Drupal 8 - Custom block is not rendering in controller

Question

I have created a custom block and am trying to load it in a controller to ultimately be rendered in a twig template. I know that the block code works, because I can place it on the page using the block ui and the content renders perfectly. But when I try to load it in the controller it returns NULL. Hopefully someone can see what is wrong.

Here is my block code:

/**
 * Provides a 'homepage search' block.
 *
 * @Block(
 *   id = "home_search_block",
 *   admin_label = @Translation("Home Search block"),
 *   category = @Translation("Custom home search block example")
 * )
 */
class HomeSearchBlock extends BlockBase {
  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public function build() {
    $form = \Drupal::formBuilder()->getForm('Drupal\homepage\Form\HomeSearchForm');

    return $form;
  }
}

And here is my controller code:

class HomeController extends ControllerBase {

  public function content() {

    $config = $this->config('nl_admin.settings');
    $image_text = $config->get('nl_admin.homepage_image_text');

    $block = Block::load('home_search_block');

    $search_form = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
      ->getViewBuilder('block')
      ->view($block);

    $build = array(
      '#theme' => 'homepage',
      '#image_text' => $image_text,
      '#search_form' => $search_form,
      '#cache' => array('max-age' => 0)
     );

    return $build;
  }

}

If I kint($block) in the controller, it returns NULL.

Did you ever find a solution to this problem? I'm having the same issue ... — MoritzLost

Alex Artin Aleksanyan Alex Artin Aleksanyan · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-22T09:27:51

Custom blocks are of entity_type "block_content" and not "block".

You need to change your code in the following way:

$block = BlockContent::load('home_search_block');

$search_form = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
  ->getViewBuilder('block_content')
  ->view($block);

A useful guide to creating a custom block is also on the Drupal documentation if you want to go that way: https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/creating-custom-modules/create-a-custom-block

Custom templates for custom blocks are also tricky, some tips were in this post: https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/creating-custom-modules/create-a-custom-block

And a good discussion here: https://www.drupal.org/forum/support/theme-development/2016-05-15/drupal-8-custom-block-twig-template-naming-not-working

Drupal 8 - Custom block is not rendering in controller

1 Answers