Entity data model designer won't open the edmx file

Question

The strange thing is, it was working fine a few days ago. I added a new column to a table and was going to update the model through the designer and now it says "The Entity Data Model Designer is unable to display the file you requested. You can edit the model using the XML Editor."

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the new field, it's just a non nullable bit field in SQL Server 2008.

Charlie · Answer 1 · 2021-06-11T20:07:45.260

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FOR Visual Studio 2017, 2019

I searched for the solution but come up with the installation of some NUGET packages and Extensions, nothing worked out.

Solution (Missing Entity Framework on Visual Studio)

I searched for Visual Studio Installer on my machine and opened it.
Under Visual Studio Professional 2017.
I clicked on More to see more options. I selected Modify
Select Individual Components (Second Tab)
Check Entity Framework Under SDKs, libraries, and framework
and then click Modify EDMX file will open after the process gets completed.

edited Jun 11 '21 at 20:07

answered May 30 '18 at 05:36

Charlie

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Regarding the point 5, the exact library name is "Entity Framework 6 tools". – Haris Sep 25 '18 at 07:52

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 26 '15 at 19:59

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This has happened to me a few times, usually when pulling a solution out of subversion. Rebuilding the project has always fixed the issue for me.

answered Aug 26 '15 at 19:59

Dmass

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This was the cause for me too -- I think the reason is that EntityFramework is a nuget package, and we exclude the packages/ directory from source control (because it's binaries that just get-redownloaded anyway). A rebuild causes all the packages to get downloaded, which makes the EntityFramework dlls and such available. – Felix Mar 01 '16 at 23:29
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Exactly what happened to me – CodeMilian Sep 22 '16 at 20:45
This solved the problem for me because I made a mistake manually resolving Git merge conflicts, resulting in an orphaned `` tag. The build found the error for me. Thanks! – OutstandingBill Mar 17 '21 at 23:26

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 23 '21 at 13:08

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I also encounter that annoying screen. No, I do NOT want to edit my model in XML... I want the pretty designer! In my case I added a table which did not have a primary key. To fix...

Open the edmx in XML
Delete the erroneous table. It should be well defined with an "<-- ERROR" comment.
Clean and Rebuild.
Close and re-open Visual Studio (yes, it's annoying but necessary)
Rebuild one more time, then open your edmx file. Should open the designer fine.

Hope this helps.

edited Mar 23 '21 at 13:08

H. Pauwelyn

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answered Oct 20 '17 at 16:31

Ashley

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I liked the "annoying but necessary".. Welcome to SO. – Alejandro Montilla Oct 20 '17 at 17:06
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hahaha.. Thanks. :) Happy to FINALLY be able to help. I've searched SO for years. Finding good, solid answers for Entity Framework has been my first real contribution. :) – Ashley Oct 20 '17 at 18:38
Remember that answering is not the only way you could help, also voting, commenting, review queues. You still dont have the reputation for those accions, but keep the good work and you will get there in no time. :) – Alejandro Montilla Oct 20 '17 at 18:47
Wasn't precisely my solution; instead of comments I had Intellisense alerting me to issues with my XML. After cleaning up those issues I was able to view the `edmx` again. Had to close and re-open the XML several times in order to refresh the Intellisense and see the latest break, but got it working – MichaelM Jul 03 '19 at 18:50
Opened the XML file and found some merge errors from SVN. Worked for me, without having to restart or rebuild. Thanks for pointing out the XML. – Kevin Amorim Apr 01 '20 at 10:57

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 14 '13 at 22:01

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Fixed by deleting the file and regenerating it.

answered Feb 14 '13 at 22:01

Legion

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How do you regenerate the .edmx file? – Josue Rocha May 21 '16 at 01:59
I think you just delete it and make it again like you did the first time. – K-Dawg Mar 03 '19 at 14:50
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This works in theory, but it will remove all customization like renaming of some navigation properties. – Alexei - check Codidact Jun 23 '20 at 06:38
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@Alexei-checkCodidact why on earth would your generated model entities have custom code in them!? That's what MetaData partial classes are for. – Kevin Dark Mar 10 '23 at 12:53
@KevinDark I guess this happened because previous developers did not like the navigation properties names like (Foo1, Foo2....) and renamed in the designer itself. Fortunately, I am fully working using a code-first approach for a while. – Alexei - check Codidact Mar 10 '23 at 14:05

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 31 '19 at 16:24

This happens to us quite a bit (usually from a bad merge) and our EDMX file is over 50k lines, which makes eyeballing the problem impossible. However, firstly, you can use one of the online XML parsers (eg. https://onlinexmltools.com/validate-xml) to determine if the XML is correct. Once the XML is valid, the file should at least open in the XML editor (I assume you are using Visual Studio): you can then use Alt+PageDn (Edit > Goto > Next Issue) - the wiggly underscore and associated tip are often of genuine help. I have managed to resurrect our EDMX several times this way.

