Entity Framework Provider type could not be loaded

Question

I am trying to run my tests on TeamCity which is currently installed on my machine      System InvalidOperationException        The Entity Framework provider type    System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices    EntityFramework SqlServer  Version 6 0 0 0  Culture neutral    PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089  for the  System Data SqlClient    ADO NET provider could not be loaded  Make sure the provider assembly   is available to the running application        See http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkId 260882 for more   information     I have no reference to System Data Entity in any of my projects as was suggested on codeplex for upgrading to EF6   So  I am not sure why am I getting this exception  I do not get any such exception when I run the tests from VS   I did try to set CopyLocal to false then again to true   but that does not seem to work either   Update   My app config has the following   Does this cause some behavior that I don t understand     lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt configuration gt     lt configSections gt       lt section name  entityFramework  type  System Data Entity Internal ConfigFile EntityFrameworkSection  EntityFramework  Version 6 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089  requirePermission  false    gt       lt  -- For more information on Entity Framework configuration  visit http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkID 237468 -- gt     lt  configSections gt     lt entityFramework gt       lt defaultConnectionFactory type  System Data Entity Infrastructure SqlConnectionFactory  EntityFramework    gt     lt  entityFramework gt   lt  configuration gt    I get the following stacktrace in teamcity     MSTest  IntegrationTests CrudTest QuestionTest Create  03 59 11  IntegrationTests CrudTest QuestionTest Create  Initialization method IntegrationTests CrudTest QuestionTest Initialize threw exception  System InvalidOperationException  System InvalidOperationException  The Entity Framework provider type  System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices  EntityFramework SqlServer  Version 6 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089  for the  System Data SqlClient  ADO NET provider could not be loaded  Make sure the provider assembly is available to the running application  See http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkId 260882 for more information    03 59 11   IntegrationTests CrudTest QuestionTest Create      at System Data Entity Config ProviderServicesFactory GetInstance String providerTypeName  String providerInvariantName     at System Data Entity Config ProviderServicesFactory GetInstanceByConvention String providerInvariantName     at System Data Entity Config DefaultProviderServicesResolver GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config CachingDependencyResolver  lt  gt c  DisplayClass1  lt GetService gt b  0 Tuple 2 k     at System Collections Concurrent ConcurrentDictionary 2 GetOrAdd TKey key  Func 2 valueFactory     at System Data Entity Config CachingDependencyResolver GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config ResolverChain  lt  gt c  DisplayClass3  lt GetService gt b  0 IDbDependencyResolver r     at System Linq Enumerable WhereSelectArrayIterator 2 MoveNext      at System Linq Enumerable FirstOrDefault TSource  IEnumerable 1 source  Func 2 predicate     at System Data Entity Config ResolverChain GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config RootDependencyResolver GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config ResolverChain  lt  gt c  DisplayClass3  lt GetService gt b  0 IDbDependencyResolver r     at System Linq Enumerable WhereSelectArrayIterator 2 MoveNext      at System Linq Enumerable FirstOrDefault TSource  IEnumerable 1 source  Func 2 predicate     at System Data Entity Config ResolverChain GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config CompositeResolver 2 GetService Type type  Object key     at System Data Entity Config IDbDependencyResolverExtensions GetService T  IDbDependencyResolver resolver  Object key     at System Data Entity Config InternalConfiguration GetService TService  Object key     at System Data Entity Config DbConfiguration GetService TService  Object key     at System Data Entity Utilities DbProviderFactoryExtensions GetProviderServices DbProviderFactory factory     at System Data Entity Infrastructure DefaultManifestTokenService GetProviderManifestToken DbConnection connection     at System Data Entity Utilities DbConnectionExtensions GetProviderInfo DbConnection connection  DbProviderManifest amp  providerManifest     at System Data Entity DbModelBuilder Build DbConnection providerConnection     at System Data Entity Internal LazyInternalContext CreateModel LazyInternalContext internalContext     at System Data Entity Internal RetryLazy 2 GetValue TInput input     at System Data Entity Internal LazyInternalContext InitializeContext      at System Data Entity Internal InternalContext GetEntitySetAndBaseTypeForType Type entityType     at System Data Entity Internal Linq InternalSet 1 Initialize      at System Data Entity Internal Linq InternalSet 1 get InternalContext      at System Data Entity Internal Linq InternalSet 1 ActOnSet Action action  EntityState newState  Object entity  String methodName     at System Data Entity Internal Linq InternalSet 1 Add Object entity     at System Data Entity DbSet 1 Add TEntity entity     at EFRepository Infrastructure EFRepository 1 Add T item  in c  TeamCity buildAgent work da2ea4e72c0e77f0 Repository Infrastructure EFRepository cs line 22    at IntegrationTests CrudTest Initialize   in c  TeamCity buildAgent work da2ea4e72c0e77f0 IntegrationTests CrudTest cs line 34

