exception on use of Html.Action when controller is decorated with outputcache attribure

Question

An exception is thrown when I call Html.Action from a view when the controller is decorated with the OutputCache attribute. But when I remove the attribute from the controller everything works as expected.

I do not want to remove the OutputCache-attribute and I don't understand how the attribute is responsible for throwing the exception. How do I solve this problem?

Controller:

[OutputCache(Location = OutputCacheLocation.None, NoStore = true)]
public class TestController : Controller
{
    public PartialViewResult Test()
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("test");
        return PartialView();
    }
}

View:

<div>
    <!-- Tab 1 -->
    @Html.Action("Test")
</div>

Exception:

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

InnerException

{"Child actions are not allowed to perform redirect actions."}

Update I only get the exception when I try to disable the outputcache. Either by adding the above attribute or setting the duration to 0.

Answer 1

The outputcache attribute generated a hidden exception because the Duration property was not specified. However the duration cannot be 0 so that made the OutputCache attribute not very usefull for me. I decided to create my own NoCache attribute to take care of the work. (See code below)

Using this attribute instead of the OutputCacheAttribute solved my problem.

using System;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace Cormel.QIC.WebClient.Infrastructure
{
    public class NoCacheAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
    {
        public override void OnResultExecuting(ResultExecutingContext filterContext)
        {
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1));
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetValidUntilExpires(false);
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetRevalidation(HttpCacheRevalidation.AllCaches);
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
            filterContext.HttpContext.Response.Cache.SetNoStore();

            base.OnResultExecuting(filterContext);
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

There are other ways to disable the cache too, go to Global.asax.cs file and add the following code,

protected void Application_BeginRequest()
        {
            Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache);
            Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddHours(-1));
            Response.Cache.SetNoStore();
        }

Now you don't need to add the [OutputCache] attribute now. Let me know if it worked ! Cheers