Display downtime page when publishing application

Question

Is it possible in ASP.NET MVC to display a downtime page when publishing a project out to a server? Right now, if I hit the page while I am publishing I get an error:

Could not load type "App.MvcApplication"

It would be awesome if we could setup a downtime page so that users know to come back at a later time, instead of thinking that the app is busted.

Answer 1

An alternative to doing this in the application is to have IIS sort this out for you.

Application Initialization Module gives this feature, and also allows you to run warm-up scripts.

Answer 2

You could add an app_offline.htm page to your application root, traffic will be redirected to that page until you remove or rename it.

More info

• Scott Gu's App_Offline.htm
• App_Offline.htm and working around the "IE Friendly Errors" feature
• Will app_offline.htm stop current requests or just new requests?