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Adding Entityframework dll and Entityframework sqlserver dll  to the reference project solved the issue

User · Answer

I also had a similar problem  My problem was solved by doing the following

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I checked Debug Output window in Unit Test project   EntityFramework SqlServer dll was not loaded  After adding it to the bin folder tests were run successfully

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I didn t want a reference to EF in my application project  or to manually copy anything  so I added this to my EF project s Post-build events   cp   TargetDir EntityFramework SqlServer dll   SolutionDir  your-main-bin-folder

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I had encountered exactly the same problem on my CI build server  running Bamboo   which doesn t install any Visual Studio IDE on it   Without making any code changing for the build test process  which I don t think is good solution   the best way is to copy the EntityFramework SqlServer dll and paste it to C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 12 0 Common7 IDE   where your mstest running   Problem solved

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Make sure EntityFramework dll  EntityFramework SqlServer dll and your provider s dll  for SQL Server Compact  that will EntityFramework SqlServerCompact dll  are in the deployed application folder  This is especially important for deployed application

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Simply reference or browser the EF dll - EntityFramework SqlServer dll

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I see similar problem  and using the method from this post   http   entityframework codeplex com workitem 1590   which solves my problem    To work around the issue you can make your test assembly directly reference the provider assembly by adding some line like this anywhere in the test assembly  var     System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices Instance

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Additional to all useful suggestions here  if you are using EF 6 1 3  get sure your project s  net version is 4 5 or more

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I just had the same error message   I have a separate project for my data access  Running the Web Project  which referenced the data project  locally worked just fine  But when I deployed the web project to azure the assembly  EntityFramework SqlServer was not copied  I just added the reference to the web project and redeployed  now it works    hope this helps others

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I have solved this by manually copying EntityFramework SqlServer dll file to the bin folder of the main application

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In my case I resolved the problem by installing SQL Server 2012 Developer Edition when I had previously installed SQL Server Express 2012  x64   It seems that provided me with the missing dependency

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I had same isssue i tried many times but it did not resolve but when i install the package EntityFramework SqlServerCompact it solved install this package from Nuget package Manager   Install-Package EntityFramework SqlServerCompact

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My solution was to remove the entity framework from the project via the nuget manager and add it back in

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I ve used Code-based registration for provider  link1 link2  Just created the configuration class like  class DbContextConfiguration   DbConfiguration       public DbContextConfiguration                 this SetDatabaseInitializer new DropCreateDatabaseAlways lt MyDbContext gt              this SetProviderServices SqlProviderServices ProviderInvariantName  SqlProviderServices Instance             Key point is this SetProviderServices SqlProviderServices ProviderInvariantName  SqlProviderServices Instance    and used it in the such way   DbConfigurationType typeof DbContextConfiguration    public class MyDbContext   DbContext       public MyDbContext                                public DbSet lt     gt       get  set         protected override void OnModelCreating DbModelBuilder modelBuilder

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I solved this by adding an using stament on top of my DBContext class  like so   using SqlProviderServices  System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices

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In my case dll was not copied although I added a reference to it  This is because EntityFramework SqlServer dllis not copied into your project  Add that dll and it will hopefully work You can find that from the project where you added datamodel

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Nuget will configure your EF6 project to reference EntityFramework SqlServer dll  This deploys to the output folder for your EF6 project during build  but it will not deploy to the output folder for projects referencing your EF6 project  I believe this is because Visual Studio is  smart  enough to detect that nothing in your assembly is actually using the dll directly and so does not include it  You can force EntityFramework SqlServer dll to be deployed to the output folder of projects referencing your EF6 project  unit tests  UI s etc   by adding code to your EF6 project that uses EntityFramework SqlServer dll  Be careful not to put the code in a generated class as you risk losing it on next regen  I chose to add the following class to the assembly  which fixed the problem   using System Data Entity SqlServer   internal static class MissingDllHack          Must reference a type in EntityFramework SqlServer dll so that this dll will be        included in the output folder of referencing projects without requiring a direct         dependency on Entity Framework  See http   stackoverflow com a 22315164 1141360      private static SqlProviderServices instance   SqlProviderServices Instance

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I have problem  because I don t add reference to EntityFramework sqlServer dll  When I develop program  it works  But when I publish app and install it  it throws error   I just add reference and Build and Publish again

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After trying all other suggested solutions and don t getting my project to work  I finally found a little comment in this page      Deleting the BIN-Folder did it for me   And it worked for me too

