WebActivator.PreApplicationStartMethod does not work

Question

[assembly:  WebActivator.PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(MyApp.App_Start.StructureMapMvc), "Start")]

namespace MyApp.App_Start
{
    public static class StructureMapMvc
    {
        public static void Start()
        {
            var container = IoC.Initialize();
            DependencyResolver.SetResolver(new SmDependencyResolver(container));
        }
    }
}

Here is my code that is supposed to run before Application_start in global.asax. I was upgrading my web project from mvc 3 to mvc 4. So, In that process, I made a mistake in namespace. This was working before i corrected my namespace. It no longer works now. I reset iis/flushed dns/ rebuilt solution/removed the temporary .net files in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\versionxxxxxx...\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root. Nothing worked. Am i missing something here? The Initialize() method has all my structure map stuff dependency resolution stuff. So, I can't move forward without figuring this out. Tried to diagnose the problem for so many hours and i need help.

Answer 1

My experience is that WebActivator will not work if your project settings (in .csproj.user or .vbproj.user) have the setting <StartAction>NoStartPage</StartAction> the fix is to set it to <StartAction>CurrentPage</StartAction> and it should then work next time you debug.

Also since it's in a .user file (which are typically not included in svn) it is difficult to determine why it works on some dev environments but not others.

Answer 2

If your code is in a Web Site Project (ie, under the App_Code folder) you cannot use PreApplicationStartupMethod! You can use PostApplicationStartupMethod instead. The "Pre" method executes before global.asax *Application_Start* runs, while "Post" executes after.

I wasted a good hour or two before I figured this out, so hopefully this will help someone else avoid that!