Symptoms

When attempting to create a new Entity Framework model in Visual Studio, VistaDB 5 is not listed as a database provider and a VistaDB 5 database can't be selected.

Causes

The Visual Studio Entity Framework tools only have the Microsoft SQL Server provider available by default.  All other providers are listed only if they can be successfully probed by the EF tooling for the project that is being modified.  This means:

  • The project must have a reference to EntityFramework.dll (version 6.0 or later)
  • The project must have the appropriate app.config/web.config entries to list the provider
  • The project must be referencing the provider assemblies with the copy local option set.
  • The project must have been successfully built so the updated configuration file and assemblies are in the output folder for the current build profile.
Additionally, since Entity Framework 6 shipped after both Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 it's important to be sure you have the latest version of the Entity Framework 6 tools installed.  The installation is specific to each version of Visual Studio so be sure the correct one is installed.  
  1. Be sure you have the latest version of the Entity Framework 6 Tools for Visual Studio 2012 & 2013 installed (see above)
  2. Carefully review your app.config/web.config to make sure it has the DbProviderFactories and provider sections from our documentation.
  3. Make sure that all of the VistaDB assemblies are set to copy local and are present in the bin folder for the current build profile.
  4. VistaDB 5 must be installed locally; it's not enough for just the VistaDB assemblies to be present in the project.