I’m working on a .NET project and need to connect my application to a MySQL database using Entity Framework. I’ve been searching online but haven’t found clear documentation or tutorials that explain the setup process properly.
I’m particularly confused about which NuGet packages I need to install and how to configure the connection string correctly. Also wondering if there are any specific considerations or limitations when using EF with MySQL compared to SQL Server.
Has anyone successfully implemented this combination? What steps did you follow to get it working? Any common pitfalls I should be aware of during the setup process?
Did this migration six months back - the docs are a mess, scattered everywhere. Here’s what no one tells you upfront: you MUST specify the server version explicitly in your DbContext config or you’ll get weird startup errors that make no sense. I tried both connectors but ended up with Pomelo. Oracle’s connector was painfully slow with big datasets. Biggest gotcha that killed hours of my time: MySQL’s transaction isolation works totally different from SQL Server. If you’re running concurrent ops, expect weird results. Test your queries hard because MySQL’s optimizer handles joins completely different. Some EF Core stuff doesn’t play nice either - certain LINQ operations won’t translate to MySQL syntax, so you’ll drop to raw SQL more than you’d like.
Been using EF with MySQL for two years - the biggest pain isn’t setup, it’s migrations. You’ll need Pomelo or Oracle’s connector, but here’s what tripped me up: AUTO_INCREMENT works totally different from SQL Server’s IDENTITY. Learn the key generation strategies first or you’ll be rebuilding tables. Connection pooling matters way more with MySQL. Had to tweak my connection string with specific pool settings for production. Charset issues are legit too if you handle international characters. Here’s the kicker - MySQL’s case sensitivity will break your app when moving from dev to prod if they’re configured differently. Learned that one the hard way.
the setup’s actually not bad once you figure it out. I used Oracle’s MySQL connector instead of Pomelo - worked great for my project. just make sure your connection string in appsettings.json is formatted right since MySQL syntax differs from SQL Server. Watch out for datetime fields too - MySQL handles them weird, so double-check your model mappings.
the connection string was the biggest pain point for me. MySQL uses different parameters than SQL Server - make sure you add AllowUserVariables=true for dynamic queries or you’ll hit weird errors. also verify your MySQL version supports what you’re doing since some EF Core features need newer versions.
Had the same issue switching from SQL Server to MySQL in .NET. Use Pomelo.EntityFrameworkCore.MySql - it’s way more efficient than the official connector. Install it with Install-Package Pomelo.EntityFrameworkCore.MySql in Package Manager Console. For your connection string, make sure you set the server version right in DbContext: UseMySql(connectionString, ServerVersion.AutoDetect(connectionString)). Watch out for case-sensitive table names on Linux - keep your entity naming consistent or you’ll run into problems. MySQL handles bulk operations differently than SQL Server, so you might need to tweak your batch sizes during migrations. Also double-check your charset settings to avoid encoding headaches.