[Blazor Server Side] Setting @layout on _Imports.razor' project root folder freezes the project -- the browser page keeps loading forever

[baartho]

Describe the bug

After setting the @layout on the root folder _Imports.razor file my project builds, no errors/exceptions are thrown, but the project keeps loading forever.

If I remove the @layout declaration the issue stops happening.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create a new ASP.NET Core Blazor 3.0 Preview 6 Server Side project
2. Open _Imports.razor on the project root folder
3. Add a layout declaration. Ej: @layout MainLayout
4. Run the project

Expected behavior

The browser keeps loading the page forever

Screenshots

[mkArtakMSFT]

Thanks for contacting us, @baartho.
@ajaybhargavb can we check for this and error out instead? How hard will it be? If it's extra-small work item, we may try to do that at some point in the future. If not, we may not even do it given how corner case this is.

[AndrewPlakhotnyi]

Just spent several hours on this issue. It happens all the time when _Imports.razor imports a @layout within the same folder. This will often happen when people refactor their code by moving around *.razor files. Very hard to understand the cause because the app just hangs without any error.

[netleader]

This also happens to me.
As soon as I add a @layout to the _Imports.razor the app hangs.

Very annoying

[mkArtakMSFT]

Bringing this back to triage

[mkArtakMSFT]

We will consider adding some type of error in situations, where an infinite loop cycle exists in layouts.

[mkArtakMSFT]

We don't think this is something we'll do in the near future. If this will be impacting more users, we will reconsider.