C# – ASP.NET Core Dependency Injection error: Unable to resolve service for type while attempting to activate

asp.net-coreasp.net-core-mvccdependency-injection

I created an .NET Core MVC application and use Dependency Injection and Repository Pattern to inject a repository to my controller. However, I am getting an error:

InvalidOperationException: Unable to resolve service for type 'WebApplication1.Data.BloggerRepository' while attempting to activate 'WebApplication1.Controllers.BlogController'.

Model (Blog.cs)

namespace WebApplication1.Models
{
    public class Blog
    {
        public int BlogId { get; set; }
        public string Url { get; set; }
    }
}

DbContext (BloggingContext.cs)

using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Data
{
    public class BloggingContext : DbContext
    {
        public BloggingContext(DbContextOptions<BloggingContext> options)
            : base(options)
        { }
        public DbSet<Blog> Blogs { get; set; }
    }
}

Repository (IBloggerRepository.cs & BloggerRepository.cs)

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Data
{
    internal interface IBloggerRepository : IDisposable
    {
        IEnumerable<Blog> GetBlogs();

        void InsertBlog(Blog blog);

        void Save();
    }
}

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Data
{
    public class BloggerRepository : IBloggerRepository
    {
        private readonly BloggingContext _context;

        public BloggerRepository(BloggingContext context)
        {
            _context = context;
        }

        public IEnumerable<Blog> GetBlogs()
        {
            return _context.Blogs.ToList();
        }

        public void InsertBlog(Blog blog)
        {
            _context.Blogs.Add(blog);
        }

        public void Save()
        {
            _context.SaveChanges();
        }

        private bool _disposed;

        protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (!_disposed)
            {
                if (disposing)
                {
                    _context.Dispose();
                }
            }
            _disposed = true;
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            Dispose(true);
            GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
        }
    }
}

Startup.cs (relevant code)

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    // Add framework services.
    services.AddDbContext<BloggingContext>(options =>
        options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));

    services.AddScoped<IBloggerRepository, BloggerRepository>();

    services.AddMvc();

    // Add application services.
    services.AddTransient<IEmailSender, AuthMessageSender>();
    services.AddTransient<ISmsSender, AuthMessageSender>();
}

Controller (BlogController.cs)

using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using WebApplication1.Data;
using WebApplication1.Models;

namespace WebApplication1.Controllers
{
    public class BlogController : Controller
    {
        private readonly IBloggerRepository _repository;

        public BlogController(BloggerRepository repository)
        {
            _repository = repository;
        }

        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            return View(_repository.GetBlogs().ToList());
        }

        public IActionResult Create()
        {
            return View();
        }

        [HttpPost]
        [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
        public IActionResult Create(Blog blog)
        {
            if (ModelState.IsValid)
            {
                _repository.InsertBlog(blog);
                _repository.Save();
                return RedirectToAction("Index");
            }
            return View(blog);
        }
    }
}

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any ideas?

Best Answer

To break down the error message:

Unable to resolve service for type 'WebApplication1.Data.BloggerRepository' while attempting to activate 'WebApplication1.Controllers.BlogController'.

That is saying that your application is trying to create an instance of BlogController but it doesn't know how to create an instance of BloggerRepository to pass into the constructor.

Now look at your startup:

services.AddScoped<IBloggerRepository, BloggerRepository>();

That is saying whenever a IBloggerRepository is required, create a BloggerRepository and pass that in.

However, your controller class is asking for the concrete class BloggerRepository and the dependency injection container doesn't know what to do when asked for that directly.

I'm guessing you just made a typo, but a fairly common one. So the simple fix is to change your controller to accept something that the DI container does know how to process, in this case, the interface:

public BlogController(IBloggerRepository repository)
//                    ^
//                    Add this!
{
    _repository = repository;
}

Note that some objects have their own custom ways to be registered, this is more common when you use external Nuget packages, so it pays to read the documentation for them. For example if you got a message saying:

Unable to resolve service for type 'Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.IHttpContextAccessor' ...

Then you would fix that using the custom extension method provided by that library which would be:

services.AddHttpContextAccessor();

For other packages - always read the docs.

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