ASP.Net -> object does not exist in the current context – really??
Another one of those problems that can stump you for a while. I often make backups of files as I progress and sometimes leave them in the website folder, this was fine with classic ASP but as I have found with ASP.Net can cause all sorts of problems.One issue I was having was trying to reference a component in my aspx page from the codebehind page and seeing the following error when trying to reference a label control:
“Label2 does not exist in the current context”
So I found that the problem was even though I renamed one of my old files it still contained the class that my codebehind was referencing (i.e. the class names were still the same) – and therefore was not seeing the newly added Label control to my new code.Shame the compiler doesn’t realise the duplication and give some indication.
Lesson: Remove any backed up files from the web folder and/or build directory to avoid pain 🙂
Note:
From a comment made by Chris (below) this can also be caused by a missing files if it was built as a ‘Web Application’ project and you are now trying to build it as a ‘Web Site’ project (e.g. could be missing a designer.cs file).
Either when downloading source from another developer or migrating a web app from one server to another you may find it was actually created as a ‘Web Application’ project in Visual Studio, and if you have created it as a ‘Web Site’ project you may hit problems. The solution to this is to convert the project to a ‘Web Application’ (right click on your project in solution explorer) and then rebuild it.
HibboBlog 
THANK YOU!
After reading through dozens of similar cries of help on the asp.net forums, I could not find a solution to this problem. But you described my situation exactly, so I excluded my backup copies of the file in question and it immediately compiled.
THANK YOU!
April 16, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Hi Dan, I am glad this helped someone as it had me baffled for absolutely ages.
I never did see this suggestion anywhere and thought if I could just get it up on the net somewhere it may just help someone else – which it seems it has and so it seems was worth while. Thanks for letting me know :>
April 16, 2007 at 7:12 pm
This error normally occurs when you are trying to access the value of a session variable such as Session[“UserID”] and you’re not doing that from a webform, usercontrol or a class that inherits from System.Web.UI.
In this situation you can still access the session variable, but using a different path.
For example to access a session variable named UserID you would normally use Session[“UserID”]; however, if the error The name ‘Session’ does not exist in the current context is returned, use the following path for retrieving the value of the session variable:
HttpContext.Current.Session[“UserID”];
April 23, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Very thank you,
i’ve been on the same situation without knowing how to solve the problem. You save my life dude.
May 1, 2007 at 8:20 am
Helped me too! Here’s a twist on it. Another developer had copied an aspx page from another one and never changed the codebehind reference! So, adding controls to the original aspx and compiling resulted in an error in the .cs codebehind. However, it was not apparent the problem was that another aspx page was using the same codebehind.
May 5, 2007 at 7:45 pm
funny it seems to be more common than i thought – but certainly wasn’t easy for me to track down when i came accross it as i couldn’t find any reference to the problem elsewhere
nice to see this has helped a few people out 🙂
May 5, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Even I faced the same problem.I added this line of code
Label = (Label).FindControl(“”);
This worked fine, as the label control is the child control of the Form.So label control is not accessible directly.
June 25, 2007 at 5:36 am
I dont know why the code is not visible properly in my previous comment.Anyway,this is the line.
Label lblname =
(Label)formname.FindControl
(“lblname”);
June 25, 2007 at 5:41 am
Thanks a million !!!!1
I was working on these problem since last two long days…but your suggestion works…
thank you very much.
Regards,
Jay Khanpara
July 2, 2007 at 6:25 am
I’ll give you $5 for saving my time!!!! (I know it’s worth more but that’s all I got at the moment :-))
Thanks
July 30, 2007 at 1:16 am
Thanks, that pointed me to the problem.
August 7, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Thanks!!!!!!! saved me a lot of trouble
August 16, 2007 at 12:04 am
ACTUALLY.. this ALMOST solved my problem.
my actual problem was that I had more than 1 page inheriting from/pointing to the same code file.
So in page2.aspx at the top, i had
CodeFile=”page1.aspx.cs” Inherits=”page1″
while really the top of page2.aspx should have had:
CodeFile=”page2.aspx.cs” Inherits=”page2″
this happened because i copy-pasted the code from page1.aspx into page2.aspx.
August 19, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I looked around the net ant it was cause i was referenceing the same code behind.
September 18, 2007 at 6:33 am
Thank you,
Simon Hibbard, I was tackling with this problem. I got some clue about this problem previously but u gave me the whole answer. Thank u very much. [:)]
September 27, 2007 at 6:33 am
Thanks buddy…. It saved me lot of time!
September 27, 2007 at 11:22 am
Thanks so much. This helped.
