ASP.NET Find out which Response.Redirect is redirecting?

Question

I have a huge website with a huge backend. Somewhere, somehow, there is a Response.Redirect called while trying to open a site (debug environment).

Is there a way to find out, which Response.Redirect causes the redirect?

An certain way would be to set a debug breakpoint on every Response.Redirect in the whole website. But this is a lot of effort.

Another idea I had was to stop at the "ThreadAbortException" (which is thrown by Response.Redirect) with "Debug->Exceptions..". But this doesn't work. Seems like the frame or whatever is no longer executed to get a break on it.

Last attempt was to watch the call-stack. But the stack never gets to the last Response.Redirect because it is a new frame call.

Answer 1

Well, I got an idea which solved my problem but required massive code replacement (which is not a problem with 'Find and replace').

I created an static class:

public static class OwnResponse
{
    public static void Redirect(string Url, bool EndResponse = true)
    {
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect(Url, EndResponse); // set the breakpoint here
    }
}

Then I replaced every Response.Redirect in the code with OwnResponse.Redirect. Now I was able to set my breakpoint onto the first line in the class. I called the website and the breakpoint got hit. Then I just watched the call-stack and knew where the redirect occurs.

There is another possible solution, which requires a bit more work. You have to get "Stepping into .NET code" to run. Then you can easily set a break point in the .NET method's first line.

Answer 2

You can use below code in landing page:-

string yourPreviousUrl = Request.UrlReferrer.ToString();

if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(yourPreviousUrl))
{
    //Referrer was found!
}
else
{
    //Unable to detect a Referrer
}

As mention in official site :-

HttpRequest.UrlReferrer Property

Gets information about the URL of the client's previous request that linked to the current URL.

Answer 3

You could try to implement tracing and save the results to a file. The trace data might help you to pinpoint your redirect.

Here is a link with some more background on ASP.NET tracing:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/82290/Step-by-Step-Guide-to-Trace-the-ASP-NET-Applicatio

Answer 4

Use fiddler or another http traffic capture tool and capture the network traffic. You should be able to see the request that was initiated and take it from there.

Answer 5

Open the Exception Settings window and search for "threadabort". Check the checkbox for the ThreadAbortException. Now, when a redirect is executed from code, your debug session will enter break mode.