The name 'ViewBag' does not exist in the current context

Question

I am trying to use ViewBag in my application, I have all of the recent dlls, the latest version of MVC 3, but yet I am still getting the Error:

"The name 'ViewBag' does not exist in the current context"

I have even uninstalled and then re-installed MVC 3 and yet there is no change.

Also, I do not believe that the dll's are showing up in the GAC.

What might be my problem? Or how to add the dll's to the GAC?

Answer 1

I was having the same problem. Turned out I was missing the ./Views/Web.config file, because I created the project from an empty ASP.NET application instead of using an ASP.NET MVC template.

For ASP.NET MVC 5, a vanilla ./Views/Web.config file contains the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!-- https://stackoverflow.com/a/19899269/178082 -->
<configuration>
    <configSections>
        <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
            <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
            <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
        </sectionGroup>
    </configSections>

    <system.web.webPages.razor>
        <host factoryType="System.Web.Mvc.MvcWebRazorHostFactory, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
        <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
            <namespaces>
                <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
                <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
                <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
                <add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
            </namespaces>
        </pages>
    </system.web.webPages.razor>

    <appSettings>
        <add key="webpages:Enabled" value="false" />
    </appSettings>

    <system.web>
        <httpHandlers>
            <add path="*" verb="*" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler"/>
        </httpHandlers>

        <!--
                Enabling request validation in view pages would cause validation to occur
                after the input has already been processed by the controller. By default
                MVC performs request validation before a controller processes the input.
                To change this behavior apply the ValidateInputAttribute to a
                controller or action.
        -->
        <pages
                validateRequest="false"
                pageParserFilterType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewTypeParserFilter, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
                pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"
                userControlBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl, System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
            <controls>
                <add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" namespace="System.Web.Mvc" tagPrefix="mvc" />
            </controls>
        </pages>
    </system.web>

    <system.webServer>
        <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />

        <handlers>
            <remove name="BlockViewHandler"/>
            <add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler" />
        </handlers>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Adding a ./Views/Web.config file containing this content fixed this problem for me.

Answer 2

You need to add the MVC-specific Razor configuration to your web.config. See here: Razor HtmlHelper Extensions (or other namespaces for views) Not Found

Use the MVC 3 upgrade tool to automatically ensure you have the right config values.

Answer 3

Try to Clean and rebuild. It worked in my case.

Answer 4

I had the same problem in a solution that had been upgraded to MVC 5 in Visual Studio 2015.

In the web.config file within the Views folder (not the root web.config), I updated the version number referred to in <configSections> from 2.0.0.0 to 3.0.0.0.

<configuration>
    <configSections>
      <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorWebSectionGroup, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35">
        <section name="host" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.HostSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
        <section name="pages" type="System.Web.WebPages.Razor.Configuration.RazorPagesSection, System.Web.WebPages.Razor, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" requirePermission="false" />
      </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>