What could be causing for ASP.NET MVC form to not properly submit/deserialize? - asp.net-mvc

Question

This looks like it should be working, yet the form submits with model not properly deserialized. Using latest ASP.NET MVC from nuget. .NET 4.5
A very standard user-registration View/Controller.
View:
#model Alertera.Portal.Web.Models.RegisterViewModel
#{
ViewBag.Title = "Register";
}
<h2>#ViewBag.Title.</h2>
#using (Html.BeginForm("Register", "Account", FormMethod.Post, new { #class = "form-horizontal", role = "form" }))
{
#Html.AntiForgeryToken()
<h4>Create a new account.</h4>
<hr />
#*#Html.ValidationSummary()*#
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.UserName, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.UserName, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.FirstName, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.FirstName, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.LastName, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.LastName, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.Email, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Email, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.Password, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.PasswordFor(m => m.Password, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
#Html.LabelFor(m => m.ConfirmPassword, new { #class = "col-md-2 control-label" })
<div class="col-md-10">
#Html.PasswordFor(m => m.ConfirmPassword, new { #class = "form-control" })
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
<div class="col-md-offset-2 col-md-10">
<input type="submit" class="btn btn-default" value="Register" />
</div>
</div>
}
Controller:
// POST: /Account/Register
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
[AllowAnonymous]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public async Task<ActionResult> Register(RegisterViewModel model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
var user = new User
{
UserName = model.UserName,
FirstName = model.FirstName,
LastName = model.LastName
};
user.SetEmail(model.Email);
var result = await _userManager.CreateAsync(user, model.Password);
if (result.Succeeded)
{
_bus.Publish(new UserCreated(user));
await SignInAsync(user, isPersistent: false);
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
}
AddErrors(result);
}
// If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form
return View(model);
}
All of the posts are coming in with model being empty or forgery token not present (depends if I enable or disable verficiation). I'm simply stumped and don't know where to look.
** EDIT **
If I disable antiforgery, ModelState is invalid, all of the fields in the model are empty and error messages state that fields are required.
I'm using Autofac with MVC extensions and Model binder is registered like so:
builder.RegisterModelBinders(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly());
builder.RegisterModelBinderProvider();
Autofac is working in general, as controller is instantiated properly and is injected with propery dependencies.
Edit 2:
Created a custom binder by inheriting from the DefaultModelBinder, per suggestion, so that I could see the transformation. It looks like the bindingContenxt's model is null
The view model itself is here:
public class RegisterViewModel
{
[Required]
[Display(Name = "User name")]
public string UserName { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(100, ErrorMessage = "The {0} must be at least {2} characters long.", MinimumLength = 6)]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
[Display(Name = "Password")]
public string Password { get; set; }
[Required]
[DataType(DataType.Password)]
[Display(Name = "Confirm password")]
[Compare("Password", ErrorMessage = "The password and confirmation password do not match.")]
public string ConfirmPassword { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Email { get; set; }
[Required]
public string LastName { get; set; }
[Required]
public string FirstName { get; set; }
}

Answer 1

After a full day of trubleshooting, updating all of the nuget packages, making sure that web.config's are all tight and contain proper assembly redirects, routes are neat, and even repair of .NET framework and other time consuming and irrelevant activities, I've finally figured this out:
A few weeks prior, we've introduced an Autofac binding that would capture serialized HttpContext along with other relevant data for when the logging framework would need it. (Imagine being able to log request information alongside a full exception stack inside a business object without polluting business logic with session/logging data.)
Unfortunately, as a part of the binding creation, the HttpContext was being serialized by Json.net and not at the time of the logging of the event, but at the time of the binding.
Apparently, when Json.net seralizes HttpContext, it actually reads the streams inside it for the first time, causing the submitted form data to be read, so that when Controller is instantiated and data for it is posted, the streams have already been read and Request.Form colection is empty.
Simple fix to only create a delegate to serialize HttpContext appears to have fixed the issue