How to make Confirmation link activate accounts in MVC4?

Question

I am building an MVC 4 application starting with the default internet application. My goal is to send a confirmation email to users as they register to the website, i have managed to send the confirmation email but when i click on it the account is not being confirmed.

Note: I know the Register action is crowded, i will separate pieces to different files when i make it work.

*This is what i have done:*

Register Action

[HttpPost]
    [AllowAnonymous]
    [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
    public ActionResult Register(RegisterModel model)
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            try //CreateUserAndAccount
            {
                var token = WebSecurity.CreateUserAndAccount(model.UserName, model.Password, null, true);
                if (token != null)
                {
                    var hosturl =
                        System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.GetLeftPart(UriPartial.Authority) +
                        "/Account/ConfirmAccount?token=" + token;

                    var confirmationLink = string.Format("<a href=\"{0}\">Clink to confirm your registration</a>",
                                                         hosturl);




                    var message = new MailMessage("[email protected]", model.UserName)
                    {
                        Subject = "Please confirm your email",
                        Body = confirmationLink
                    };

                    var client = new SmtpClient();
                    client.EnableSsl = true;
                    client.Send(message);
                }

                TempData["message"] = string.Format(
                    "Thank you for registering. An email has been sent to {0}. " +
                    "Please check your email and use the enclosed link to finish registration.", model.UserName);
                return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
            }
            catch (MembershipCreateUserException e)
            {
                ModelState.AddModelError("", ErrorCodeToString(e.StatusCode));
            }
        }

ConfirmAcount Action

public ActionResult ConfirmAccount(string ID)
    {
        //return View("ConfirmAccount");
        var confirmationToken = Request["token"];
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(confirmationToken))
        {
            var user = WebSecurity.CurrentUserName;
            WebSecurity.ConfirmAccount(confirmationToken);
            WebSecurity.Login(user, null);
            return View("Welcome");
        }

        TempData["message"] = string.Format(
                    "Your account was not confirmed, please try again or contact the website adminstrator.");
        return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");            
    }

Also Tried

public ActionResult ConfirmAccount(string ID)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(ID) || (!Regex.IsMatch(ID,
                        @"[0-9a-f]{8}\-([0-9a-f]{4}\-){3}[0-9a-f]{12}")))
        {
            TempData["tempMessage"] =
                "The user account is not valid. Please try clicking the link in your email again.";
            return View();
        }
        MembershipUser user = Membership.GetUser(new Guid(ID));

        if (!user.IsApproved)
        {
            user.IsApproved = true;
            Membership.UpdateUser(user);
            FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie(user.UserName, false);
            return RedirectToAction("Login");
        }
        WebSecurity.Logout();
        TempData["tempMessage"] = "You have already confirmed your email address... please log in.";
        return RedirectToAction("Login");
    }      

Could anyone please show me how to make this work, or perhaps suggest a different way to make this work??

Answer 1

I encourage you to use Postal, which is a simple to use email-creation package. It's available as a nuget-package.

Also take a look at Kevin Junghans blogpost on the subject! Email confirmation