I have an asp.net mvc 2 application which works fine when run from visual studio either in release or debug mode. When the application is deployed to either a remote or local IIS 7 server in release mode it doesn’t work.
The error displayed is as follows:
HTTP Error 403.14 – Forbidden
The Web server is configured to not list the contents of this directory.
Now this is a bit misleading however I have worked out why this error message is being displayed.
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The application does not have a default.aspx as this is not needed when running mvc apps on IIS7+
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I am using attribute routing which is explained in the link below which uses reflection to build the RouteTable. When interrogating the assembly the attributes are not accessible therefore the RouteTable does not get populated
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Since there are no routes the web server attempts to list the directory contents and it does not have permission to do that.
Attribute Routing:
ASP.NET MVC Routing Via Method Attributes
Now my question is what is preventing the application from being able to interrogate the assembly using reflection?
DaTribe
Lack of ReflectionPermission is a likely cause. Many hosting companies over-restrict permissions. Reflection is one that is often problematic. GoDaddy and RackSpace both restrict it.
What trust level is your application running? What hosting provider are you using? Do you have RDP access?