Sequence contains no elements?

I'm currently using a single query in two places to get a row from a database.

BlogPost post = (from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == ID select p).Single(); 

The query is fine when retrieving the row to put data in to the text boxes, but it returns an error "Sequence contains no elements" when used to retrieve the row in order to edit it and put it back in to the database. I can't understand why it might find an appropriate row in one instance but not another.

(Using ASP.NET MVC and LINQ)

8 Answers

From "Fixing LINQ Error: Sequence contains no elements":

When you get the LINQ error "Sequence contains no elements", this is usually because you are using the First() or Single() command rather than FirstOrDefault() and SingleOrDefault().

This can also be caused by the following commands:

• FirstAsync()
• SingleAsync()
• Last()
• LastAsync()
• Max()
• Min()
• Average()
• Aggregate()

Please use

.FirstOrDefault() 

because if in the first row of the result there is no info this instruction goes to the default info.

Well, what is ID here? In particular, is it a local variable? There are some scope / capture issues, which mean that it may be desirable to use a second variable copy, just for the query:

var id = ID; BlogPost post = (from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == id select p).Single(); 

Also; if this is LINQ-to-SQL, then in the current version you get a slightly better behaviour if you use the form:

var id = ID; BlogPost post = dc.BlogPosts.Single(p => p.BlogPostID == id); 

In addition to everything else that has been said, you can call DefaultIfEmpty() before you call Single(). This will ensure that your sequence contains something and thereby averts the InvalidOperationException "Sequence contains no elements". For example:

BlogPost post = (from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == ID select p).DefaultIfEmpty().Single(); 

This will solve the problem,

var blogPosts = (from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == ID select p); if(blogPosts.Any()) { var post = post.Single(); } 

I had a similar situation on a function that calculates the average.

Example:

ws.Cells[lastRow, startingmonths].Value = lstMediaValues.Average(); 

Case Solved:

ws.Cells[lastRow, startingmonths].Value = lstMediaValues.Count == 0 ? 0 : lstMediaValues.Average(); 

Reason for error:

1. The query from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == ID select p returns a sequence.

2. Single() tries to retrieve an element from the sequence returned in step1.

3. As per the exception - The sequence returned in step1 contains no elements.

4. Single() tries to retrieve an element from the sequence returned in step1 which contains no elements.

5. Since Single() is not able to fetch a single element from the sequence returned in step1, it throws an error.

Fix:

Make sure the query (from p in dc.BlogPosts where p.BlogPostID == ID select p)

returns a sequence with at least one element.

please check your connection string, maybe it wrong. It was my case.