Catch-all route fails to find route with WebApi2 ApiController

Question

I am creating a WebApi2 service, and one of the methods I want to implement represents an HTTP GET from an object within an internal tree structure - so the request would be along the lines of: ``` GET /values/path/path/to/object/in/tree ``` So I would want my method to receive "path/to/object/in/tree". However, I just get a 404 when I run this, and it's interesting that I get a 404 that is different looking to the standard IIS 404. It's titled 'Server Error in '/' Application.', whereas the one for a completely invalid resource is titled 'HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found'. I am playing around with the default template to try and see if I can get this to work, hence the similarity. I have this for my `RouteConfig` ``` public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { var route = routes.MapRoute( name: "CatchAllRoute", url: "values/path/{*pathValue}", defaults: new { controller = "Values", action = "GetPath" }); } ``` And this is my `ValuesController`: ``` [System.Web.Mvc.Authori…

Accepted Answer

Web api routing is not the same as routing MVC. instead of

```
route.MapRoute
```

try

```
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) {
    config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
        name: "CatchAll", routeTemplate: "values/path/{*pathvalue}", 
        defaults: new {id = RouteParameter.Optional });
}
```

The reason it works from controller is that MapRoute is the correct format for routing an MVC controller, while MapHttpRoute is designed for API controllers.

Catch-all route fails to find route with WebApi2 ApiController

Solution

Problem