October 13, 2007 at 11:36 am
YOU ARE THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD
I LOVE YOU
November 17, 2007 at 9:26 pm
lol
glad it helped 🙂
November 17, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I read one solution in the web “http://forums.asp.net/p/1006588/1736105.aspx”. This says to remove the build option, which i didn’t find satisfactory. But this was the correct solution(to remove any backup files, if any) 🙂
December 4, 2007 at 10:27 am
The above solution not solving my problem.. let me know wat goes worng here.. Plz its a quite urgent…
MySqlConnection sConn = new MySqlConnection(System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[“mysql”].ConnectionString);
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
sConn.Open();
MySqlDataAdapter da = new MySqlDataAdapter(“select appl_projInfoInvoiceNumber, appl_DateOfApplication, appl_DateInvoiced, appl_clientDetailsCompany, appl_projInfoProducedFor, appl_UserId, appl_type, appl_LicenseDetailsAmountText from sync_license_apps where appl_status = ‘invoiced'”, sConn);
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
da.Fill(ds, “sync_license_apps”);
Gridview1.DataSource = da;
GridView1.DataBind();
sConn.Close();
}
thankss..
January 24, 2008 at 2:37 am
Bless you- I worked for a while on this one too
January 30, 2008 at 8:45 pm
What do you mean ?
January 31, 2008 at 6:26 am
I was facing similar issues and stuck up
Thanks to you. I excluded the backup files and it worked.
March 12, 2008 at 4:41 am
Thanks for the info. I had two pages referencing the same codebehind file. Just excluding one solved the problem.
March 12, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Another possible solution, I downloaded source code from another developer which had been created as a web application however it did not include the designer.cs file. I then added the file to a website project. Eventual solution was to convert the project to a web application (right click on your project in solution explorer for those who dont know where to find it :)).
March 14, 2008 at 11:13 am
This fixed my problem, thanks Chris.
After migrating perfectly functioning web app from one development server to another, the designer controls would not be recognized. I tried most everything else in this thread until I came upon Chris’s solution.
December 7, 2009 at 9:52 pm
A number of people have found this comment helpful.
I have added it to the main post just in case its helpful to others. These sort of problems can have you stumped for days.
December 7, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Hi , thank u very much . my problem is i have two class with the same name ..sorry for compiler that does not detect there two class with tha same name in two different file.
April 21, 2008 at 10:24 am
Thanks a lot. You saved me a day.
April 22, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Thank you so much… I was breaking my head for the last 2 days.. and ur suggestion worked for me…
April 23, 2008 at 10:58 pm
YES! thanks everyone — for me it was the ‘two pages referencing the same code-behind’
UGH!
asp classic was so much easier.
June 24, 2008 at 11:11 pm
WOOT! Lifesaver thanks for the post and thanks to google for finding it !
August 8, 2008 at 3:48 pm
You are a godsend. Thank you.
August 19, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Thanks to shibbard… This really helped!
August 28, 2008 at 5:36 pm
That was my prob. Thanks for posting!
October 13, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Thank you thank you.
December 1, 2008 at 9:23 pm
omg. chris! you saved my life!!!!!!!
thanks for the commenter named chris.
December 6, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Helped me too! Thanks for posting your experience!
December 8, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Fantastic man, kudos to you! Solved a painful problem of ASP.NET and code-behind files.
January 21, 2009 at 12:38 am
uiui
April 20, 2009 at 6:03 am
thanks its solve my problem please keep it up
May 4, 2009 at 12:08 pm
thanks shibbard! your suggestion also worked for me! =)
August 7, 2009 at 8:44 am
Thanks a lot friend….its solve my problem please keep it up…
August 19, 2009 at 4:54 am
Was really helpful…Keep up the good work..!!
October 9, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Wow!! This sounds so simple.. But its an amazing tip.. Thank u!!
November 25, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Hello, i’m having same problem, but cant solve it, dont have back up pages, or bad references on code behind.. what should i do?? plz help me
November 28, 2009 at 7:25 am
@Rose
If that is the message you are getting then it is true.
Either the codebehind page is not properly linked to the .aspx page, or you are referencing a control that is embedded in another control (in which case use .findcontrol(“”), or you are trying to reference it at a point in the page creation when it is not available (i.e. not all controls are accessible in page_load() – maybe try during the page databind or even the controls pre_render.
Si.
November 29, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Truthful words, some authentic words dude. You made my day!
December 12, 2009 at 1:10 am
thanks lot
June 14, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Bless you. That issue was bugging (no pun) the crap out of me for some time now. I had a backup of the page (no code behind) that was causing the naming conflict.
February 25, 2011 at 4:11 am
Thank God I found this post. I have been going crazy for two days. It never occurred to me that a renamed file would be included in the project if it didn’t show up in the solution explorer. As soon as I deleted the offending file, the project compiled and everything is working again.
Which is lucky for me because I have a presentation tomorrow!
March 8, 2011 at 7:17 pm