Error When Creating User - ASP.NET System.Web.Providers

Question

I'm using the new ASP.NET Universal Providers as described at this Hanselman blog post comment:

I can get it wired up to authenticate using the following:

<profile defaultProvider="DefaultProfileProvider" >
  <providers>
    <add name="DefaultProfileProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultProfileProvider1" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" applicationName="/"/>
  </providers>
</profile>
<membership defaultProvider="DefaultMembershipProvider">
  <providers>
    <add name="DefaultMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection"               enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" requiresUniqueEmail="false"             maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="6" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10"             applicationName="/" />
  </providers>
</membership>
<roleManager defaultProvider="DefaultRoleProvider">
  <providers>
    <add name="DefaultRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Providers.DefaultRoleProvider" connectionStringName="DefaultConnection" applicationName="/" />
  </providers>
</roleManager>

I then try and create a new user using the following code

object akey = System.Guid.NewGuid();
MembershipCreateStatus status;
var member = new System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider();               
member.CreateUser("New User", "password","newUser@newuser.com","First Pet","Rover",true,akey,out status)

I get an error with this stack trace:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object at System.Web.Providers.Entities.ModelHelper.CreateEntityConnection(ConnectionStringSettings setting, String csdl, String ssdl, String msl) at System.Web.Providers.Entities.ModelHelper.CreateMembershipEntities(ConnectionStringSettings setting) at System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider.Membership_CreateUser(String applicationName, String userName, String password, String salt, String email, String passwordQuestion, String passwordAnswer, Boolean isApproved, DateTime& createDate, Boolean uniqueEmail, Int32 passwordFormat, Object& providerUserKey) at System.Web.Providers.DefaultMembershipProvider.CreateUser(String username, String password, String email, String passwordQuestion, String passwordAnswer, Boolean isApproved, Object providerUserKey, MembershipCreateStatus& status)

I figure it must be making the database connection OK as the authentication works. What am I doing wrong?

Just noticed that the Application property of member is still set to Null. Would've expected this to be "/" if it's reading it from the configuration. Maybe it isn't reading the configuration.

Just discovered that if I add the following it works:

config.Add("connectionStringName", "DefaultConnection");

            member.Initialize("DefaultMembershipProvider",config);

But I would've thought it should pick it up from the configuration file.

Answer 1

Check the connection string for ApplicationServices in web.config.