Unrecognized element in connection string

Question

Can't find what is wrong with my connection string:

I get this exception:

System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Configuration system failed to initialize ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Unrecognized element. (D:\\C#\\learncsharp\\Data access\\AsyncSQL\\AsyncSQL\\bin\\Debug\\AsyncSQL.exe.Config line 2)

This is my code:

string connectionString = null;
string MovieDBContext = null;

try
{
    MovieDBContext = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MovieDBContext"].ConnectionString;
    connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ProgrammingInCSharpConnection"].ConnectionString;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine( e.ToString() );
}

App.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <connectionStrings>
        <add name="MovieDBContext"
             connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDB)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\Movies.mdf;Integrated Security=True"
             providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
        <add name="ProgrammingInCSharpConnection" 
             connectionString="Data Source=(localdb)\v11.0;Initial Catalog=ProgrammingInCSharp;"
             providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
    </connectionStrings>
    <startup> 
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5.2" />
    </startup>
</configuration>

What is wrong? And how to get details which element is wrong?

Answer 1

Make sure you have defined the section in the <configSections> element.Change your config as follows,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
   <configSections />
    <connectionStrings>
         <add name="MovieDBContext"
            connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDB)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\Movies.mdf;Integrated Security=True"
            providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"
        />
         <add name="ProgrammingInCSharpConnection" 
              providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" 
              connectionString="Data Source=(localdb)\v11.0;Initial Catalog=ProgrammingInCSharp;"
        />
    </connectionStrings>
</configuration>