Tag: Error Handling

HTTP 405 Error in .NET Web App

I was recently told that an web app I had developed was returning an HTTP 405 error upon being freshly deployed. It took me way too long to realise that cause of the issue came down to missing files. Specifically, the complete folder structure had been deployed however the files at the top level web root were missing. These are files are rather critical.

They are the web.config and global.asax

If you are seeing this error, ensure these files have been deployed correctly and aren’t corrupt as a first point of call.

Receiving an HTTP 405 in IE11
Receiving a 405 in IE11

For SEO HTTP 405

  • Chrome: The page you are looking for cannot be displayed because an invalid method (HTTP verb) is being used.
  • IE: HTTP 405 The website has a programming error. This error (HTTP 405 Method Not Allowed) means that Internet Explorer was able to connect to the website, but the site had a programming error.
  • Edge: HTTP 405 error That’s odd… Microsoft Edge can’t find this page

Paul.

The _layouts web.config for customErrors

There is a web.config file under the _layouts folder. This is worth being aware of as you may notice that files that you access from the _layouts folder may not behave as you would expect. This came to my attention when I was getting the following error:

”To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a “web.config” configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its “mode” attribute set to “Off”.

This initially surprised me as I knew that I had already done as such and had recently seen the default error screens when I was building web parts on content pages.

As the web.config under the layouts folder is deeper in the site hierarchy, any elements defined here will overwrite those defined at the web application level. By default the customErrors element exists at this level and it must be set accordingly to your needs as well.

As always, be careful when editing web.config files and always make a backup beforehand.