Fix : Duplicate controller Issue in Sitecore Helix project

If you are working in Sitecore Helix Framework and going to call action method like  http://myinstance/api/sitecore/accounts/RenderResetPassword, you may get error like

Server Error in '/' Application.

---

Multiple types were found that match the controller named 'accounts'. This can happen if the route that services this request ('api/sitecore/{controller}/{action}') does not specify namespaces to search for a controller that matches the request. If this is the case, register this route by calling an overload of the 'MapRoute' method that takes a 'namespaces' parameter.

The request for 'accounts' has found the following matching controllers:
Feature.Abc.Accounts.Controllers.AccountsController
Feature.Xyz.Accounts.Controllers.AccountsController

It’s because of duplicate controller name in Abc and Xyz project.

To fix this, we have to register custom MVC routes in Sitecore. For this, I created one custom processor file “RegisterCustomRoute.cs” to initialize pipeline.

You have to register your duplicate controller as

    public class RegisterCustomRoute

    {

        public virtual void Process(PipelineArgs args)

        {

            RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute

                ("AbcAccount",

                "abc/{controller}/{action}/{id}",

                new { controller = "Accounts", id = UrlParameter.Optional },

                new[] { "Feature.Abc.Accounts.Controllers" }

                );

            RouteTable.Routes.MapRoute

                ("XyzAccount",

                "xyz/{controller}/{action}/{id}",

                new { controller = "Accounts", id = UrlParameter.Optional },

                new[] { "Feature.Xyz.Accounts.Controllers" }

                );

                        }

    }

Here I have append “abc” and “xyz” to separate the URL for account and specified their Namespace as last parameter in MapRoute() method.  Now you can call new URL as

http://myinstance/abc/accounts/RenderResetPassword

http://myinstance/xyz/accounts/RenderResetPassword

With this you don’t need to put “api/sitecore” in URL now for accounts controller.

I registered this Processor entry in config patch file customweb.config

    <pipelines>

      <initialize>

        <processor type="MyProject.Website.RegisterCustomRoute, MyProject.Website" patch:before="processor[@type='Sitecore.Mvc.Pipelines.Loader.InitializeRoutes, Sitecore.Mvc']" />

      </initialize>

    </pipelines>

If you are facing the same error, make sure to add entry in “RegisterCustomRoute.cs” as highlighted above.