The layout page "{path}" could not be found

Question

We just got a new Windows 2008 R2 server and I am trying to set up an MVC 3 site in IIS 7.5 with the Razor View Engine. I am getting a strange error when I access the default route.

The layout page "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml" could not be found at the following path: "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml".

This is strange because I explicitly set the Layout from within /views/home/index.cshtml like so:

@{
  Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

I am 100% certain that the /views/shared/_layout.cshtml exists in the file system. Here's a screenshot.

If I remove the Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; from my view, the page will render out the contents of /home/index.cshtml all by itself (without any of the code from _Layout.cshtml). I have also tried setting the layout using _ViewStart.cshtml.

Anyone know why MVC wouldn't be able to "find" the layout file? This website works perfectly fine when running in the built-in web server for visual studio.

Here's my stack trace:

[HttpException (0x80004005): The layout page "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml" could not be found at the following path: "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml".]
   System.Web.WebPages.WebPageExecutingBase.NormalizeLayoutPagePath(String layoutPage) +204956
   System.Web.WebPages.WebPageBase.PopContext() +150
   System.Web.Mvc.ViewResultBase.ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context) +384
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClass1c.<InvokeActionResultWithFilters>b__19() +33
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultFilter(IResultFilter filter, ResultExecutingContext preContext, Func`1 continuation) +784900
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionResult actionResult) +265
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +784976
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +159
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +335
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClassb.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5() +62
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass1.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__0() +20
   System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClasse.<EndProcessRequest>b__d() +54
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +453
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +371

Answer 1

It seems like you probably have a permissions issue. With the info you've given, it seems like the most likely cause of not being able to find the _Layout.cshtml file.

With Server 2008 and IIS 7, application pool's have their own identity used for ACL's (named IIS AppPool{App Pool Name}), and these identities are made part of the IIS_IUSRS group. Also, your default inetpub/wwwroot directory will have read permissions for the IIS_ISRS group. So, if your not getting the permissions you need, I would think that the App pool is not in fact running with the correct identity.

One reason the identity may be incorrect is the setting for Anonymous Authentication user identity. Go into the Authentication control for the site (or the whole server) and edit the Anonymous Authentication rule to run as the Application Pool Identity.

This is a bit of a guess, but it seemed this fellow had nearly the exact same issue.

Answer 2

As qbantek found, for me this was related to the _layout.cshtml file build action being set to none.

the reason it was set to none is that I started with an empty mvc project template and manually added the _layout.cshtml file to the project.

so lesson learned, when you start with an empty project template, and you add the layout file manually, you have to set the build action manually as well.