ViewStateException - Validation of viewstate MAC failed - Sitefinity ASP.NET MVC with Jquery Mobile

Question

I am getting this error most of the time when I submit my form. I am using Sitefinity 6.2 with ASP.NET MVC 4.0 and JQuery Mobile.

As I have Sitefinity in Hybred mode I am using the @Html.BeginFormSitefinity() command to create the form. On the Controller I have my action with the [HttpPost] attribute. The code always hits my default action on the controller with no problem. No matter what I put in the form when I submit I only get an error message on the page...never hits the HttpPost action.

I've looked around and there are many pages with fixes for the MAC failed issue, but none are working for me. I have a machine key in the web.config and I am NOT going to set enableViewStateMac to false as that is a security hole.

Answer 1

OK I tried working with both of the below solutions but they are both really bad. Here is what I am doing now, which is still not great, but I have Sitefinity, MVC, and JQuery Mobile all on the same page and forms are not giving me View State Exceptions anymore.

First thing is that adding data-ajax="false" is not enough, for this to work you need to disable Ajax before JQuery Mobile starts. So, to do this you need to add in this script BEFORE the JQuery Mobile File loads but after the JQuery file loads.

$(document).bind("mobileinit", function () { $.mobile.ajaxEnabled = false; });

After doing this I then do not use the Sitefinity Begin Form, I just JQuery to change the form on the main page to have the correct action.

<script>
    $("#aspnetForm").attr("action", "Home/Login");
</script>

Together this means that there is a complete page load for each page change, and form posts use the form declared in my WebForms Master Page.

-Old Answer - Actually...what I have below is not working. What I am currently doing is really ugly but is usually working.

As long as the user enters the site from the home page then the home page is the Jquery Mobile first page. The view state errors that I was getting was because it saw the current page as the first page and the form submit was to the active page. What if the controller for the home page was just set to handle ALL HTTPPost calls? I have removed the @Html.BeginFormSitefinity() from all the views with forms and am just using the form on my top level masterpage. Then I add in code on the view to change the action of this form to point to the main page controller. ex

<script>
    $("#aspnetForm").attr("action", "Home/Login");
</script>

Once I made this change the forms are not throwing view state exceptions...as long as the home page is the Jquery Mobile first page. If the user comes in from a different page then all is scrambled. Don't have an answer for that yet.

• Really Old Answer -

OK, think I have found it. I read somewhere, lost the link now, a list of issues that can cause the error message. One of them is the form being submitted from a different page.

I looked at the error message I was getting with Fiddler and noticed that the Referer was my home page but the URL of the form post was the URL for the page with my form. In stead of browsing through my site to the page with the form I typed the URL in the address bar. I tried submitting my form again and now it works!

So, this is an issue of Sitefinity and JQuery Mobile fighting it out.

When asp.net MVC is run in Hybred mode in Sitefinity it is actually run in a Web.Forms master page that contains a form. When you use the @Html.BeginFormSitefinity() to add a form to the view it is actually just adding a div and then using AJAX to submit the form on the Web.Forms master page.

JQuery Mobile loads up the first page that you visit, but later pages are just injected into the existing page. So, there are multiple data-role="page" divs loaded up in the DOM, inside of the Sitefinity Web.Forms Master Page.

This all together is causing the form to post with the URL of the active data-role="page" but the server sees that it is being refered from the original page I loaded up. So, if I went to the page with the form first all would work, start at any other page it does not work.

Now that I know this I can put in data-ajax="false" on the link to the page with the form and all looks to be working. This will cause JQuery Mobile to not inject the target page into the current page but will load all fresh with the target.

data-ajax="false" is the answer!