I get Elmah to work correctly with MVC 3 and got down to setting up ElmahR for the same project. The configuration specified did not work for me. My configuration is below.
I haven’t changed the defaults much except adding the target Url and source Url. So not sure how to fix this. the wiki (https://bitbucket.org/wasp/elmahr/wiki/Elmahr.config) for the project says that the dashboard should be a separate app, that did not work for me either. I gues I am missing something substantial since navigating to posterrors.ashx does not seem to be the right thing to do in mvc.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="elmah">
<section name="security" requirePermission="false" type="Elmah.SecuritySectionHandler, Elmah" />
<section name="errorLog" requirePermission="false" type="Elmah.ErrorLogSectionHandler, Elmah" />
<section name="errorMail" requirePermission="false" type="Elmah.ErrorMailSectionHandler, Elmah" />
<section name="errorFilter" requirePermission="false" type="Elmah.ErrorFilterSectionHandler, Elmah" />
<section name="errorPost" requirePermission="false" type="Elmah.ErrorLogSectionHandler, Elmah" />
</sectionGroup>
<section name="elmahr" type="ElmahR.Core.Config.SectionHandler, ElmahR" />
</configSections>
<elmahr>
<!-- Monitored applications list -->
<application name="Source Application" sourceId="http://localhost:3154/elmah"/>
</elmahr>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="ApplicationServices" connectionString="data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
<appSettings>
<add key="webpages:Version" value="1.0.0.0" />
<add key="ClientValidationEnabled" value="true" />
<add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled" value="true" />
<add key="elmah.mvc.disableHandler" value="false" />
<add key="elmah.mvc.requiresAuthentication" value="false" />
<add key="elmah.mvc.allowedRoles" value="*" />
<add key="elmah.mvc.route" value="elmah" />
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">
<assemblies>
<add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
</assemblies>
</compilation>
<authentication mode="Forms">
<forms loginUrl="~/Account/LogOn" timeout="2880" />
</authentication>
<membership>
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="AspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="6" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10" applicationName="/" />
</providers>
</membership>
<profile>
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="AspNetSqlProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Profile.SqlProfileProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" />
</providers>
</profile>
<roleManager enabled="false">
<providers>
<clear />
<add name="AspNetSqlRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider" connectionStringName="ApplicationServices" applicationName="/" />
<add name="AspNetWindowsTokenRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.WindowsTokenRoleProvider" applicationName="/" />
</providers>
</roleManager>
<pages>
<namespaces>
<add namespace="System.Web.Helpers" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
<add namespace="System.Web.WebPages" />
</namespaces>
</pages>
<httpModules>
<add name="ErrorLog" type="Elmah.ErrorLogModule, Elmah" />
<add name="ErrorMail" type="Elmah.ErrorMailModule, Elmah" />
<add name="ErrorFilter" type="Elmah.ErrorFilterModule, Elmah" />
<add name="ErrorPost" type="ElmahR.Elmah.ErrorPostModule, ElmahR.Elmah" />
</httpModules>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
<add name="ErrorLog" type="Elmah.ErrorLogModule, Elmah" preCondition="managedHandler" />
<add name="ErrorMail" type="Elmah.ErrorMailModule, Elmah" preCondition="managedHandler" />
<add name="ErrorFilter" type="Elmah.ErrorFilterModule, Elmah" preCondition="managedHandler" />
<add name="ErrorPost" type="ElmahR.Elmah.ErrorPostModule, ElmahR.Elmah" />
</modules>
<validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
</system.webServer>
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-2.0.0.0" newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>
<elmah>
<errorLog type="Elmah.MemoryErrorLog, Elmah" />
<errorPost targetUrl="http://localhost:3154/posterror" sourceId="http://localhost:3154/elmah" />
</elmah>
</configuration>
It’s difficult to say what’s wrong, but basically it’s true that, if you try to set up a new MVC 3 web app and make it work as a dashboard, you might have to tweak routing. In general I’d recommend you to start from the original dashboard source code, which is a plain simple web site with no controllers at all. You can do that directly from the source code or from downloading the sample zipped application. It’s of course possible to make a dashboard from an MVC new web app, but as you said you would need some tweaking, and there’s not much need to do that because ElmahR dashboard does not really need a controller (everything behind the scene happens through SignalR). Being an open source project you can hack it as you like, but if you don’t want to go that way I’d recommend you to start with the sample dashboard from the zipped application, follow the instructions and simply configure and personalize that one.