title: Firebird and ASP.NET MVC
body: <p>Have just started converting an existing job tracking system into an ASP.NET MVC application. I'm failing miserably at getting this thing off the ground. I'm getting this error</p>
  
  <pre><code>A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>With the following connection string</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;add name="ApplicationServices"
       connectionString="User ID=sysdba;Password=masterkey;Database=localhost:C:\\USINGFIREBIRD.FDB;"
       providerName="FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>FirebirdClient has been added to windir\assembly using gcutil</p>
  
  <p>This is probably a very dumb question, but does USINGFIREBIRD.FDB have to exist? Or will it be automatically created? Regardless, with the file created it does not work.</p>
  
  <p>Edit:</p>
  
  <p>Ok so in the end I was having so much trouble that I decided to start fresh.</p>
  
  <p>First thing I discovered was that the .NET 4 assembly cache has moved to windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly. I saw that FirebirdClient was not in here so I had to figure out how to get it in there. I used Visual studio 2010 command prompt to add the assembly with GCUTIL.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.basarat.com/2010/02/setting-up-firebird-development-with-vs.html" rel="nofollow">Then I followed the information here</a></p>
  
  <p>Then create a new asp.net mvc project, register your database in the server explorer, then add add an ado.net model class and have it auto generated from your database.</p>
  
  <p>I'm writing this rather hastily as I'm about to leave work, hope it helps someone.</p>