Is it possible to use AppController on error pages? (Cakephp 3.1)

Question

I am trying to render error templates (eg error400.ctp) but with the default layout (site header and footer) which relies on components and variables set in AppController. How do I tell Cake to use AppController when rendering error pages?

I have already tried making an ErrorController which extends AppController, but it breaks for missing actions.

Answer 1

Here's my working ErrorController in case anyone comes looking for it:

<?php
namespace App\Controller;

use App\Controller\AppController;
use Cake\Event\Event;

class ErrorController extends AppController
{

    public function beforeRender(Event $event)
    {
        parent::beforeRender($event);
        $this->viewBuilder()->templatePath('Error');
    }

}

There was a bug in one of my Components being loaded in AppController. When ErrorController extends AppController and one tries to access an invalid action in a controller it creates two instances of AppController and in my case a duplicate declaration of class error was thrown because of a bug in my component. This error caused some kind of loop causing the error page not to render.