EntityServerException

I'm quite new to the EF Beta and I am having a few issues getting things to work properly. The install went great, mapping went fairly well, but whenever I try to start my application and pull data I get this error...

Error in EdmKey CustomDB: Unable to locate an ObjectContext in the probe assemblies.  This is often caused by not copying your EF model 'dll' to the deployment directory.

-------- Stack Trace ------------

"   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.HandleEntityServerException(Exception pException, Boolean pTryToHandle, PersistenceOperation pOperation)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.ExecuteServerQuery(IEntityQuery pEntityQuery)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.ExecuteFetch(IEntityFinder finder)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityQueryFinder.Execute()\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.ExecuteQueryCore(IEntityQuery query, QueryStrategy strategy)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.ExecuteQuery[T](IEntityQuery query, QueryStrategy strategy, Boolean checkT)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityManager.ExecuteQuery[T](IEntityQuery`1 query)\r\n   at IdeaBlade.EntityModel.v4.EntityQuery`1.GetEnumerator()\r\n   at System.Collections.Generic.List`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 collection)\r\n   at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToList[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)\r\n   at TestUI.Form1..ctor() in D:\\Memx\\Programs\\DFManger\\TestUI\\Form1.cs:line 23\r\n   at TestUI.Program.Main() in D:\\Memx\\Programs\\DFManger\\TestUI\\Program.cs:line 18\r\n   at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(Assembly assembly, String[] args)\r\n   at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly()\r\n   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)\r\n   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()"

--- End of Stack Trace ---------------


I have verified that my model dll is getting copied to the output directory.  I get this same error when attempting to run any of the learning units that were included in the distribution as well. 

I am running Server 2003 x64,  VS2008 professional and I do have an older 3.6.x version of DevForce installed.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Daniel

Thank you for the explanation at least I now know why this is happening.  Yes the post build commands are being generated correctly.  The problem lies however in the fact that the .csdl .msl and .ssdl files are not being generated. The output directory for the EF mapping project only contains one dll. I did some searching and it appears that this is the standard behavior in EF Beta 3.  Apparently those three files are complied into the dll.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2108642&SiteID=1

Is this something that you have encountered before?

Thanks for you help I got it figured out.  In the end it was my trying to using the Entity Framework tools on x64 when they are really only for 32bit.   The EntityDeploy MsBuild task was not getting triggered and thus the Entity Fragment files were not ending up in the output directory.  The strange thing though is that there were no errors generated so I though things were building fine.  After some searching I found an article that helps to workaround this problem on x64.

http://forums.devx.com/archive/index.php/t-165542.html

After this the build works correctly.  Thank you for your help.

Daniel

Unfortunately there's not currently a way to turn off the post-build event.  You can, though, add some post-build event commands of your own to bypass the copy logic.  Try adding a "goto BuildEventOK" as the first line in the post-build command line, prior to the "rem [IdeaBlade-begin]" line.  The post-build command will still be executed, but this should jump to a label near the end of the processing.

You're right that using embedded artifacts makes the post-build unnecessary, but we've found in the Entity Framework Beta3 that resource embedding doesn't work well.   EF Beta4, which we're working with now and which DEF Beta2 will work with, has much improved embedded resource support.

DEF Beta2 will have an option to turn off the post-build event.  DEF Beta2 is built on top of the new .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta (aka EF beta4) and is .. coming soon.  I've been proved wrong about this before, but we should be going to final internal testing next week.  DEF Beta1 does not work with the new EF bits.