[c#] Razor Views not seeing System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper

I am in the process of upgrading to MVC4. I have followed the instructions at http://www.asp.net/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes#_Toc303253806 but in my Razor views and layouts I have errors like

• 'System.Web.WebPages.Html.HtmlHelper' does not contain a definition for 'BeginRouteForm' and no extension method 'BeginRouteForm' accepting a first argument of type 'System.Web.WebPages.Html.HtmlHelper' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

I also have errors like:

• "The name 'Viewbag' does not exist in the current context

When I hover over @Html I can see it is of type System.Web.WebPages.Html.HtmlHelper not System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper

Not really sure what other information is pertinent but this is where I am:

• I haven't updated class librarys etc.. in the sln to .net 4.5 yet.
• The project was created in VS2010, but I am doing the migration in VS2012
• The project opens and runs OK with VS2012, .Net 4.0, MVC 3

Any pointers appreciated.

Edit: All references and files in web.config upgraded to:

• System.Web.Mvc, Version=4.0.0.0
• System.Web.WebPages, Version=2.0.0.0
• System.Web.Helpers, Version=2.0.0.0
• System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=2.0.0.0

Edit(2): In my /views/web.config (or /views/shared/web.config if I try @Paul 's solution below) in the element, I have my own base type which inherits from System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage , the references in the containing library have been updated to MVC4 and go to definition takes me to the MVC4 dll.

Has anything changed in this area on the new release? I couldn't see anything pertinent in the release notes.

Recently got the same problem and this is how i fixed it: On Visual Studio with your project in question open, Goto:

1. Tools -> NuGet Package Manager -> Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.
2. On the open window, select Updates. then Click Update All.

It will load whats missing in your project and all should be back on track.

I ran into this issue with a Web Application - my .cshtml files got stuck on the System.Web.WebPages.WebViewPage base class when I needed the System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage.

First, ensure your ~/Views/web.config file has the correct pageBaseType. In my case, I set to System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage.

<configuration>
  <system.web.webPages.razor>
    <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
      <!-- ... -->
    </pages>
  </system.web.webPages.razor>
</configuration>

Then, importantly, some people have found this is key if the above is already good:

1. Run a clean on the solution
2. Unload the project with the issues
3. Delete the .user file that Visual Studio generated next to the project.
4. Reload the project with the issues
5. Build the solution

For VS2015, the .user and .sln files have moved to the .vs hidden folder that is created next to the .sln file. However, from comments below, the error messages imply to me that the tooling is using the wrong version of MVC entirely, and deleting this folder does not fix the issue. To my knowledge, there is not a known solution.

I had run a project clean, and installed or reinstalled everything and was still getting lots of Intellisense errors, even though my site was compiling and running fine. Intellisense finally worked for me when I changed the version numbers in my web.config file in the Views folder. In my case I'm coding a module in Orchard, which runs in an MVC area, but I think this will help anyone using the latest release of MVC. Here is my web.config from the Views folder

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <configuration>
      <configSections>
        <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
          <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
          <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
        </sectionGroup>
      </configSections>

      <system.web.webPages.razor>
        <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <pages pageBaseType="Orchard.Mvc.ViewEngines.Razor.WebViewPage">
          <namespaces>
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
            <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
            <add namespace="System.Linq" />
            <add namespace="System.Collections.Generic" />
          </namespaces>
        </pages>
      </system.web.webPages.razor>

      <system.web>

        <!--
            Enabling request validation in view pages would cause validation to occur
            after the input has already been processed by the controller. By default
            MVC performs request validation before a controller processes the input.
            To change this behavior apply the ValidateInputAttribute to a
            controller or action.
        -->
        <pages
            validateRequest="false"
            pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
            pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL"
            userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL">
          <controls>
            <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, processorArchitecture=MSIL" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
          </controls>
        </pages>
      </system.web>

      <system.webServer>
        <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />

        <handlers>
          <remove name="BlockViewHandler"/>
          <add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler" />
        </handlers>
      </system.webServer>
    </configuration>

I've encountered this specific issue as well; no (or incorrect) intellisense showing when trying to use razor tags. My specific issue was VS2015 complaining that Html.BeginForm was not existing in the current context.

