Recently I noted a strange (default) behavior of SharePoint 2013 that it sometimes redirects to the Start.aspx everytime, before navigating to the expected page.
i.e., Let me explain the scenario little bit clear. I created a brand new site collection and I created some site pages on it. When I try clicking those site pages link from my landing page, it always redirects to the URL as below.
http://MySiteCollection/_Layouts/15/Start.aspx#/SitePages/MyPage.aspx and from there it is again redirecting to http://MySiteCollection/SitePages/MyPages.aspx
This is not affecting directly. But obviously when I create some master page and on that, I was doing some code on the Javascript. Actually am expecting some div content to be handled on the Master Page Javascript. At that time, Since for the _Layouts Pages, I haven’t applied the custom master page. i.e., 2 different master pages for the SitePages and the System Pages, then obviously the problem comes.
In the above screen shot, the Site master Page is a different one. And the System Master Page is a different one.
Obviously when the page redirects, first the System Master Page applies (Since start.aspx is getting loaded), then the Site Master Page applies. This causes some problems and I thought of get ride this.
To do that, a simple work around is, DeActivate a Site Feature.
The feature is “Minimal Download Strategy”.
When I De-Activate this feature and try navigating to different pages, then the start.aspx is not coming into picture and the page loads properly.
This problem, many people would have not faced. But, when it comes, it really helps a lot.
Happy Coding.