Adding SQL Server CE files in app_data folder at runtime

Question

I am using Orchard CMS with multitenancy enabled. Each tenant has it's own SQL Server CE database in the App_data folder. I am creating new tenants by copying tenants data from some other location to the App_Data folder while application is running.

Problem is if I click on the tenant, it's .sdf is not getting loaded and I get an error

The page you are looking doesn't exist

If I restart IIS, it starts working. My guess is if we add anything in app_data folder while the application is running, this data is not loaded into the w3wp process. Is there any solution for this problem?

Answer 1

I'd like to start off by saying this sounds like a slightly, interesting shall we say, way of doing things. Also, SQL CE isn't really that great for production.

Anyway, I also had some issues regarding tenant creation. Check cache.dat, which holds a list of all tenants, may need to refresh that. I also had to refresh the tenant before it would work:

// refresh tenant because otherwise it stays in setup mode
var tenant = _tenantService.GetTenants().FirstOrDefault(ss => ss.Name == name);
if (tenant == null) return HttpNotFound();
tenant.State = TenantState.Disabled;
_tenantService.UpdateTenant(tenant);

var tenant2 = _tenantService.GetTenants().FirstOrDefault(ss => ss.Name == name);
if (tenant2 == null) return HttpNotFound();
tenant2.State = TenantState.Running;
_tenantService.UpdateTenant(tenant2);

As retarded as that looks, it fixed my issue.

I'd still recommend building the tenants using Orchard's APIs. Good luck!