I just got this error and I thought I'd share it so that someone else doesn't spend an hour trying to figure out what's gone wrong. I have SQL Server 2008 Express and a WCF service that was working fine. All of a sudden it stopped working. This was the error message
The server encountered an error processing the request. The exception message is 'The provider did not return a ProviderManifestToken string.'. See server logs for more details. The exception stack trace is:
at System.Data.Common.DbProviderServices.GetProviderManifestToken(DbConnection connection) at System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.Utilities.DbConnectionExtensions.GetProviderInfo(DbConnection connection, DbProviderManifest& providerManifest) at System.Data.Entity.DbModelBuilder.Build(DbConnection providerConnection) at System.Data.Entity.Internal.LazyInternalContext.CreateModel(LazyInternalContext internalContext) at System.Data.Entity.Internal.RetryLazy
2.GetValue(TInput input) at System.Data.Entity.Internal.LazyInternalContext.InitializeContext() at System.Data.Entity.Internal.InternalContext.Initialize() at System.Data.Entity.Internal.LazyInternalContext.get_ObjectContext() at System.Data.Entity.DbContext.System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.IObjectContextAdapter.get_ObjectContext() at lambda_method(Closure , Object ) at System.Data.Services.Providers.DbContextHelper.GetObjectContext(Object o) at System.Data.Services.Caching.MetadataCache1.TryLookup(Type serviceType, Object dataContextInstance) at System.Data.Services.Providers.BaseServiceProvider.LoadMetadata() at System.Data.Services.DataService1.CreateMetadataAndQueryProviders(IDataServiceMetadataProvider& metadataProviderInstance, IDataServiceQueryProvider& queryProviderInstance, BaseServiceProvider& builtInProvider, Object& dataSourceInstance) at System.Data.Services.DataService1.CreateProvider() at System.Data.Services.DataService1.EnsureProviderAndConfigForRequest() at System.Data.Services.DataService1.HandleRequest() at System.Data.Services.DataService`1.ProcessRequestForMessage(Stream messageBody) at SyncInvokeProcessRequestForMessage(Object , Object[] , Object[] ) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.SyncMethodInvoker.Invoke(Object instance, Object[] inputs, Object[]& outputs) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.InvokeBegin(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage5(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage41(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage4(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage31(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage3(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage2(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage11(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage1(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)
