InvalidOperationException: No route in the route table matches the supplied values

Question

I've recently deployed a SC 8.1 update 3 site to production (seperate CM and CD) and on the CD side I'm getting this error:

Server Error in '/' Application.

No route in the route table matches the supplied values. 
  Description: An unhandled exception occurred. 

 Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: No route in the route table matches the supplied values.

Source Error: 

Line 14:     <meta charset="utf-8" />
Line 15:     <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge,chrome=1" />
Line 16:     @Html.Action("Metadata", "Metadata")
Line 17:     <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
Line 18:     <!-- END: Meta Data -->


 Source File:  D:\Apps\Sitecore\Website\Views\Website\Layouts\Default.cshtml    Line:  16 

Stack Trace: 

[InvalidOperationException: No route in the route table matches the supplied values.]
   System.Web.Mvc.Html.ChildActionExtensions.ActionHelper(HtmlHelper htmlHelper, String actionName, String controllerName, RouteValueDictionary routeValues, TextWriter textWriter) +651
   System.Web.Mvc.Html.ChildActionExtensions.Action(HtmlHelper htmlHelper, String actionName, String controllerName, RouteValueDictionary routeValues) +114
   ASP._Page_Views_Website_Layouts_Default_cshtml.Execute() in D:\Apps\Sitecore\Website\Views\Website\Layouts\Default.cshtml:16
   System.Web.WebPages.WebPageBase.ExecutePageHierarchy() +253
   System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage.ExecutePageHierarchy() +148
   System.Web.WebPages.WebPageBase.ExecutePageHierarchy(WebPageContext pageContext, TextWriter writer, WebPageRenderingBase startPage) +122
   System.Web.Mvc.Html.PartialExtensions.Partial(HtmlHelper htmlHelper, String partialViewName, Object model, ViewDataDictionary viewData) +137
   Sitecore.Mvc.Presentation.ViewRenderer.Render(TextWriter writer) +343

Why isn't the Sitecore MVC routing picking this up? (I'm not using any custom routings btw.)

I haven't come across this in any other environments (dev/test/qa) and I'm currently pulling my hairs out why this is happening. I've spent the last day looking into differences between the environments but I think I'm staring myself blind on this one.

Answer 1

Methods like @Html.Action(), @Html.RenderAction etc. apparently requires a route with the {controller}/{action} pattern (even though it isn't actually relevant from what I can see).

The config file Sitecore.Speak.Mvc.config contains such a route. Although the route is Sitecore specific it does contain the {controller}/{route} pattern.

However, the Sitecore.Speak.Mvc.config should be disabled on CD, Processing and Reporting servers (according to Sitecore's Config Enable-Disable documents).

To solve the problem you should be able to just add a bogus route to the route table manually (like in a standard ASP.NET MVC solution) containing the {controller}/{action} pattern. Just make sure it is something that would otherwise never get matched by a real URL on your site.

Something like this (in the initialize pipeline):

RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute(
    "Bogus-Required-Route",
    "bogus-required-route/{controller}/{action}",
);