Redirecting user to error specific page in ASP.NET MVC

How to handle a specific type of error in controller and redirect user to an error specific page?

Let’s assume that we have a controller in which different types of errors may occur. In this scenario, redirecting the user to a generic error page may not make much sense and may not help user solve the problem if the problem is coming because of data entered by him.

Displaying error specific page and displaying helpful information on that page would make much sense so that the user understand what actually is happening and what action he/she may take to solve the problem.

The other side of this scenario can be showing error page based on error type assigned to team members. Similarly, there can be many other scenario one can think of where we need to show error page specific to that type of error.

Let us see how to achive this functionality.

CONTROLLER CODE

[HandleError(ExceptionType = typeof(NullReferenceException), View = "NullReference")]
public ActionResult HandleError()
  {
     throw new NullReferenceException("Null reference exception occured.");
  }

In the above controller method, we have added a HandleError attribute where 1^st parameter is ExceptionType (the type of exception we want to catch) and 2^nd parameter is the View to show when this type of exception occurs in this action method.

~/VIEWS/SHARED/NULLREFERENCE.CSHTML

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "NullReference";
}

<h2>Null Reference</h2>
Null Reference Error occurred.

Above is the code for the View that renders when NullReferenceException occurs. As this view has been kept inside the ~/Views/Shared folder so the View name specified in the 2^nd parameter of the HandleError attribute of the action method doesn’t need to specify the path along with this view name.

Similarly, other HandleError attribute can be applied to the same action method for different types of error.

        [HandleError(ExceptionType = typeof(NullReferenceException), View = "NullReference")]
        [HandleError(ExceptionType = typeof(DivideByZeroException), View = "DivideByZero")]
        public ActionResult HandleError()
        {
           throw new NullReferenceException("Null reference exception occured.");

           var i = 5;
           var j = 0;
           var sum1 = i / j;
           return View();
        }

Notice the above action method where we have two HandleError attributes for different types of error, both with respective view.

Note that all these will work only when customErrors mode is “On” in the web.config file.

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