Entity Framework Core - Migration - No Parameterless Constructor Defined for this Object

Question

I am working with the latest .Net Core and EF Core in Visual Studio 2017. I have created a model and it was working great. I have since made some modifications and am getting the following error when I try to add a new migration:

Build succeeded.
  0 Warning(s)
  0 Error(s)

Time Elapsed 00:00:09.08
System.MissingMethodException: No parameterless constructor defined for this object.
  at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandleInternal& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
  at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)
  at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
  at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type)
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.Internal.DbContextOperations.<>c__DisplayClass12_0.<FindContextTypes>b__3()
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.Internal.DbContextOperations.CreateContext(Func`1 factory)
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.Internal.DbContextOperations.CreateContext(String contextType)
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.Internal.MigrationsOperations.AddMigration(String name, String outputDir, String contextType)
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.OperationExecutor.AddMigrationImpl(String name, String outputDir, String contextType)
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.OperationExecutor.OperationBase.<>c__DisplayClass3_0`1.<Execute>b__0()
  at Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design.OperationExecutor.OperationBase.Execute(Action action)
No parameterless constructor defined for this object.

I have compared my code since the last check in and have commented out certain chunks of code to see if the error persists and whatever I comment out, it still fails with the same error.

Question: Is there a way to get more detailed information on exactly WHAT type does not have a parameterless constructor? Or even run this from within VS and perhaps get a breakpoint?

Update: Based on some of the comments, here is some code.

For the DbContext override

public class AlmanacDb : IdentityDbContext<ApplicationUser, ApplicationRole, int> {

  private readonly ILogger logger;

  public AlmanacDb(DbContextOptions<AlmanacDb> options, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory) : base(options) {
    this.logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<AlmanacDb>();
  }

  protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder) {
    optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer("Server=.\\SQLExpress;Database=Almanac;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;");
  }

  ...
}

I do have a IDbContextFactory but it is not referenced anywhere and worked without a reference. Not sure if this is a problem or not based on a link provided in the 2nd comment. If memory serves, as long as the IDbContextFactory is within the solution, it should find it?

public class AlmanacDbFactory : IDbContextFactory<AlmanacDb> {

  private IConfigurationRoot configuration;
  private readonly ILoggerFactory loggerFactory;

  public AlmanacDbFactory(ILoggerFactory loggerFactory) {
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
     .SetBasePath(System.AppContext.BaseDirectory)
     .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: false, reloadOnChange: true);

    this.configuration = builder.Build();
    this.loggerFactory = loggerFactory;
  }

  public AlmanacDb Create(DbContextFactoryOptions options) {
    var optionsBuilder = new DbContextOptionsBuilder<AlmanacDb>();
    optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer(
      configuration.GetConnectionString("AlmanacSQL"), m => { m.EnableRetryOnFailure(); }
    );

    return new AlmanacDb(optionsBuilder.Options, loggerFactory);
  }
}

My Startup.cs class

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services) {
  try {
    services.AddDbContext<AlmanacDb>(options =>
      options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("AlmanacSQL"))
    );
    services.AddScoped(typeof(IRepository<>), typeof(Repository<>));

    services.AddIdentity<ApplicationUser, ApplicationRole>()
      .AddEntityFrameworkStores<AlmanacDb, int>()
      .AddDefaultTokenProviders();

    services.AddScoped<SignInManager<ApplicationUser>, AvantiaSignInManager<ApplicationUser>>();

    services.AddAuthorization(x => {
      x.AddPolicy("EmployeeOnly", p => p.RequireClaim("EmployeeNumber"));
    });

    services.AddMvc();
  } catch (Exception e) {
    Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
    throw;
  }
}

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory, AlmanacDb context) {
  ... // Nothing actually touches the AlmanacDb within this code so I left it out
}

Update 2: Solutiuon Seeing that I am learning ASP.Net Core I am reading a ton of sites (including docs.microsoft.com) at one point I put in the IDbContextFactory code as you can see above. I removed that from my code and the error went away and everything built and created the migration.

I am going to mark @alessalessio as the answer as I assume (have not tested it yet) that taking out the ILoggerFactory loggerFactory dependency within the AlmanacDbFactory constructor will do the trick as well.

Answer 1

Design-time tools attempt to automatically find how your application creates instances of your DbContext type. If EF cannot find a suitable way to initialize your DbContext, you may encounter this error.

Options: 1- Either create a parameterless constructor

  public AlmanacDb() { }
  protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
  {           
       optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer(_connString);
  }

  private readonly string _connString = "<your conn string>";

2-

public AlmanacDb Create()
{
     var optionsBuilder = new DbContextOptionsBuilder<AlmanacDb>();
     optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer(connectionString);

     return new AlmanacDb(optionsBuilder.Options);
}

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/miscellaneous/configuring-dbcontext

Answer 2

If you have a separate project for context. set a startup project with the target project

dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate -s .\src\WebUI\  -p .\src\Infrastructure\ --verbose