Database.Migrate() creating database but not tables, EF & .NET Core 2

Question

This question has been asked a couple times but none of the solutions/documentation is working for me.

Scenario - I need to build a database from scratch and edit it with migrations all from code, according to the documentation the line below should create the database from the DbContext/ModelBuilder.

_dbContext.Database.Migrate();

however this is only creating the database itself and none of the tables. If I run the below instead,

_dbContext.Database.EnsureCreated();

the database AND all the tables are created however this is not an option as I need to edit with migrations further down the line. I've tried the code below directly after the Migrate line but pendingMigrations is always 0.

var pendingMigrations = _dbContext.Database.GetAppliedMigrations().ToList();
        if (pendingMigrations.Any())
        {
            var migrator = _dbContext.Database.GetService<IMigrator>();
            foreach (var targetMigration in pendingMigrations)
                migrator.Migrate(targetMigration);
        }

Is there something I'm missing here? Shouldn't Database.Migrate() be creating the tables as well as the database?

Note - in testing I am deleting the database before trying another approach.

Answer 1

Another classic case of struggling with something for a day or two only to find the answer half an hour after posting a question here. Posting my solution incase other people have had a similar issue.

TLDR - _dbContext.Database.Migrate(); doesn't create migrations.

Basically, dbContext.Database.EnsureCreated() doesn't care about migrations, which is why it generated the full database inc tables (however then of course you can't migrate).

_dbContext.Database.Migrate(); applies the migrations and creates the database if it doesn't exist however it doesn't create the tables if there's no migration.

Basically I have a project as a resource, I was trying to duplicate the project from a new application generated by the user but as I'd never run any migrations in the resource project there was nothing to migrate. Running the Add-Migration Initial in the PMC in the resource project gave the project it's initial migration files so then when I ran migrate on a new database it knew which tables to create.

Answer 2

In my case I had multiple projects and DesignTimeDbContextFactory was pointing to a MigrationsAssembly but in startup sqlOptions were not.

so when DI creates DbContext it does't know there are pending migrations.

you can check you pending migrations with dbContext.Database.GetPendingMigrations(); before Migrate(); to check if it has found migrations or not

Solution is add migration MigrationsAssembly in sqlOptions

 services.AddDbContext<BM_OCR_DbContext>(options =>
                {
                    options.UseSqlServer(
                    Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection"),
                    sqlServer => sqlServer.MigrationsAssembly("BM.OCR.Server"));
                });