Link breaking when viewing Serialized

Question

I have the following part of a view model that fills in a partial view:

public string DownloadLink { get { UrlHelper url = new UrlHelper(HttpContext.Current.Request.RequestContext); switch (this.Type) { case (int)DocumentTypes.WasteNote: { return url.Action("PaperWork", "Jobs", new { JobId = this.DOCJobId }, HttpContext.Current.Request.IsSecureConnection ? "https" : "http" ); } case (int)DocumentTypes.Contract: case (int)DocumentTypes.DestructionCert: case (int)DocumentTypes.Quote: default: { return url.Action("Download", "Documents", new { DocId = this.DocumentLinkId }, HttpContext.Current.Request.IsSecureConnection ? "https" : "http"); } } } } 

Called in a view this way:

 @model IEnumerable<Document> @using CustomerDashboard.ViewModels; @using CustomerDashboard.Utilities; @{ Layout = null; } @foreach (Document doc in Model) { <li> <a href="@doc.DownloadLink" class="documentDownload"> <div class="col-sm-12 col-md-5 li-row li-row-icon"> <div class="pull-left"> <img height="40" src="/Content/img/file-icons/@doc.Icon" /> </div> ... </a> </li> } 

So far this is being visualized directly in a different view. The generated link is fine, however I serialize the partial and return as JSON:

 public string RenderRazorViewToString(string viewName, object model) { //https://gist.github.com/timiles/2828976 ViewData.Model = model; using (var sw = new StringWriter()) { var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(ControllerContext, viewName); var viewContext = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, viewResult.View, ViewData, TempData, sw); viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw); viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(ControllerContext, viewResult.View); return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString(); } } 

Then it returns as Json from the controller:

  return Json(new { totalCount = (int)Session["DocumentTotalCount"], markup = RenderRazorViewToString("_DocumentListAjax", docs) },JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); 

To be clear, the problem is JSON serialization - this is nasty, but removes the www prefix:

  return Json(new { totalCount = (int)Session["DocumentTotalCount"], markup = RenderRazorViewToString("_DocumentListAjax", docs).Replace("www.","") },JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); 

At the same time, from what seems to be outside the local network (which sounds strange), all URLs have www preended - i.e. https://example.com becomes https://www.example.com . I am trying to find out why this is happening and how to fix it.

Answer 1

When using your code, the described behavior can occur only when serving various requests. The provision of a partial view inside another view should result from processing an HTTP request whose context host is set to example.com (for example, the request https://example.com/viewWithAPartialView ).

A partial view JSON service, on the other hand, is executed as a result of processing a request to www.example.com (for example, a request https://www.example.com/getPartialViewJson/partialViewName ).

Since the rendering of the partial view inside its main view is probably done while viewing the website through its “regular” URL, everything goes according to plan.

The JSON endpoint can be requested through AJAX, check the code that forms the request is a criminal. Another possibility is that you have a URL rewrite configured to split the www prefix, and for some reason the rewrite rule does not match the JSON service endpoint.

Update:

Given the additional information, it seems that the problem may be related to the host configuration (IIS settings and load balancing). I can suggest to try adding the following line to your web.config file:

 <appSettings> ... <add key="aspnet:UseHostHeaderForRequestUrl" value="true" /> ... </appSettings> 

This will force ASP.NET to use the host header from incoming requests instead of requesting a server name variable. If the cause of the problem is a configuration problem, this should help.