Login and account registration broken on MVC application

Question

Hello I'm new to MVC and have been looking for a solution to my problem for the last couple days with no avail.

I've created a simple blog engine using ASP.NET MVC, after installing it on IIS on my local PC, I quickly realized I needed a database for the login service to work.

So I elected to use LocalDB on a PC that I plan to use as a server. I moved my files over to the PC and installed everything I needed. As soon as I installed SQLExpress with LocalDB and reset the site, everything was working perfectly. However, I noticed some minor typos on a section of the site that's not easily edited. Stupidly, I reinstalled the website entirely from a new build instead of just updating the view that needed correction like a smart person would do.

Now every time I attempt to login to an excising account or create a new one I simply get the error

Cannot attach the file 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\App_Data\aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352.mdf' as database 'aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352'.

From what I've learned, It's something to do with my LocalDB instance, but fixes I've found online seem to have no effect.

Admittingly, I'm pretty naive with it comes to SQL, so hopefully the fix is simple. If I've failed to provide vital information please tell me and I'll update the question. Additionally, an explanation of what exactly went wrong would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

When reinstalling your site, probably you had deleted database file aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352.mdf in your database directory. Since deleting MDF file doesn't affect registered SQL Express instance, SQL Express thinks the database still exists and trying to connect but failed.

First, try to attach the DB using SSMS query like this:

EXEC sp_attach_db @dbname=N'aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352.mdf', @filename1=N'App_Data\aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352.mdf', @filename2=N'App_Data\aspnet-FacetBlog-20161020065352.ldf'

NB: I assumed your MDF file location stands in App_Data directory, change it to your actual database directory.

If attempt to attach by query doesn't work, try these steps:

Stop IIS/IIS Express pool if it still running.
Open a Windows Powershell instance on your server PC (install it first if doesn't exist).

Run the following command:

sqllocaldb.exe stop v11.0
sqllocaldb.exe delete v11.0
sqllocaldb.exe start v11.0

Recreate the DB instance on your project, including data connection in Server Explorer (remove then create).
Re-run the project in development machine, then copy all required files to server PC. The database instance should be (re-)generated at this time.
Restart IIS/IIS Express pool on server PC.

Additionally you may run Update-Database command from Package Manager Console to ensure database integrity.

If those solutions still won't work altogether, simply rename your database files and attach it on your project, verify the connection string then retry step (5) and (6) above.

Login and account registration broken on MVC application

1 Answers1