The entry has already been added

Question

All my Razors views have this error:

The pre-application start initialization method Start on type WebMatrix.WebData.PreApplicationStartCode threw an exception with the following error message:

The entry 'DefaultConnection' has already been added.

Now, as you can see in my connection string configuration, I don't have the connection string name repeated:

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="DefaultConnection" connectionString="Data Source=.\foo;Initial Catalog=aspnet-foo-20130212133051;MultipleActiveResultSets=true;Integrated Security=SSPI" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
    <add name="ServiDeskConnection" connectionString="Data Source=fooo;Initial Catalog=mdb;User Id=foo;Password=fooo;MultipleActiveResultSets=true" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
    <add name="mdbEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/Models.ExternalData.ExternalContext.csdl|res://*/Models.ExternalData.ExternalContext.ssdl|res://*/Models.ExternalData.ExternalContext.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string=&quot;data source=foo;initial catalog=mdb;user id=foo;password=foo_prod01;multipleactiveresultsets=True;App=EntityFramework&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
    <add name="SisInfoInventoryEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/Models.ExternalData.Inventory.csdl|res://*/Models.ExternalData.Inventory.ssdl|res://*/Models.ExternalData.Inventory.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string=&quot;data source=.\foo;initial catalog=foo;integrated security=True;multipleactiveresultsets=True;App=EntityFramework&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
</connectionStrings>

I already tried to use <Clear/>, but it is worse, because it said that I don't have any connection.

I tried to unload the project of the same solution, but it stills did not work.

Note that when I build the project, it works well.

_{(This has been answered several times, but none of the solutions had worked for me.)}

Answer 1

After the <providers> and before the first <add....> node, add a <clear /> node. That will fix it!!

Or it can be in web.config that is parent to this one. Just add the below code before you add it again.

<remove name="DefaultConnection" />

Alternatively, clear all connection strings using

<clear />

I would suggest you rename DefaultConnection to something else like MyAppServices.