CakePHP 3.5 redirect missing controller exception - cakephp

Question

I am struggeling with the missing controller exception thrown by CakePHP.
Once an unknown controller is called, it should redirect on my login page.
First I tried to route to my standart login page once there is an controller/action unknown.
//default routing
$routes->connect('/:controller', ['action' => 'index'], ['routeClass' => 'InflectedRoute']);
$routes->connect('/:controller/:action/*', [], ['routeClass' => 'InflectedRoute']);
$routes->connect('/', ['controller' => 'Users', 'action' => 'login']);
//redirect if controller is not known
$routes->connect('/*', ['controller' => 'Users', 'action' => 'login']);
However, this did not work at all, so I googled alot and it turned out that you should catch an the missing controller excpetion instead of rerouting. I can't find out where the error can be caught and it's very little written about it.
Did anyone already have something to do with it?

Answer 1

Short answer
As far as I know catching the MissinControllerException can only be done by customizing the Error Handling flow in Cakephp
Longer answer
To achieve the result you want to need to do the following.
If you are using Middleware in your Application class you need to disable the Error Handling middleware by commenting out this line:
->add(ErrorHandlerMiddleware::class)
Next you need to overwrite the default CakePHP Error handler with a custom one. So in src\Error create the file AppError.php with contents similar to this:
class AppError extends ErrorHandler
{
public function _displayException($exception)
{
if($exception instanceof MissingControllerException){
$response = new Response();
$response = $response->withLocation(Router::url(
['controller'=>'Users', 'action'=>'login'])
);
$emitter = new ResponseEmitter();
$emitter->emit($response);
}else{
parent::_displayException($exception);
}
}
}
Finally, in your bootstrap.php file you need to register your new Error handler. As per docs something like this needs to be added:
$errorHandler = new \App\Error\AppError();
$errorHandler->register();
Potential problems
Doing this redirect will hide away all of your missing controller exceptions. This may cause you trouble in case of typo's in the URL, since you will no longer get a clear error, but instead be redirected to the login page. The error.log file should still show you the original exception.
Good luck!
Potential Problems 2 - CakePHP >= 3.6.x
As pointed out by ndm in the comments disabling the Error Handling Middleware is not always a good idea, especially for CakePHP 3.6. In this case a better solution is to extend the ErrorHandling Middleware and register that.

Answer 2

You could try to handle this exception using custom Exception Renderer:
In src/Error create a new file, named eg MyExceptionRenderer.php, and handle missing controller exception there:
namespace App\Error;
use Cake\Error\ExceptionRenderer;
class MyExceptionRenderer extends ExceptionRenderer
{
public function missingController($error)
{
return $this->controller->redirect("/");
}
}
You will need also to enable this custom renderer in config/app.php:
'Error' => [
'errorLevel' => E_ALL,
'exceptionRenderer' => 'App\Error\MyExceptionRenderer',
'skipLog' => [],
'log' => true,
'trace' => true,
],
With this, when MissingControllerException will be raised, user will be redirected, in this case to main page.
More info can be found here:Error Handling