Razor Views not seeing System Web Mvc HtmlHelper

Question

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

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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

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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

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

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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    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt Project ToolsVersion  14 0  DefaultTargets  Build  xmlns  http   schemas microsoft com developer msbuild 2003  gt     lt Import Project    MSBuildExtensionsPath    MSBuildToolsVersion  Microsoft Common props  Condition

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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    lt configuration gt     lt system web webPages razor gt       lt pages pageBaseType  System Web Mvc WebViewPage  gt         lt  --     -- gt       lt  pages gt     lt  system web webPages razor gt   lt  configuration gt    Then  importantly  some people have found this is key if the above is already good    Run a clean on the solution Unload the project with the issues Delete the  user file that Visual Studio generated next to the project   Reload the project with the issues 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

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As a variation on a theme  I could have sworn up and down that my Views Web config was correct    lt host factoryType  System Web Mvc MvcWebRazorHostFactory  System Web Mvc  Version 4 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt    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

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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    lt pages pageBaseType  ZooResourceLibrary Web Support BaseViewPage  gt    And the same to the View folders web config file    lt pages pageBaseType  ZooResourceLibrary Web Support BaseViewPage  gt    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

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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

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I had the same issue when updating to MVC 5 and it was solved by updating the web config inside the Views folder    lt system web webPages razor gt   lt host factoryType  System Web Mvc MvcWebRazorHostFactory  System Web Mvc  Version 5 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt   lt pages pageBaseType  System Web Mvc WebViewPage  gt     lt namespaces gt       lt add namespace  System Web Mvc    gt       lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Ajax    gt       lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Html    gt       lt add namespace  System Web Optimization   gt       lt add namespace  System Web Routing    gt     lt  namespaces gt   lt  pages gt      The host -  factoryType was set to version 4 0 0 0 hope this helps anyone

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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    lt system web gt     lt compilation debug  true  targetFramework  4 5    gt      lt  --     -- gt   lt  system web gt    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    lt system web gt     lt compilation debug  true  targetFramework  4 5  gt       lt assemblies gt         lt add assembly  System Web Abstractions  Version 4 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt         lt add assembly  System Web Helpers  Version 3 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt         lt add assembly  System Web Routing  Version 4 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt         lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 1 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt         lt add assembly  System Web WebPages  Version 3 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt       lt  assemblies gt     lt  compilation gt      lt  --     -- gt   lt  system web gt    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

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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

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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       lt  xml version  1 0   gt       lt configuration gt         lt configSections gt           lt 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  gt             lt 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    gt             lt 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    gt           lt  sectionGroup gt         lt  configSections gt          lt system web webPages razor gt           lt host factoryType  System Web Mvc MvcWebRazorHostFactory  System Web Mvc  Version 5 1 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt           lt pages pageBaseType  Orchard Mvc ViewEngines Razor WebViewPage  gt             lt namespaces gt               lt add namespace  System Web Mvc    gt               lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Ajax    gt               lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Html    gt               lt add namespace  System Web Routing    gt               lt add namespace  System Linq    gt               lt add namespace  System Collections Generic    gt             lt  namespaces gt           lt  pages gt         lt  system web webPages razor gt          lt system web gt            lt  --             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          -- gt           lt 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  gt             lt controls gt               lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 1 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31bf3856ad364e35  processorArchitecture MSIL  namespace  System Web Mvc  tagPrefix  mvc    gt             lt  controls gt           lt  pages gt         lt  system web gt          lt system webServer gt           lt validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration  false    gt            lt handlers gt             lt remove name  BlockViewHandler   gt             lt add name  BlockViewHandler  path     verb     preCondition  integratedMode  type  System Web HttpNotFoundHandler    gt           lt  handlers gt         lt  system webServer gt       lt  configuration gt

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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

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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 voil    Problem solved  I hope this helps someone

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lt system web gt   lt compilation debug  true  targetFramework  4 5  gt       lt assemblies gt           lt add assembly  System Web Abstractions  Version 4 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt           lt add assembly  System Web Helpers  Version 3 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt           lt add assembly  System Web Routing  Version 4 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt           lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 1 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt           lt add assembly  System Web WebPages  Version 3 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt       lt  assemblies gt   lt  compilation gt     This configuration is missing  add it and set appropriate version of assemblies

