Using resolve in $routeProvider causes 'Unknown provider ...'

I am trying to do an asynchronous http request to load some data before my app loads and so I am using a resolve in $routeProvider which is an http request in my MainController. For some reason, I keep getting Error: [$injector:unpr] Unknown provider: appDataProvider <- appData where appData is where I do my http request. I am using AngularJS v 1.2.5.

Here is the code and two methods that I tried that both give the same error:

Method #1

MainController.js

var MainController = ['$scope','$location','appData',
    function($scope, $location, appData){
       console.log(appData.data);
    }
];

MainController.loadData = {
    appData: function($http, $location, MainFactory){
        var aid = MainFactory.extractAid($location);
        return $http({method: 'GET', url: URL_CONST + aid});
    }
};

app.js

var app = angular.module('HAY', ['ngRoute']);

app.config(function($routeProvider) {
  $routeProvider
    .when('/', {
      redirectTo: '/pages/alerts'
    })
    .when('/pages/:pageName', {
        templateUrl: function(params) {
            return 'views/pages/' + params.pageName + '.html';
        },
        controller: MainController,
        resolve: MainController.loadData
    })
    .otherwise({
        redirectTo: '/pages/alerts'
    });
});

I tried changing the name in case it was a conflicting system reserved keyword but with no luck. For some reason, appData is never recognized

Method #2 I also tried changing it around like so:

app.js

var app = angular.module('HEY', ['ngRoute']);

app.config(function($routeProvider) {
  $routeProvider
    .when('/', {
      redirectTo: '/pages/alerts'
    })
    .when('/pages/:pageName', {
        templateUrl: function(params) {
            return 'views/pages/' + params.pageName + '.html';
        },
        controller: MainController,
        resolve: {
                appData: ['$http', '$location','MainFactory', function($http, $location, MainFactory) {
                    var aid = MainFactory.extractAid($location);
                    return $http({method: 'GET', url: URL_CONST + aid});
                }]
        }
    })
    .otherwise({
        redirectTo: '/pages/alerts'
    });
});

MainController.js

var MainController = ['$scope','$location','appData',
    function($scope, $location, appData){
        console.log(resolvedData);
    }
];

However, the result was exactly the same. Does this have something to do with angular 1.2.5 ?

Here is a working version from someone else

http://mhevery.github.io/angular-phonecat/app/#/phones

And here is the code:

function PhoneListCtrl($scope, phones) {
  $scope.phones = phones;
  $scope.orderProp = 'age';
}

PhoneListCtrl.resolve = {
  phones: function(Phone) {
    return Phone.query();
  },
  delay: function($q, $defer) {
    var delay = $q.defer();
    $defer(delay.resolve, 1000);
    return delay.promise;
  }
}

angular.module('phonecat', ['phonecatFilters', 'phonecatServices', 'phonecatDirectives']).
  config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) {
    $routeProvider.
        when('/phones', {templateUrl: 'partials/phone-list.html', controller: PhoneListCtrl, resolve: PhoneListCtrl.resolve}).
        otherwise({redirectTo: '/phones'});
  }]);

The problem was NOT due to previously using different version of AngularJS.

Here are the fixes using the code that I have above.

In app.js, you need to declare the controller as controller: 'MainController' and NOT as controller: MainController even though you have var MainController = app.controller('MainController', ....).

Second and biggest thing was that in my index.html I declared my controller already like so:

index.html

body ng-app="HEY" controller="MainController" /body

This was causing the whole Unknown provider error Apparently angular wont tell you that you have already declared the controller that you are using to do the resolve it and that that will cause a weird error that have nothing to do with the resolve.

I hope this helps someone who may have the same problem.