How should asp.net(mvc) server return error to jquery ajax call to be caught in error callback?

Question

Suppose I have a method in my controller that is called via a jQuery AJAX call. E.g. I'd like to delete a user. When everything goes fine, I return new Content('ok') and exit the method.

What should I do when an error occured? I'd like to indicate it by an appropriate status code, so that my error call back would be called called. Why status code? Read here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/407651/how-do-you-trigger-the-error-callback-in-a-jquery-ajax-call-using-asp-net-mvc However, the approach doesn't work because IIS7 returns it's own message (Bad request) insted of my custom error message.

Besides that there are two other catches:

1. It has to work with IIS6 as well
2. IE8 doesn't return the 'Bad request' string. Inside error callback the property request.responseTest is null.

The error callback could look like this: error: function(request) { alert(request.responseText);}

Answer 1

Setting the Response.StatusCode is the correct thing to do. To fix IIS's "helpful" error handling, set the HttpResponse.TrySkipIisCustomErrors property. You can read more about this here.