Unable to find the requested .Net Framework Data Provider in Visual Studio 2010 Professional

Why am I getting "Unable to find the requested .Net Framework Data Provider" when trying to setup a new datasource in Visual Studio 2010 Professional?

My stats:

• Windows 7 64bit 16gig RAM
• Visual Studio 2010 Professional
• SQL Server 2008 (server A, full admin rights)
• SQL Server 2008 (server B, full admin rights)

I have started a test ASP.NET application and when I try to add a new data source, I get:

Unable to find the requested .Net Framework Data Provider. It may not be installed.

I have .NET 4 installed.

When I build the connection and click "Test Connection" it tests successful. SQL Server Management Studio connects just fine and I have verified the credentials on everything.

Solution 1:

I have seen reports of people having and additional, self terminating node in the machine.config file. Removing it resolved their issue. machine.config is found in \Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\vXXXX\Config. You could have a multitude of config files based on how many versions of the framework are installed, including 32 and 64 bit variants.

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories>
        <add name="Odbc Data Provider" invariant="System.Data.Odbc" ... />
        <add name="OleDb Data Provider" invariant="System.Data.OleDb" ... />
        <add name="OracleClient Data Provider" invariant="System.Data ... />
        <add name="SqlClient Data Provider" invariant="System.Data ... />
        <add name="IBM DB2 for i .NET Provider" invariant="IBM.Data ... />
        <add name="Microsoft SQL Server Compact Data Provider" ... />     
    </DbProviderFactories>

    <DbProviderFactories/>  //remove this one!
</system.data>

Solution 2:

I like the other suggestions but I would rather not update the machine.config for a single application. I suggest that you just add it to the web.config / app.config. Here is what I needed to use the MySql Connector/NET that I "bin" deployed.

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories >
        <add name="MySQL Data Provider" invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient" description=".Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL" type="MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data, Version=6.6.4.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d" />
    </DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

Solution 3:

In my case the Data provider entry for MySQL was "simply" missing in the machine.config file described above (though I had installed the MySQL connector properly)

<add name="MySQL Data Provider" invariant="MySql.Data.MySqlClient" description=".Net Framework Data Provider for MySQL" type="MySql.Data.MySqlClient.MySqlClientFactory, MySql.Data, Version=6.5.4.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=c5687fc88969c44d" />

Don't forget to put the right Version of your MySQL on the Entry