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I had the same problem in my Test projects - I installed the latest EF6 bits via NuGet and everytime I invoke something EF-related I got      The Entity Framework provider type    System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices    EntityFramework SqlServer  for the  System Data SqlClient  ADO NET   provider could not be loaded   Make sure the provider assembly is   available to the running application   See   http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkId 260882 for more information    My workaround  I placed this method inside my test project   public void FixEfProviderServicesProblem       The Entity Framework provider type  System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices  EntityFramework SqlServer    for the  System Data SqlClient  ADO NET provider could not be loaded     Make sure the provider assembly is available to the running application     See http   go microsoft com fwlink  LinkId 260882 for more information   var instance   System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices Instance      This method is never been called  but I think the compiler will remove all  unnecessary  assemblies and without using the EntityFramework SqlServer stuff the test fails    Anyways  Works on my machine     Note  Instead of adding the method to test project you can ensure a static reference to SqlProviderServices from your Model entity project

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I was working on the Contoso University tutorial offline and encountered the same issue when trying to create my first controller using EF  I had to use the Package Manager Console to load EF from the nuget cache and created a connection string to my local instance of SQL Server  my point here is my webConfig setting for EF may not be set as you all out there but I was able to resolve my issue by completely deleting the  providers  section within  entityFramework   Robert

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Late to the party  but the top voted answers all seemed like hacks to me   All I did was remove the following from my app config in the test project   Worked      lt entityFramework gt       lt defaultConnectionFactory type  System Data Entity Infrastructure LocalDbConnectionFactory  EntityFramework  gt         lt parameters gt           lt parameter value  mssqllocaldb    gt         lt  parameters gt       lt  defaultConnectionFactory gt       lt providers gt         lt provider invariantName  System Data SqlClient  type  System Data Entity SqlServer SqlProviderServices  EntityFramework SqlServer    gt       lt  providers gt     lt  entityFramework gt

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This only happens inside my load unit testing projects  Frustrating  I jyst had it crop up in a project I have been running for 2 years  Must have been some order of test running that breaks things  I guess once that fi gets removed its gone    I found that simply declaring a variable that uses the correct value fixes the issue    I never even call the method  Just define it  Odd but it works             lt summary gt          So that the test runner copies dlls not directly referenced by the integration project          lt  summary gt      private void referenceLibs                 var useless   SqlProviderServices Instance

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I sorted it out with  DeploymentItem  on my assembly initializing class  namespace MyTests            lt summary gt          Summary description for AssemblyTestInit          lt  summary gt       TestClass       DeploymentItem  EntityFramework SqlServer dll        public class AssemblyTestInit               public AssemblyTestInit                                private TestContext testContextInstance           public TestContext TestContext                       get                               return testContextInstance                            set                               testContextInstance   value                                    AssemblyInitialize            public static void DbContextInitialize TestContext testContext                        Database SetInitializer lt TestContext gt  new TestContextInitializer

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I ve created a static  startup  file and added the code to force the DLL to be copied to the bin folder in it as a way to separate this  configuration          DbConfigurationType typeof DbContextConfiguration        public static class Startup              public class DbContextConfiguration   DbConfiguration       public DbContextConfiguration                    This is needed to force the EntityFramework SqlServer DLL to be copied to the bin folder         SetProviderServices SqlProviderServices ProviderInvariantName  SqlProviderServices Instance

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Click on Reference  check EntityFramework Reference is present or not   If not available Add it   Click on        Add Reference   Add entity framework  1 EntityFrameWork   2 EntityFrameWork SqlServer

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I had the same issue with Instantiating DBContext object from a unit test project  I checked my unit test project packages and I figured that EntityFramework package was not installed  I installed that from Nuget and problem solved  I think it s EF bug    happy coding

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remove the entity framework from the project via nuget then add it back in

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Same problem  but i installed EF 6 through Nuget  EntityFramework SqlServer was missing for another executable  I simply added the nuget package to that project

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When I inspected the problem  I have noticed that the following dll were missing in the output folder  The simple solution is copy Entityframework dll and Entityframework sqlserver dll with the app config to the output folder if the application is on debug mode  At the same time change  the build option parameter  Copy to output folder  of app config to copy always  This will solve your problem

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The problem in my case was that in order to catch another exception I had enabled common language runtime  CLR  exceptions  And I forgot to disable it   I disabled it in my exception setting  and it overlooked this exception and went on to run and create a db for me  in my case  automatically

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There is a easy fix  open the references in your project  right click  System Data  -  properties  Change  Copy Local  to  True     Problem should be fixed

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I finally resolved this  Turns out  I had an erroneous implementation of IDIsposable in my repository class  I fixed that  The erroneous implementation caused a stackoverflow exception since I wasn t disposing off resources properly  This caused VS not to run the tests and the test execution engine crashed  I filed it with Microsoft here   this was before I got the correct solution   connect microsoft com VisualStudio feedback details 775868 vs-test-execution-crashes-in-vs-2012 details Anyway  the builds now run fine on teamcity  ALthough  I am still curious why neither VS Test execution engine had a graceful way of telling me what was happening not Team City  I discovered the root cause by manually debugging the test   which I only realised after so many days   the fix took me 5 seconds   Hopefully this will help someone who comes across such issues

[c#] Entity Framework Provider type could not be loaded?

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