No template exists to render the document at url '/'

Question

In Umbraco, why does one get this error on a new deployment or machine that is pointing to an existing umbraco database and existing content?

Page not found

No template exists to render the document at url '/'.

In addition, no template exists to render the custom 404.

This page can be replaced with a custom 404. Check the documentation for "custom 404".

This page is intentionally left ugly ;-)

Answer 1

The reason it was doing that was because the domain name wasn't setup correctly. I was using a custom domain to host the site, and umbraco was obviously not matching the incoming request to a site in the CMS.

By going to the Site and right clicking -> Culture and Hostnames, I could set the hostname.

As per this answer: Umbraco configured with IIS 7 having hard time with the site URL?

Did you set your hostname in Umbraco?

Right click on the site root in your solution and click "Culture and hostnames"

Fill out your hostnames and save

Answer 2

One other thing to check is that if the page is published you have a template selected for the page or you will also get a 404 error.

Answer 3

You could try and force a full republish and refresh of content, use http://example.com/umbraco/dialogs/republish.aspx?xml=true assuming your installation wnet well and you can see the pages in the content area. As for the 404 you need to set one your self and assing it in the umbraco config file.