“Child actions are not allowed to perform redirect actions”

Question

I have this error:

Error executing child request for handler 'System.Web.Mvc.HttpHandlerUtil+ServerExecuteHttpHandlerAsyncWrapper'.

with inner exception:

Child actions are not allowed to perform redirect actions.

Any idea why this happening?

Incidentally, the error is happening on this line:

@Html.Action("Menu", "Navigation")

The Menu Action in the Navigation Controller looks like this:

public ActionResult Menu()
{
    return PartialView();
}

Answer 1

This happened to me because I had [RequireHttps] on the Controller, and a child action was called from a different controller. The RequireHttps attribute caused the redirect

Answer 2

This is not allowed because MVC has already started Rendering the View to the browser (client). So the MVC Frameworks blocks this, because the client already receives data (html). As long as the rendering is in progress you not able to redirect in your child view.

You can return RedirectToAction instead.

Answer 3

Instead of

@Html.Action("Menu", "Navigation")

Use

@Url.Action("Menu", "Navigation")

Worked for me :)

Answer 4

I had same situation like Doug described above

My solution: 1)Created custom Controller Factory. It's need for getting ControllerContext in my custom https attribute.

public class CustomControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory
    {
        public override IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName)
        {
            var controller = base.CreateController(requestContext, controllerName);
            HttpContext.Current.Items["controllerInstance"] = controller;
            return controller;
        }
    }
}

2)In Application_Start function from Global.asax file wrote next:

ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new CustomControllerFactory());

3)Defined custom https attribute:

public class CustomRequireHttpsAttribute : System.Web.Mvc.RequireHttpsAttribute
    {
        public bool RequireSecure = false;

        public override void OnAuthorization(System.Web.Mvc.AuthorizationContext filterContext)
        {

            if (RequireSecure && !((Controller)HttpContext.Current.Items["controllerInstance"]).ControllerContext.IsChildAction)
            {
                base.OnAuthorization(filterContext);
            }
        }        
    } 

4)Using new attribute for definition of account controller: [CustomRequireHttps]

Answer 5

redirect like this

string returnUrl = Request.UrlReferrer.AbsoluteUri;
return Redirect(returnUrl);

instead of

return redirect("Action","Controller")

Answer 6

remove the [NoDirectAccess] annotation if added in the controller.

and in controller for the partial view

return PartialView() instead of return View()

Answer 7

This happens in cases where the Action called by the Html.Action performs a redirection such as

return RedirectToAction("Error", "Home");

instead of returning the desired partialView

So the solution would be to remove the redirection.