ASP.NET MVC - The view must derive from WebViewPage, or WebViewPage<TModel>

Did you encountered following exception / error when trying to run ASP.NET MVC web application? The view must derive from WebViewPage, or WebViewPage or Type 'ASP._Page_Views__ViewStart_cshtml' does not inherit from 'System.Web.WebPages.StartPage'. I encountered while I was playing with MVC 5 (applies to MVC 3 and 4 also) application. Every razor page should inherit from System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage. You can resolve this issue by adding following line at the top in each view razor (*.cshtml) page: @inherits System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage and add following line at the top of _ViewStart.cshtml : @inherits System.Web.Mvc.ViewStartPage or you can add a web.config file and add following (in root of Views folder where the Razor pages reside) <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <configSections> <sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" type="System. » Read more