# \`ActionController::Base#render :nothing =\> true\` still whines about "missing template"

**URL:** <https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/actioncontroller-base-render-nothing-true-still-whines-about-missing-template/6640>\
**Category:** rubyonrails-talk\
**Created:** [January 3, 2007, 11:03am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/actioncontroller-base-render-nothing-true-still-whines-about-missing-template/6640 "2007-01-03T11:03:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chris\_Pearl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee59a6/32.png) [@Chris\_Pearl](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/Chris_Pearl)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2007, 11:03am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/actioncontroller-base-render-nothing-true-still-whines-about-missing-template/6640/1 "2007-01-03T11:03:26Z")

</div>

In FooController, I put method #bar whose only purpose is to run some logic in the background and return a status 204 [1].

So in order to return only the 204 status code, I put at the end of #bar:

`render :nothing =\> true, :status =\> 204`

But then when surfing to /foo/bar, I get an error about "missing template bar.rhtml". Is this a bug?

(The solution eventually was `render :text =\> ''`, but it really seems like a hack and that `render =\> :nothing` should have been the valid solution)

-Chris

[1] [HTTP/1.1: Status Code Definitions](http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html) - "204 No Content: The server has fulfilled the request but does not need to return an entity-body"