The selected object(s) use an unsupported database provider

Question

I'm using Visual Studio 2010
In my project I was added a local database Data.sdf
Now I wanna use LINQ TO SQL with it, but when I drag and drop the database table into the LINQ designer , I get the following error in Visual Studio :

"The selected object(s) use an unsupported database provider"

Am I miss something ?
How can I fix it ?

Answer 1

LINQ-to-SQL is only officially supported when used with a full version of Microsoft SQL Server (including Express editions). While it's possible to use it with SQL Server CE (which is what it appears you're trying to do) and some others, extra steps are required.

You can either:

• Use SqlMetal.exe to generate your .dbml file, then load it into your project (assuming you're using SQLCE 3.5; it doesn't appear to work with 4.0)
• Keep an identical copy of your database schema in a SQL Server Express database on your local machine. Use that for design work, then connect to your SQL CE database at runtime.

Answer 2

Geometry, Geography and Hierarchy data types are not supported in LINQ to SQL.The only way it would be to not reference those columns and modify them so they can hold null values

Answer 3

I had this issue but it was resolved after installing the EntitiFramework package from Nuget. ppm> install-package EntityFramework

Answer 4

In my case, the cause of this cryptic error was that I was using the wrong data provider. The data provider must be ".NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server" (or, at least, it must not be "Microsoft SqlClient Data Provider for SQL Server" since that is the provider that was giving me the error).

To fix this for an existing connection:

1. Right-click on the data connection and click on "Modify Connection..."
2. Change the data source

3. Make sure the data provider is set to ".NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server"