Where could a .netcore 3.1 app be getting appsettings.json?

Question

So I have been doing my head in trying to figure out why my application all of a sudden stopped talking to my database. I finally figured out that the Connection String was incorrect but no matter how many times I change the appsettings.json the project will not pick it up.

So i put some breakpoints in the startup.cs to see the connection string that was being used. I have no idea where it was getting this from, i had assumed appsetting.json.

So I deleted my appsetting.json (and appsetting.Development.json) and still the program loads with the incorrect connection string.

When I load this project on another computer it works just fine so I dont think the project is broken as such. So over to you brains trust where could it be getting this from.

Here are some code snipits:

startup.cs

        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.Configure<CookiePolicyOptions>(options =>
            {
                // This lambda determines whether user consent for non-essential cookies is needed for a given request.
                options.CheckConsentNeeded = context => true;
                options.MinimumSameSitePolicy = SameSiteMode.None;
            });

            services.AddDbContext<TerritoryContext>(options =>
                options.UseSqlServer(
                    Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));
            

            services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
                options.UseSqlServer(
                    Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")));

            services.AddDefaultIdentity<ApplicationUser>().AddRoles<IdentityRole>()
                .AddEntityFrameworkStores<ApplicationDbContext>().AddDefaultUI();

            services.AddMvc(option => option.EnableEndpointRouting = false)
                .SetCompatibilityVersion(CompatibilityVersion.Version_3_0);

            services.Configure<IdentityOptions>(options =>
            {
                // Default Lockout settings.
                options.Lockout.DefaultLockoutTimeSpan = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30);
                options.Lockout.MaxFailedAccessAttempts = 5;
                options.Lockout.AllowedForNewUsers = true;
            });
            services.AddAntiforgery(o => o.HeaderName = "XSRF-TOKEN");

            services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
            {
                options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
                options.MimeTypes = ResponseCompressionDefaults.MimeTypes.Concat(new[] { "text/json" });
            });

            services.Configure<BrotliCompressionProviderOptions>(options =>
            {
                options.Level = CompressionLevel.Optimal;
            });

            services.AddSwaggerGen(c => { c.SwaggerDoc("v1", new Microsoft.OpenApi.Models.OpenApiInfo { Title = "API Docs", Version = "v1" }); });
            services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry();

        }

program.cs

    public static class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            CreateWebHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
        }

        public static IWebHostBuilder CreateWebHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
            WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                .UseStartup<Startup>();
    }

Answer 1

OK so apparently I had enabled local secrets sometime ago and didn't know that I did. Once I fixed that the appsettings worked like a charm.