Problem with displaying image from DB using asp.net MVC 2 - asp.net

Question

I'm having trouble with displaying image from db. I think that method for saving image is working, because I see in DB that varbinary fields have some value, and that image type is correct. Also the size of image. But when I want to display image for product i don't get anything. Just blank space.. here is my code...
public byte[] GetImage(int productID)
{
Product product = products.GetByID(productID);
byte[] imageData = product.ImageData.ToArray();
return imageData;
}
That code is in my controller. Second is code from view :
<% if (product.ImageData != null) { %>
<img src='/product/getimage/<%= Html.Encode(product.ID) %>' alt=""/>
<% } %>
I tried some solutions found here on stack overflow, and everyone do it like this, but it's working for them. I dont have any idea why images aren't displayed. When i look at source code of page at debugging i have :
<img src='/product/getimage/18' alt=""/>
I'm using .net 4.0, MVC 2, VS 2010... Thanks in advance

Answer 1

My guess is that you have a routing issue. If the url /product/getimage/18 should work for your action you need to have a route that looks something like this:
routes.MapRoute("ProductImage",
"product/getimage/{productID}",
new { controller = "Product", action = "GetImage", productID = "" }
);
To confirm this you should use firebug and check the "net" tab (or set a breakpoint in your action and see if it gets hit when you load the page).
I would also recommend using the build in helpers to generate your urls (then this kind of problem will never happen). Instead of src='/product/getimage/<%= Html.Encode(product.ID) %>' you can write src='<%=Url.Action("GetImage", "Product", new { productID = product.ID })%>'

Answer 2

I'm not much of an expert on MVC yet - but from what I can see, I think your GetImage function needs to be an Action Method inside your controller, so it'll need to return an ActionResult?
You'll probably need to set the Content-Type header in the response, too.
This guy looks like he knows what he's talking about...
http://blogs.msdn.com/miah/archive/2008/11/13/extending-mvc-returning-an-image-from-a-controller-action.aspx

Answer 3

Try to change you method to:
public void GetImage(int productID)
{
Product product = products.GetByID(productID);
Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg";
Response.BinaryWrite(product.ImageData.ToArray());
}

Answer 4

You have:
<img src='/product/getimage/18' alt=""/>
Normally i'd say an image tag looks like this:
<img src='/product/getimage/18.jpg' alt=""/>

Answer 5

I needed to register routes in my global.cs file like Mathias suggested.
Also i needed to modify action in my controller to this :
public FileContentResult GetImage(int productID)
{
Product product = products.GetByID(productID);
return File(product.ImageData.ToArray(), product.ImageMimeType);
}
I wish thank you all for your fast answers...