EF5: Cannot attach the file ‘{0}' as database '{1}'

Asked 2012-11-07T17:34:12.517

142

I'm encountering the exact issue as described here (read section "Cannot Attach to Deleted MDF File"), but the solution to the problem is not told there...

In short the issue is that after deleting the .mdf file, the following exception is thrown when I try to access the DB using EF 5.0.

DataException->EntityException->SqlException:
Cannot attach the file ‘{0}' as database '{1}'

I did delete the DB file and now I get that nasty error message when running the application expecting it to use it's initializer. Any way to fix this?

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3 Answers

223

If you delete the DB file, it still stays registered with SqlLocalDB. Sometimes it fixes it to delete the DB. You can do this from the command line.

Open the "Developer Command Propmpt for VisualStudio" under your start/programs menu.
Run the following commands:

sqllocaldb.exe stop v11.0

sqllocaldb.exe delete v11.0

answered 2013-05-02T13:22:58.633

The best and easy answer I just solved it now, Just use ur sql server name as data source, initial catalog be your database name and there you go remove the mdf line

answered 2013-07-17T12:53:06.393

I had the same problem and I solved it by manually setting the "DataDirectory" folder to another folder in my app binaries.

I put this line in the Global.asax Application_Start method:

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData("DataDirectory", Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "App_Data"));

My connection string is currently set to this:

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="DataContext" connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDb)\v11.0; Initial Catalog=DataContext; Integrated Security=True; MultipleActiveResultSets=True; AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|DataContext.mdf"
  providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

answered 2013-05-22T16:25:47.590

EF5: Cannot attach the file ‘{0}' as database '{1}'

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