '11 at 21:35

Even though you are not using areas, you can still specify in your RouteMap which namespace to use

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "{controller}/{action}",
    new { controller = "Home", action = "Index" },
    new[] { "NameSpace.OfYour.Controllers" }
);

But it sounds like the actual issue is the way your two apps are set up in IIS

score 6 · Answer 10 · answered May 28 '15 at 15:57

6

if you want to resolve it automatically.. you can use the application assambly just add the following code:

 routes.MapRoute(
            name: "Default",
            url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
            defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional },
            namespaces: new[] { string.Format("{0}.Controllers", BuildManager.GetGlobalAsaxType().BaseType.Assembly.GetName().Name) }
        );

answered May 28 '15 at 15:57

Xtremexploit

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great solution if you have same controllers in multiple projects – Ravi Anand Feb 23 '17 at 13:37

score 6 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 30 '11 at 22:09

6

I just had this issue, but only when I published to my website, on my local debug it ran fine. I found I had to use the FTP from my webhost and go into my publish dir and delete the files in the BIN folder, deleting them locally did nothing when I published.

answered Nov 30 '11 at 22:09

Mech0z

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This was the fix for me. My publish profile did not remove files not present locally, so my app picked up old dlls in addition to new ones and found duplicate types. – Form Feb 18 '16 at 17:22
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I changed my project name and i refractored all the files but then i got this error. Deleting the bin folder worked for me too. – Mauro Valvano Mar 05 '16 at 12:32

Allan Elder · Answer 12 · 2015-01-14T14:06:27.950

You can also get the 500 error if you add your own assembly that contains the ApiController by overriding GetAssemblies of the DefaultAssembliesResolver and it is already in the array from base.GetAssemblies()

Case in point:

public class MyAssembliesResolver : DefaultAssembliesResolver
{
    public override ICollection<Assembly> GetAssemblies()
    {
        var baseAssemblies = base.GetAssemblies();

        var assemblies = new List<Assembly>(baseAssemblies);

        assemblies.Add(Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(MyAssembliesResolver)));

        return new List<Assembly>(assemblies);
    }
}

if the above code is in the same assembly as your Controller, that assembly will be in the list twice and will generate a 500 error since the Web API doesn't know which one to use.

score 5 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 24 '13 at 10:52

5

There might be another case with Areas even you have followed all steps in routing in Areas(like giving Namespaces in global routing table), which is:

You might not have wrapped your Global Controller(s) in 'namespace' you provided in routing.

Eg:

Done this:

public class HomeController : Controller
{

Instead of:

namespace GivenNamespace.Controllers
{
   public class HomeController : Controller
   {

answered Sep 24 '13 at 10:52

T Gupta

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Yes It's not enough to just provide a namespace in MapRoute. The namespace provided here need to match the namespace of the controller class resides in. Now it works! – DanKodi Jun 04 '16 at 12:59

score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 25 '16 at 08:23

4

In Route.config

namespaces: new[] { "Appname.Controllers" }

answered Apr 25 '16 at 08:23

Awais

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score 3 · Answer 15 · answered Feb 27 '16 at 07:10

3

i just deleted folder 'Bin' from server and copy my bin to server, and my problem solved.

answered Feb 27 '16 at 07:10

javad hemati

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score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 17 '16 at 16:44

Got same trouble and nothing helped. The problem is that I actually haven't any duplicates, this error appears after switching project namespace from MyCuteProject to MyCuteProject.Web.

In the end I realized that source of error is a global.asax file — XML markup, not .cs-codebehind. Check namespace in it — that's helped me.

score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Jan 12 '17 at 12:48

3

Some time in a single application this Issue also come In that case select these checkbox when you publish your application

answered Jan 12 '17 at 12:48

Umang Patwa

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score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Nov 28 '16 at 03:38

2

Right click the project and select clean the project. Or else completely empty the bin directory and then re-build again. This should clear of any left over assemblies from previous builds

answered Nov 28 '16 at 03:38

VivekDev

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score 2 · Answer 19 · answered Apr 27 '17 at 19:12

If it could help other, I've also face this error. The problem was cause by on incorrect reference in me web site. For unknown reason my web site was referring another web site, in the same solution. And once I remove that bad reference, thing began to work properly.

score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Jun 17 '14 at 23:00

We found that we got this error when there was a conflict in our build that showed up as a warning.

We did not get the detail until we increased the Visual Studio -> Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> Build and Run -> MSBuild project build output verbosity to Detailed.

Our project is a .net v4 web application and there was a conflict was between System.Net.Http (v2.0.0.0) and System.Net.Http (v4.0.0.0). Our project referenced the v2 version of the file from a package (included using nuget). When we removed the reference and added a reference to the v4 version then the build worked (without warnings) and the error was fixed.

score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Feb 20 '16 at 23:06

1

Other variation of this error is when you use resharper and you use some "auto" refactor options that include namespace name changing. This is what happen to me. To solve issue with this kind of scenario delete folderbin

answered Feb 20 '16 at 23:06

Sebastian 506563

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This happened to me when I copied to contents of 1 project over the contents of another. I had to delete the specific files from the bin folder – Adriaan Davel Feb 26 '16 at 08:20

score 0 · Answer 22 · answered May 25 '17 at 11:11

If you're working in Episerver, or another MVC-based CMS, you may find that that particular controller name has already been claimed.

This happened to me when attempting to create a controller called FileUpload.

score 0 · Answer 23 · answered Sep 13 '17 at 04:56

0

i was facing the similar issue. and main reason was that i had the same controller in two different Area. once i remove the one of them its working fine.

i have it will helpful for you.

answered Sep 13 '17 at 04:56

Satish Kumar sonker

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score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Nov 13 '18 at 03:37

0

I have two Project in one Solution with Same Controller Name. I Removed second Project Reference in first Project and Issue is Resolved

answered Nov 13 '18 at 03:37

Kashif Faraz

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score 0 · Answer 25 · answered Apr 04 '19 at 19:05

I have found this error can occur with traditional ASP.NET website when you create the Controller in non App_Code directory (sometimes Visual Studio prevents this).

It sets the file type to "Compile" whereas any code added to "App_Code" is set to "Content". If you copy or move the file into App_Code then it is still set as "Compile".

I suspect it has something to with Website Project operation as website projects do not have any build operation.Clearing the bin folder and changing to "Content" seems to fix it.

Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'Home'

25 Answers25

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