How to fix Angular 'TypeError: templateRef.createEmbeddedView is not a function'

Problem:

You encounter an error message like this:

ERROR TypeError: templateRef.createEmbeddedView is not a function
    at ViewContainerRef_.createEmbeddedView (core.js:11389)
    at NgIf._updateView (common.js:2843)
    at NgIf.set [as ngIfElse] (common.js:2815)
    at updateProp (core.js:12602)
    at checkAndUpdateDirectiveInline (core.js:12313)
    at checkAndUpdateNodeInline (core.js:13876)
    at checkAndUpdateNode (core.js:13819)
    at debugCheckAndUpdateNode (core.js:14712)
    at debugCheckDirectivesFn (core.js:14653)
    at Object.eval [as updateDirectives] (MyComponent.html:1)

in a component where you have a source code similar to this

<div *ngIf="myCondition ; else elseSection">
    <!-- ... -->
</div>
<div #elseSection>
    <!-- ... -->
</div>

Solution

Whatever element you reference in the *ngIf else clause can’t be any arbitrary component, but it must be a ng-template.

In order to solve this, change <div #elseSection> to <ng-template #elseSection>. Note that using just <template> is deprecated since Angular4.

The resulting source code should look like this:

<div *ngIf="myCondition ; else elseSection">
    <!-- ... -->
</div>
<ng-template #elseSection>
    <!-- ... -->
</ng-template>