Dynamic Data - cannot insert when primary key is a string (not auto-generated)

Question

I have an entity with a string primary key ( nvarchar(2) in the database ).

My issue is - In my Dynamic Data application, the Insert.aspx page does not render the Insert and Cancel buttons.

My question is - do I need to mark the primary key with any special attribute?

PS - I believe this is related to the primary key. I have another entity with an integer primary key, which is automatically generated ( identity(1,1) ), and the Insert and Cancel buttons are rendering accordingly.

Much, much appreciated.

Edit:

I found that the issue is related to primary keys not being auto-generated. I have an entity with an auto-generated integer primary key and it works just fine. On the other hand, if the primary key is an integer but not auto-generated, I observe the issue described above. Again, much appreciated.

Answer 1

So the issue was that the Insert LinkButton in Insert.aspx was not rendered when the primary key was a string (and consequently not auto-generated) (the same issue occurred in with the Edit LinkButton in Edit.aspx).

I tried changing the StoredGeneratedPattern in the EDMX designer with no luck.

At the end, this did for me - open Insert.aspx and locate these two LinkButtons:

<asp:LinkButton runat="server" CommandName="Update" Text="Update" CssClass="button" />
<asp:LinkButton runat="server" CommandName="Cancel" Text="Cancel" CausesValidation="false" CssClass="button" />

Simply replace the LinkButtons to just Buttons. Make sure to validate that the entered primary key is not already in the database. Thank you.