EntityFramework error: The provider did not return a ProviderManifest instance

Question

My project is using ASP.NET MVC4, in C# with Visual Studio 2012 for Web Express.

When compiling my project, I have the following error:

The pr

Answer 1

1. go where you project is located(open Solution explorer. right click on solution and click on "Open Folder in file explorer"

2. open EDMX file with notepad and change ProviderManifestToken="2012" to ProviderManifestToken="2008". save it

3. build your solution

Answer 2

This worked for me without changing the ProviderManifestToken="2012" to 2008 in the .edmx file.

in the .edmx file, I changed the following value from True to False.

<edmx:DesignerProperty Name="UseLegacyProvider" Value="False" /> 

The "The provider did not return a ProviderManifest instance." error went away.

Answer 3

Replacing 2012 with 2008 in ProviderManifestToken="2012" in the .edmx file worked for me.

1. Replace 2012 with 2008 in ProviderManifestToken="2012"
2. Save the .edmx file
3. Clean and rebuild solution

Answer 4

Aparently, the problem was the Visual studio version that I was using. Mind blowing if you ask me. After removing Visual Studio Web Express 2012 and installing Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate everything started working as it should.

Answer 5

Not sure if it is a Visual studio problem. Or just entity framework unable to recognize the provider manifest correctly. I got rid of the error by editing the edmx file and replacing 2012 with 2008 in the <Schema ProviderManifestToken="2008" ...>

Answer 6

Download http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40762 and update Nuget EF to 6.1.3 and everything will work just fine.