ModelState without a field?

Question

I've got a controller action like this:

[ActionName("Create"), AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Save([Bind(Exclude="Id")]Project project)
{
    try
    {
        _projectRepository.Save(project);
        return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id = project.Id });
    }
    catch (PropertyValueException ex)
    {
        ModelState.AddModelError(ex.PropertyName, ex.Message);
        return View();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        ModelState.AddModelError("", ex);
        return View();
    }
}

The code to handle PropertyValueException works fine: the error is displayed by Html.ValidationSummary, and the error is displayed next to the relevant field correctly.

With the second catch block, I was attempting to cater for (e.g.) duplicate constraint violations, and I wanted the exception to be displayed in the validation summary (it can't be displayed next to a particular field, because I don't have that information). It doesn't work.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. See my answer to this question: asp.net MVC - ValidationSummary not displaying. I think this is a bug in the framework.