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Recently got the same problem and this is how i fixed it  On Visual Studio with your project in question open  Goto    Tools -  NuGet Package Manager -  Manage NuGet Packages for Solution  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

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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   lt dependentAssembly gt     lt assemblyIdentity name  System Web Helpers  publicKeyToken  31bf3856ad364e35    gt     lt bindingRedirect oldVersion  1 0 0 0-3 0 0 0  newVersion  3 0 0 0    gt   lt  dependentAssembly gt    lt dependentAssembly gt     lt assemblyIdentity name  System Web Mvc  publicKeyToken  31bf3856ad364e35    gt     lt bindingRedirect oldVersion  1 0 0 0-5 0 0 0  newVersion  5 0 0 0    gt   lt  dependentAssembly gt    lt dependentAssembly gt     lt assemblyIdentity name  System Web WebPages  publicKeyToken  31bf3856ad364e35    gt     lt bindingRedirect oldVersion  1 0 0 0-3 0 0 0  newVersion  3 0 0 0    gt   lt  dependentAssembly gt    Then look for the appsettings block and update the webpages Version value to 3 0 0 0   lt appSettings gt       lt add key  webpages Version  value  3 0 0 0    gt   lt  appSettings gt    Views Web config  Update the host factoryType block to System Web Mvc  to 5 0 0 0   lt system web webPages razor gt      lt host factoryType  System Web Mvc MvcWebRazorHostFactory  System Web Mvc  Version 5 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt      lt pages pageBaseType  System Web Mvc WebViewPage  gt         lt namespaces gt            lt add namespace  System Web Mvc    gt         lt  namespaces gt      lt  pages gt   lt  system web webPages razor gt    Then under the pages block  update any references to System Web Mvc to 5 0 0 0       lt 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  gt         lt controls gt            lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35  namespace  System Web Mvc  tagPrefix  mvc    gt         lt  controls gt      lt  pages gt    And finally under the configuration block update the System Web references to 3 0 0 0   lt configuration gt     lt configSections gt       lt 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  gt         lt 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    gt         lt 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    gt       lt  sectionGroup gt     lt  configSections gt

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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     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   Fix the Razor version     Mine looked like this    lt configuration gt     lt configSections gt       lt 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  gt         lt 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    gt         lt 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    gt       lt  sectionGroup gt     lt  configSections gt      lt system web webPages razor gt       lt host factoryType  System Web Mvc MvcWebRazorHostFactory  System Web Mvc  Version 5 2 3 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35    gt       lt pages pageBaseType  System Web Mvc WebViewPage  gt         lt namespaces gt           lt add namespace  System Web Mvc    gt           lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Ajax    gt           lt add namespace  System Web Mvc Html    gt           lt add namespace  System Web Optimization   gt           lt add namespace  System Web Routing    gt         lt  namespaces gt       lt  pages gt     lt  system web webPages razor gt      lt appSettings gt       lt add key  webpages Enabled  value  false    gt     lt  appSettings gt      lt system web gt       lt httpHandlers gt         lt add path     verb     type  System Web HttpNotFoundHandler   gt       lt  httpHandlers gt       lt 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  gt         lt controls gt           lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 2 3 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35  namespace  System Web Mvc  tagPrefix  mvc    gt         lt  controls gt       lt  pages gt     lt  system web gt      lt system webServer gt       lt validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration  false    gt        lt handlers gt         lt remove name  BlockViewHandler   gt         lt add name  BlockViewHandler  path     verb     preCondition  integratedMode  type  System Web HttpNotFoundHandler    gt       lt  handlers gt     lt  system webServer gt   lt  configuration gt

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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

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For me the solution was to change the following      lt 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  gt         lt controls gt           lt add assembly  System Web Mvc  Version 5 2 3 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken 31BF3856AD364E35  namespace  System Web Mvc  tagPrefix  mvc    gt         lt  controls gt       lt  pages gt

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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 amp UPDATE TRUE

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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

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