Question

The exception I am receiving is An entity object cannot be referenced by multiple instances of IEntityChangeTracker. My code is structured like so…

My context class looks like this:

    public class MyContext : DbContext, IDataContext
    {
        public MyContext (string connectionString) :
            base(connectionString)
        { 
        }

        public DbSet<AssigneeModel> Assignees { get; set; }
        public DbSet<AssetAssignmentModel> AssetAssignments { get; set; }
 }

public class AssigneeController : Controller
    {
        protected MyContext db = new MyContext(ConnectionString);

[HttpPost]
        public ActionResult Import(SomeObjectType file)
        {
           AssigneeModel assignee = new AssigneeModel();
           assignee.FirstName = "Joe";
           assignee.LastName = "Smith";

           // Assignees have assets, and the relationship is established via an AssetAssignmentModel entity

            AssetAssignmentModel assetAssignmentModel = new AssetAssignmentModel
            {
                Asset = someExistingAsset,
                // Assignee = assignee, // Don't establish relationship here, this object will be added to the assignee collection
             }

           assignee.AssetAssignments.Add(assetAssignmentModel); // Manually add object to establish relationship
           db.Assignees.Add(assignee); // Add the assignee object 
           // Exception occurs when adding the object above
        };
}

EF Version 4.1

Answer 1

The problem is from your Asset object, when you’re getting it from the other method, you’ll need to explicitly detach it from that context, before adding it to this new context. As Julie mentioned, the entity instance will carry the context with it, but the porblem wasn’t with the AssigneeModel you created, but with the someExistingAsset you retrieved.