How to make a table of contents work in a master page?

I'm trying to place a table of contents in an Indesign (CS6) document master page, and it doesn't seem to work:

• If I create a table of contents in a master page using Layout > Table of contents, after hitting OK, instead of creating  a table of contents for me to place, it says "The table of contents has been updated successfully" then does nothing.
• If I create a table of contents on a regular page then copy or paste, or, cut and paste into the master page, it just pastes as plain text. Layout > Update table of contents remains greyed out, it never updates, and it seems to be not linked to any Table of Contents style.

Why don't tables of contents work in master pages? Is there some workaround?

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Why do I want a table of contents on a master page? There are several cases where we publish a sidebar showing the structure of the document on many pages within a document: usually, wheree we expect readers to print out, copy, or isolate a section or set of pages then share it or use it as reference material.

It works well to have a bar showing this section in the context of the whole, so someone seeing this section in isolation can see what has come before and what comes after. For example, sometimes people are given a page or two of one of our documents at a talk, and then a week or two later they come back to us for more, having found those pages useful and then noticed that, for example, the section that came before what they were given is also relevant.