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 09 '19 at 15:14

In Visual Studio 2019 I could solve the problem by opening the .edmx file using the built-in XML editor.

Visual Studio shows the error(s) underlined like this:

Check the Error List window (red X icon)...

Once you get rid of all errors, then the designer will show as expected.

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 19 '16 at 07:05

This happened to me when I added a field to an table that was used in a function as RETURN (SELECT TableName.* .... )

The CollectionSet subnode of the ReturnType node for that function in the EDMX wasn't refreshed.

To fix it, you need to simply run ALTER FUNCTION (without actually changing it), then update the model from database within Visual Studio.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 25 '17 at 11:46

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Just had a similar problem: nothing in the designer window.

Double clicking each of the entities in the model browser made them re-appear.

answered Jan 25 '17 at 11:46

Richard Barraclough

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This, the error has verbage like "click here to edit the XML". I clicked on it and the entity model was regenerated. Rebuild / restart did nothing. – Rob Mar 03 '23 at 00:25

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered May 18 '17 at 20:45

Some times this issue happens because the XML representation of the model has some conflicts. In my case, the error was caused because the model had a conflicted reference, in other words, there was a reference to a table that was manually removed in the XML and the removal wasn't done properly (they leaved the EntityType reference but removed all the rest).

I just opened the XML file and the issue was underlined, I just removed it, and it fixed the issue, the model was shown without any problems.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 05 '21 at 18:50

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I had the same issue, as this is a new install.

using Visual Studio Installer, locate the highlighted option and install it

answered Nov 05 '21 at 18:50

Mark

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Feb 10 '17 at 01:52

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I don't have the option of deleting the edmx.

I tried cleaning, exiting vs, and then building.

Solution: Copy paste from source control into the .edmx and .edmx.diagram, then rebuild.

I was getting this error from a particularly nasty merge.

answered Feb 10 '17 at 01:52

christo8989

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 21 '18 at 12:21

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I solved the problem by modifying the installation and selecting .net desktop development module + Individual components: Entity Framework 6 tools and .NET Framework 3.5 development tools.

I don't know if less could have done the trick.

answered Feb 21 '18 at 12:21

thomas nn

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 07 '18 at 08:56

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I just had the same problem after a merge. Luckily, undoing the changes to the edmx and related files in checkin window and re-adding the new files solved it for me.

answered Jun 07 '18 at 08:56

Ege Bayrak

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Jhabar · Answer 14 · 2021-11-19T09:44:05.743

This can be the case when we migrate visual studio solution from an older version to VS 2017/2019. So, I solved it by performing the following steps (changes are highlighted in bold):

Change:

<edmx:Edmx Version="2.0" xmlns:edmx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2008/10/edmx">

To

<edmx:Edmx Version="3.0" xmlns:edmx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/11/edmx">

Change (all occurrence):

<Schema Namespace="MyModelName" Alias="Self" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2008/09/edm">

To

<Schema Namespace="MyModelName" Alias="Self" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/11/edm">

Once complete, close and open the edmx again.

This should solve the problem.

There are some more URLs to change, see accepted response here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21152692/upgrade-to-ef6-on-net4-system-data-metadataexception-schema-specified-is-not — mBardos, Oct 28 '21 at 12:58

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 23 '20 at 04:38

I have just solved my "Entity data model designer won't open the edmx file" problem by re-installing Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio (my current version is 2019 16.7.4). I right-clicked on the .edmx file in the Visual Studio's Solution Explorer window, selected the 'Open with...' option and was immediately presented with the re-install pop-up window.

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 03 '21 at 08:57

In my case edmx.diagram files has unrelevant text at the end of file such as

<AssociationConnector Association="MyModel.FK_SomeTable_SomeOtherTable" />&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; FEATURE/Blahlblah

after removed

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; FEATURE/Blahlblah

got it worked.

Edit your xml files (edmx and especially edmx.diagram) check and correct them

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Nov 02 '21 at 00:51

Most quick way to fix it is to copy entire 'Models' folder from your old files and then delete (or rename) your current content of models folder.

Then open your edmx and refresh the content using 'update from database' option.

I have spent almost 5 hours using other method but stll not working. Only spent 15 minutes using this copy-paste method, and problem solved.

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Jan 21 '22 at 15:51

If you are running into this issue when trying to remove a one-to-many relationship from two entities:

Open the edmx in the XML Editor (Right click the file and select Open With...)
Find Association element with the foreign key name that represents the relationship and delete it
Find AssociationSet element with the foreign key name that represents the relationship and delete it
Check EntityType elements on both sides of the relationship and make sure the relevant NavigationProperty element is deleted
Go to EntityType element for the many side of the relationship. Remove Property element for the Id on which the foreign key was established

Save the file and reopen it in the Entity Data Model Designer

Entity data model designer won't open the edmx file

18 Answers18