I've got areas set up in my MVC project, and managed to narrow down the cause of my error to the web.config file for a specific area, rather than the global web.config.

It turns out that the cause of this issue for me was that I'd added a SQL connectionString into the web.config for the area that was not working, this (I am assuming) caused a parsing error, however the project compiled up correctly.

Moving the connectionString to the global web.config has rectified the issue. Hopefully this may be of some use to others.

As a variation on a theme, I could have sworn up and down that my Views\Web.config was correct:

<host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

But I in fact needed to reference Version=4.0.0.1, not Version=4.0.0.0 because of that security update that got pushed out a while back.

For me the solution was to change the following:

  <pages
        validateRequest="false"
        pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
        pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
        userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
      <controls>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
      </controls>
    </pages>

You need to copy Views/Web.config to /Shared. This will tell Razor to use the MVC base type & parser. You can read more here: http://blog.slaks.net/2011/02/dissecting-razor-part-3-razor-and-mvc.html

I used the following article on MSDN to solve this issue (in this case from MVC 4 to MVC 5)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/mvc/overview/releases/how-to-upgrade-an-aspnet-mvc-4-and-web-api-project-to-aspnet-mvc-5-and-web-api-2

Main extracts from the article are:

Main Web.config (Not the one in the Views folder)

In the runtime block update System.Web.Mvc to 5.0.0.0 ,System.Web.Helpers to 3.0.0.0 and System.Web.WebPages to 3.0.0.0

<dependentAssembly>
  <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Helpers" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
  <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>
  <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
  <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-5.0.0.0" newVersion="5.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>
  <assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.WebPages" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
  <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-3.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>

Then look for the appsettings block and update the webpages:Version value to 3.0.0.0

<appSettings>
    <add key="webpages:Version" value="3.0.0.0" />
</appSettings>

Views Web.config

Update the host factoryType block to System.Web.Mvc to 5.0.0.0

<system.web.webPages.razor>
   <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
   <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
      <namespaces>
         <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
      </namespaces>
   </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>

Then under the pages block update any references to System.Web.Mvc to 5.0.0.0

    <pages
      validateRequest="false"
      pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
      pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
      userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
    <controls>
      <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
    </controls>
  </pages>

And finally under the configuration block update the System.Web references to 3.0.0.0

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
      <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
      <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

Right, I've been trying to fix this issue for sometime. I've used all the solutions in the various Stack Overflow topics regarding this and none seemed to be working.

I have just fixed the issue this morning. After you gave fixed the web.config for both the project and the views, making sure all the .dll versions are matching with what you have in the references folder. You will need to unload the project, edit the .csproj, and then update all the .dll versions in that file.

System.Web.Helpers
System.Web.Mvc
System.Web.WebPages

Hope this helps, as I have finally fixed this issue! No more red squiggly lines.

This has also fixed the context menu issue I was having where, I wasn't getting the option to add a controller, view etc.

In the contracting world I'm often using machines that are using older images. After trying everything above I decided to update my VS 2013 to the most recent version (Update 4). After 90 minutes and a restart the references are working just fine now! Hope this helps!

Having tried everything in vain, I discovered that in my case it wasn't working because an incorrect attribute value in Web Project csproj file. When I change ToolsVersion to 14, which matches my current IDE version (i.e. Visual Studio 2015), everything worked like a charm:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="14.0" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\$(MSBuildToolsVersion)\Microsoft.Common.props" Condition=
  .....

My situation only occurred after I created a custom class called BaseViewPage that overrode the WebViewPage class. I initially added the following to my Main Web.confg file:

<pages pageBaseType="ZooResourceLibrary.Web.Support.BaseViewPage">

And the same to the View folders web.config file:

<pages pageBaseType="ZooResourceLibrary.Web.Support.BaseViewPage">

I tried many of the other answers and none did the trick while still allowing me to keep my BaseViewPage class. The way I fixed it was to remove the pageBaseType attribute from the Main Web.config file only. Keep it in the View web.config.

