Question

I’m new to Entity Framework and am expanding an existing codebase. I’m using jQuery to pass the needed info back to the server ajaxy style, so I can’t use TryUpdateModel(). Here’s the code:

<HttpPost()>
    Function UpdateRoster() As JsonResult
        Dim model As New Models.ViewModels.PlayerAdmin

        Dim jsonString As String = Request.Form("json")

        model = Deserialise(Of Models.ViewModels.PlayerAdmin)(jsonString)

        For Each playerAdminPlayer As Models.ViewModels.PlayerAdminPlayer In model.Roster
            Dim playerToTeam As New DAL.PlayersToTeam
            Dim player As DAL.Player = PlayerAdminManager.GetPlayerById(playerAdminPlayer.PlayerId)
            player.FirstName = playerAdminPlayer.FirstName
            PlayerAdminManager.SaveChanges()
        Next playerAdminPlayer


        Dim playerAfter As DAL.Player = PlayerAdminManager.GetPlayerById(model.Roster.First.PlayerId)

        Return Json(New With {.success = False, .message = playerAfter.FirstName})

    End Function 

Deserialise is a helper function that converts the incoming JSON string to a vb object.

Things seem to work fine in that player successfully loads from the DB and playerAdminPlayer is the correct object from the JSON string. However, when I call PlayerAdminManager.SaveChanges() (which just passes the call the db.SaveChanges() the result is always 0, even if there is a change (not sure if that is expected).

playerAfter was my attempt to see if changes were actually being saved. It seems to work correctly, in that playerAfter.FirstName is the newly updated first name.

PlayerAdminManager.GetPlayerById(integer) pulls from the DB, so I would think that, since changes are observed in playerAfter, that those changes were saved to the DB. However, when I reload the web page (which pulls from the DB), the old values are there.

Any ideas?

Here are some of the functions I mention:

Function GetPlayerById(ByVal Id As Integer) As DAL.Player
        Return Container.Players.Where(Function(o) o.PlayerId = Id And o.IsVisible = True).SingleOrDefault
    End Function

Sub SaveChanges()
        Dim numberOfChanges As Integer = Container.SaveChanges()
        Debug.WriteLine("No conflicts. " & numberOfChanges.ToString() & " updates saved.")
    End Sub

EDIT

Container code:

 Private _Container As DAL.LateralSportsContainer
    Protected ReadOnly Property Container As DAL.LateralSportsContainer
        Get
            If _Container Is Nothing Then
                Dim connStr As New System.Data.EntityClient.EntityConnectionStringBuilder
                connStr.ProviderConnectionString = Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings("ApplicationServices").ConnectionString
                connStr.Metadata = "res://*/Lateral.csdl|res://*/Lateral.ssdl|res://*/Lateral.msl"
                connStr.Provider = "System.Data.SqlClient"
                _Container = New DAL.LateralSportsContainer(connStr.ConnectionString)
            End If

            Return _Container
        End Get
    End Property

Answer 1

Turns out I was using a non static (shared) Container. I had 2 Manager classes that both inherited from a BaseManager class were the Container was defined. I was executing the query command in one Manager and saving in another.

Doh!