"Update-Database" command does not update to the latest version of Migration

Question

I am trying to use Migrations in my project but when trying to update the database, only the base migration is applied.

I have a total of two migrations.

1. The Base migration(initialy created)
2. CreateNewProperty(Change includes adding a new property to one of the tables)

I see Enable-Migration mentioned in the Microsoft Documentation but it seems to have gone obsolete.

In addition to this, I also a mention of using the following in the Context class to enable latest migrations, but SetInitialier() method is no longer available:

Database.SetInitializer(new MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion<DatabaseContext, EF6Console.Migrations.Configuration>());

When I try to remove all migrations and bring it to the initial state by executing:

update-databse 0 it fails with the following error: ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN failed because column 'test' does not exist in table 'Item'.

which is basically the update done in the CreateNewproperty migration and this error is expected as this migration was never applied. Why is EF trying to downgrade a migration, when it did not apply it in the first place.

Answer 1

Use below command to Migrate to a Specific Version (Including Downgrade)

update-database -targetmigration:MigrationName

More information visit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/ef6/modeling/code-first/migrations/#migrate-to-a-specific-version-including-downgrade

Answer 2

Is it possible that your snapshot has become messed up somehow? You could try deleting that and then create a new migration (one that you could throw away) to rebuild it. Then try running update-database again.

Answer 3

In order to get rid of writing Migration and Update commands each time your data model changes, you can simply write two command line files as EF CLI and just click them to execute Migration and Update commands. These command files create the Migration name using the date and time of your machine. For the add migration file set a name such as 01-add_migration.cmd (with .cmd extension) with the following content:

For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set mydate=%%c_%%a_%%b)
For /f "tokens=1-2 delims=/:" %%a in ("%TIME: =0%") do (set mytime=%%a%%b)
dotnet ef --startup-project ../Product.Api migrations add V%mydate%_%mytime% -o Persistence/Migrations -c ApplicationDbContext
pause

and for the update database set e file name such as 02-update_db.cmd with the content as bellow:

dotnet ef --startup-project ../Product.Api database update  -c ApplicationDbContext
pause

You can add other parameters of Migration and Update commands as well.

Answer 4

So in my opinion, if you have created lots of migrations and started changing up the classes during the creation of your app, you might have missed something, which happens to many developers.

If that is your case, you should try to delete the migrations history in the database and the tables that were created using the migrations.

The migrations history table is located in the tables folder of the database and looks like this:

Then delete the migrations folder that you have in your Project. Search for it in the solution explorer.

It should look something like this:

Next, do what you would do from the beginning.

Add-Migration [Name]
Update-Database

Answer 5

Okay, so this is what worked: I deleted the database completely and then ran the update-databse command. On running this, first the base migration was applied and then the second migration. And now when I create a third migration and apply it is working as expected!