"Self Referencing Loop Detected" exception with JSON.Net

The meaning of the error message is that there is a self referencing loop. You have to set the db context that you do not want to get all linked entities when you request some entities. It can be done by adding two lines into DbContext class constructor to disable self referencing loop as shown below:

public YourDbContext() : base("name = YourDbContext")
{       
    //add these lines in order to avoid from "Self referencing loop detected for ..." error
    this.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = false;
    this.Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = false;
}

Hope this helps...

Well the correct answer for the default Json formater based on Json.net is to set ReferenceLoopHandling to Ignore.

Just add this to the Application_Start in Global.asax:

HttpConfiguration config = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration;

config.Formatters.JsonFormatter
            .SerializerSettings
            .ReferenceLoopHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;

This is the correct way. It will ignore the reference pointing back to the object.

Other responses focused in changing the list being returned by excluding data or by making a facade object and sometimes that is not an option.

Using the JsonIgnore attribute to restrict the references can be time consuming and if you want to serialize the tree starting from another point that will be a problem.

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