How to run two Entity Framework Contexts inside TransactionScope without MSDTC?

Question

This problem is not readily reproducible in a simple example here but was wondering if anyone has any experience and tips, here is the issue:

• using Entity

Answer 1

I had a similar problem with SQL 2008, Entity Framework.

I had two frameworks defined (EF1, and EF2) but using identical connection strings to a sql 2008 database.

I got the MSDTC error above, when using nested "usings" across both. eg the code was like this:

using (TransactionScope dbContext = new TransactionScope())
{
     using (EF1 context = new EF1())
     {
         // do some EF1 db call
         using (EF2 context2 = new EF2())
         {
              // do some EF2 db call
          }
      }
      dbContext.Complete();
}

It wasnt as simple as this, because it was split across several methods, but this was the basic structure of "usings".

The fix was to only open one using at a time. No MTDSC error, No need to open distributed transactions on db.

using (TransactionScope dbContext = new TransactionScope())
{
     using (EF1 context = new EF1())
     {
         // do some EF1 db call

      }
     using (EF2 context2 = new EF2())
     {
              // do some EF2 db call
     }
     dbContext.Complete();
}