The term 'Update-Database' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet

Question

I am using EF5 beta1 and while I was able to run the \"Update-Database\" before. Now that I shut down Visual Studio, I cannot get it to run. I get the following error:

Answer 1

I started having the same issue after I accidentally opened a Visual Studio solution with Visual Studio 2015 instead of 2017. The project worked just fine before that mishap. It was an older project with EF 5.0 and not EF Core.

I tried everything suggested - restarted Visual Studio countless times, cleaned up NuGet cache, deleted everything in packages folder, reinstalled EF 5 for the project - no good, add-migration was not recognized. If I upgraded EF to 6, it started to recognize the commands, but I did not want to upgrade yet. So, as soon as I reverted back to EF 5, the problem returned.

The only thing that finally saved me was to do the following:

• close Visual Studio
• delete everything from packages folder
• delete .vs folder in the root of your solution. This folder is usually hidden, you have to turn on Show hidden files and folders setting or check Hidden items in folder View tab
• start Visual Studio and open your solution. It will ask to restore NuGet packages, agree to it.

Now EF commands finally started working again.