# Newbie issue

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-issue/103435>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 6, 2007, 12:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-issue/103435 "2007-05-06T00:14:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 12:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-issue/103435/1 "2007-05-06T00:14:38Z")

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I’m trying to get started learning Rails, but can’t get to first base.  
I have followed the instructions in Agile Web D. with Rails  
to build “Hello World”, but I keep getting the “Template is missing”  
error. I have checked the ports to ensure my system (XP SP2) is not  
using port 3000–it is not. I have tried WEBrick and Mongrel servers.  
My say\_controller.rb and hello.rhtml files look exactly like those in  
the book and they are in the same directories. What am I doing wrong???

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-issue/103435/2 "2007-05-06T00:45:41Z")

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The error “template is missing” is not an issue with the web server,  
but with the files in your application.

The most common issue is that the controller action does not have a  
matching template in the proper directory.

For controller “foo” and action “bar” there should be a file app/views/  
foo/bar.rhtml or app/views/foo/bar.rxml which takes the data from the  
action and produces html or xml respectively.

Michael

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-issue/103435/3 "2007-05-06T00:49:41Z")

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If you’re getting a “Template is missing” error then you are getting  
into the app… it’s not a port or server issue. That error means that  
the rails dispatcher can’t find a template (rhtml, etc.) with the name  
it expected.

Make sure you’ve followed all the steps in the agile book. You should  
have a hello.rhtml file in app/views/say. The point of that chapter is  
to explain the basic workings of rails dispatching (how it breaks down  
the url, looks up a controller and then a view). Read through it a  
couple times and you should be able to figure out what’s wrong.

b