title: How do I manage MVC areas and RenderAction in different controllers?
body: <p>I have just added a new <strong>Admin</strong> area to my project as its started to get quite large and I want to keep it structured.</p>
  
  <p>I have a _ViewStart.cshtml view which sets a shared layout page to include a menu and a partial with some user information. As this wasn't being added on my area page, I've added the _ViewStart file to my area too.</p>
  
  <p>This file sets the layout to "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml", which is outside my Admin area.
  However, the _Layout file includes a <strong>RenderAction()</strong> method which calls a Child action method on the controller for rendering.  The problem is that the area doesn't seem to have visibility of this controller and so throws the following exception:</p>
  
  <pre><code>The controller for path '/Admin/LeadOrigin' was not found or does not implement IController.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The point where it occurred though is here:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Line 70:         &lt;div id="logindisplay"&gt;
  Line 71:             @{
  Line 72:                 Html.RenderAction("UserInfo", "Account");              
  Line 73:             }
  Line 74:         &lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The RenderAction() above works normally as the Account controller is within the scope of the view, whereas in the Admin area, it seems it has no scope of this controller.</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas how to get round this problem?</p>