Question

I’m trying to use MySQL (5.5.22, Connector 6.5.4) with Entity Framework 4.

I’m using Model First approach. I successfully managed to create a SQL script from my model.

Now I want to modify my database, then update my model from the modified database (for instance I’m adding a new column to a table, and I’m expecting a new property to be added to the corresponding entity). This approach works just fine with SQL Server 2008 R2.

With MySQL, I can’t make it work: the update wizard always shows my current tables (which are already mapped to entities) as new tables, and tries to add new entities to the model instead of updating the current entities.

Maybe there’s something related to the old #48875 bug (CREATE INDEX modifies the table name case): MySQL forces my table names to be lowercase but those tables are mapped in the MSL as camel case…

Is it actually possible to make MySQL and Entity Framework work together without all those issues?

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EDIT

If it can help, when manually renaming tables to use camel case

rename table mytable to mytable_bis
rename table mytable_bis to MyTable

it doesn’t work better.

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EDIT 2

If you accept to create new entities from those tables, what are the
differences you can notice? I would pay attention if your generated
tables have primary keys, for example.

When accepting to add new entities in the update wizard from the existing tables, it creates entities that are called just like my existing entities with 1 at the end of the name.

For example, I currently have a simple entity named Zone associated with a table named Zones. After the update from the database, it creates a new entity named Zone1 associated with the table. The mapping between Zone and Zones is broken, and a new mapping is established between Zone1 and Zones.

Zone and Zone1 entities are identical (exactly same properties, same primary keys…etc.).

I then tried to remove all my previous entities and renamed all my XXXX1 entities to XXXX (for instance, I deleted the Zone entity and then renamed Zone1 to Zone).

Then I tried to update from the database a second time: the update wizard was working as expected (no new entities to create, only entities to update).

Then I tried to re-generate the SQL script from the Model…. it worked… but then I tried to update again from the database and the issue came back… the update wizard is still trying to add new entities.

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EDIT 3

Finally fixed the issue (thanks to daryal)! The problem was my database schema name was not specified in the model properties… When using SQL Server it’s dbo 99% of the time but it’s not the case with MySQL by default.

When updating the model from the database, the SSDL was updated according to the actual schema name of the database.

But after the database was generated again from the model, the wrong database schema name was used in place of the good one. That’s why it failed when updating again from the DB.

D’oh!

Answer 1

First let me say, this is not a direct answer; but may guide you to resolution.
First open the edmx file using xml editor(right click edmx file and select open with). In the edmx file there are some sections related to object-db mapping, and three of them are important. There are ConceptualModels, StorageModels and mapping nodes. In the storage nodes, check whether names of the tables are ok:

<EntitySet Name="MasterSet" EntityType="Model1.Store.MasterSet" store:Type="Tables" Schema="dbo" />

In case the table names are not right, just change them and update the related data in the mappings section.