Web API 2 routing attributes work in one controller but not another

Using .NET 4.5.1, Web API 2, Visual Studio 2013:

I have a Web API which has the following routes...

• /api/providers/specialties
• /api/providers/specialties/123
• /api/providers/specialties/medicine

These work as expected... the first one gets a list of all specialties, the second one gets specialty ID 123, and the third gets all specialties with "medicine" in the name.

I also have these routes...

• /api/locations/specialties
• /api/locations/specialties/123
• /api/locations/specialties/ortho

Only the last two work... the first one returns this error:

No HTTP resource was found that matches the request URI [...] No route providing a controller name was found to match request URI 'http://mysite/api/locations/specialties' 

How can this be? It will hit other routes in that controller, just not the base one.

(I also have two other controllers with the routes /api/providers and /api/locations by themselves, which work fine.)

Here is the ProviderSpecialtyController.cs code:

[RoutePrefix("api/providers/specialties")] public class ProviderSpecialtyController : ApiController { private ProviderEntities db = new ProviderEntities(); /// <summary> /// Get ALL specialties, sorted by name. /// </summary> [Route("")] public IQueryable<ProviderSpecialty> Get() { return db.ProviderSpecialties.OrderBy(s => s.Name); } /// <summary> /// Get a specific specialty. /// </summary> /// <param name="id">The ID of a particular specialty.</param> [Route("{id:int}")] public ProviderSpecialty Get(int id) { return db.ProviderSpecialties.Where(s => s.Id == id).FirstOrDefault(); } /// <summary> /// Get all specialties that contain a keyword. /// </summary> /// <param name="keyword">The keyword to search for in a specialty name.</param> [Route("{keyword:alpha}")] public IQueryable<ProviderSpecialty> Get(string keyword) { return db.ProviderSpecialties.Where(s => s.Name.Contains(keyword)).OrderBy(s => s.Name); } } 

And here is the LocationSpecialtyController.cs code:

[RoutePrefix("api/locations/specialties")] public class LocationSpecialtyController : ApiController { private ProviderEntities db = new ProviderEntities(); /// <summary> /// Get ALL specialties, sorted by name. /// </summary> [Route("")] public IQueryable<LocationSpecialty> Get() { return db.LocationSpecialties.OrderBy(s => s.Name); } /// <summary> /// Get a specific specialty. /// </summary> /// <param name="id">The ID of a particular specialty.</param> [Route("{id:int}")] public LocationSpecialty Get(int id) { return db.LocationSpecialties.Where(s => s.Id == id).FirstOrDefault(); } /// <summary> /// Get all specialties that contain a keyword. /// </summary> /// <param name="keyword">The keyword to search for in a specialty name.</param> [Route("{keyword:alpha}")] public IQueryable<LocationSpecialty> Get(string keyword) { return db.LocationSpecialties.Where(s => s.Name.Contains(keyword)).OrderBy(s => s.Name); } } 

As you can see, they are nearly identical except for the route prefix. Why does the provider controller work as expected but location controller does not?

I have enabled tracing and the following is observed when trying to hit /api/locations/specialties:

System.Web.Http.Request: GET http://localhost:49565/api/locations/specialties/: Category=System.Web.Http.Request, Level=Info Begin http://localhost:49565/api/locations/specialties/ System.Web.Http.Controllers: GET http://localhost:49565/api/locations/specialties/: Category=System.Web.Http.Controllers, Level=Info Begin DefaultHttpControllerSelector SelectController Route='MS_SubRoutes:System.Web.Http.Routing.IHttpRouteData[]' [...] System.Web.Http.Controllers: GET http://localhost:49565/api/locations/specialties/: Category=System.Web.Http.Controllers, Level=Error End DefaultHttpControllerSelector SelectController Processing of the HTTP request resulted in an exception. Please see the HTTP response returned by the 'Response' property of this exception for details.