*<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5">
    <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    </assemblies>
</compilation>*

This configuration is missing, add it and set appropriate version of assemblies

Update for Visual Studio 2017 Users:

If you have just migrated to Visual Studio 2017 and your project is MVC4, make sure you go back into the VS2017 Installer and check the MVC4 option under the "ASP.NET and web development" section. It is an optional component and not checked by default.

This solved my issue

Just to expand on Matt DeKrey's answer, just deleting the csproj.user file (without needing to recreate solutions) was able to fix the problem for me.

The only side effect I had was I needed to reset the Start Action back to using a specific page.

I came across several answers in SO and at the end I realized that my error was that I had misspelled "Html.TextBoxFor." In my case what I wrote was "Html.TextboxFor." I did not uppercase the B in TextBoxFor. Fixed that and voilà. Problem solved. I hope this helps someone.

As for me, it was a stupid deployment mistake: Web projects can have more than one web.config. It was working on the developer's machine and not in production, but we were not realising that the deployment script only grabbed the Web.config file at the root, and it didn't copy the Web.config file in the Views folder.

Just started looking into the issue myself and this is what it look like in my case. If you have the correct values in your web config then Its just a bug in MVC4. http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/727729/viewbag-not-recognized-in-asp-net-mvc-4-project

I tried all the solutions here but none of them worked for me. Again, my site runs fine but I don't have intellisense and get red wavy lines under a lot of things in my views that Visual Studio does not recognize, one of them being Html.BeginForm(), as well as anything having to do with ViewBag.

I'm working with a new MVC 5 project. After hours of comparing web.config lines, I finally found what fixed it for me.

My web.config in my root had the following line:

<system.web>
  <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5" />

  <!-- ... -->
</system.web>

I compared to a previous project not using MVC 5, and copied over a block I noticed was missing from the new one, which was the following:

<system.web>
  <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5">
    <assemblies>
      <add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      <add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      <add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
      <add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    </assemblies>
  </compilation>

  <!-- ... -->
</system.web>

I copied the above block over to my new project's web.config in the root, changing the versions to match the numbers for each assembly found in my project references (right-clicking each reference mentioned and selecting "Properties", "Version" is given at the bottom of the properties window for the selected reference).

After implementing the above, I now have intellisense and don't get any unknown red lines under things like Html.BeginForm, ViewBag.Title, etc.

I had the same issue when updating to MVC 5 and it was solved by updating the web.config inside the Views folder.

<system.web.webPages.razor>
<host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
  <namespaces>
    <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
    <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
    <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
    <add namespace="System.Web.Optimization"/>
    <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
  </namespaces>
</pages>

The host -> factoryType was set to version:4.0.0.0 hope this helps anyone.

For those of you suffering with this after migrating a project from VS 2013 to VS 2015, I was able to fix this issue by installing the ASP.NET tools update from https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c94a02e9-f2e9-4bad-a952-a63a967e3935/file/77371/6/AspNet5.ENU.RC1_Update1.exe?SRC=VSIDE&UPDATE=TRUE.

I was dealing with this issue after upgrading from Visual Studio 2013 to Visual Studio 2015 After trying most of the advice found in this and other similar SO posts, I finally found the problem. The first part of the fix was to update all of my NuGet stuff to the latest version (you might need to do this in VS13 if you are experiencing the Nuget bug) after, I had to, as you may need to, fix the versions listed in the Views Web.config. This includes:

1. Fix MVC versions and its child libraries to the new version (expand the References then right click onSytem.Web.MVC then Properties to get your version)
2. Fix the Razor version.

Mine looked like this:

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
      <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
      <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

  <system.web.webPages.razor>
    <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
    <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Optimization"/>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
  </system.web.webPages.razor>

  <appSettings>
    <add key="webpages:Enabled" value="false" />
  </appSettings>

  <system.web>
    <httpHandlers>
      <add path="*" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler"/>
    </httpHandlers>
    <pages
      validateRequest="false"
      pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
      pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
      userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
      <controls>
        <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
      </controls>
    </pages>
  </system.web>

  <system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />

    <handlers>
      <remove name="BlockViewHandler"/>
      <add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>