Return message after form is submitted

Question

I am sorry if this has been posted before. I have searched many websites and forms to fix it but I can not get it. I have a simple contact form that allows potential customers to fill out their info click submit and then email a copy of what they inputted to us. I have the email part working fine. However, the part that's not working is message after the form is submitted. I'm try to use a try and catch to display a message when they submit or a err message when it didn't work. Not sure why it is not working. Thank you for the help. My controller code is below.

public ActionResult ContactForm()
{
    return View();
}
public ActionResult Message()
{
    return View();
}

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult ContactForm(ContactModel emailModel)
{
    if (ModelState.IsValid)
    {
    bool isOk = false;
    try
    {
        MailMessage msg = new MailMessage();
        msg.From = new MailAddress("no-reply@bobcravens.com",  "Website Contact Form");
        msg.To.Add("thovden@hovdenoil.com");
        msg.Subject = emailModel.Subject;
        string body = "Name: " + emailModel.Name + "\n"
                    + "Email: " + emailModel.Email + "\n"
                    + "Website: " + emailModel.Website + "\n"
                    + "Phone: " + emailModel.Phone + "\n\n"
                    + emailModel.Message;

        msg.Body = body;
        msg.IsBodyHtml = false;

        SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient("smtpout.server.net", 25);
        NetworkCredential Credentials = new NetworkCredential("thovden@hovdenoil.com", "****");
        smtp.Credentials = Credentials;
        smtp.Send(msg);
        msg.Dispose();
        isOk = true
        ContactModel rcpt = new ContactModel();
        rcpt.Title = "Thank You";
                    rcpt.Content = "Your email has been sent.";
                    return View("Message", rcpt);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
        }
        // If we are here...something kicked us into the exception.
        //
       ContactModel err = new ContactModel();
        err.Title = "Email Error";
        err.Content = "The website is having an issue with sending email at this time. Sorry for the inconvenience. My email address is provided on the about page.";
        return View("Message", err);
        }
        else
        {
            return View();
        }
    }
 }

Answer 1

The problem is that view that you return:

return View("Messgae", err):

You should return the same view after error on "postback", with the invalid model

return View(err);

One time you call that Message view with MessageModel and in this line you called it with ContactModel, so there must be an error over here...

Side notes:

• You're catching the Global Exception exception it isn't good practice. Not every exception you can and should handle.
• You have an isOK flag that doesn't do a thing.
• Move the exception Handel inside the catch block, not afterwards

---

Updated based on the comments:

Instead of return View you should Redirect:

return RedirectToAction("Message", err);
return RedirectToAction("Message", rcpt);

public ActionResult Message(ContactModel model)
{
    return View(model);
}