title: Azure: Web.config Connection String' argument cannot be null or empty
body: <p>When I try to publish an azure app I get this error.
  C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v14.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(4283,5): Error : The 'ibasis_Data_Transfer.mytestdbEntities-Web.config Connection String' argument cannot be null or empty.</p>
  
  <p>My App.Config has a connection string. e.g.</p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;add name="mytestdbEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/mytestappModel.csdl|res://*/mytestappModel.ssdl|res://*/mytestappModel.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string=&amp;quot;data source=tcp:srv-mytestapp-home.database.windows.net,1433;initial catalog=mytestdb;persist security info=True;user id=blabla;password=blabla;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework&amp;quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Don't know where to start looking for solution as error not mentioned on web anywhere in relation to azure.</p>
  
  <p><div class="snippet" data-lang="js" data-hide="false">
  <div class="snippet-code">
  <pre class="snippet-code-html lang-html prettyprint-override"><code>ibasis - Web Deploy.pubxml
  
  &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?&gt;
  &lt;!--
  This file is used by the publish/package process of your Web project. You can customize the behavior of this process
  by editing this MSBuild file. In order to learn more about this please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=208121. 
  --&gt;
  &lt;Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"&gt;
    &lt;PropertyGroup&gt;
      &lt;WebPublishMethod&gt;MSDeploy&lt;/WebPublishMethod&gt;
      &lt;PublishProvider&gt;AzureWebSite&lt;/PublishProvider&gt;
      &lt;LastUsedBuildConfiguration&gt;Release&lt;/LastUsedBuildConfiguration&gt;
      &lt;LastUsedPlatform&gt;Any CPU&lt;/LastUsedPlatform&gt;
      &lt;SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish&gt;http://ibasis.azurewebsites.net&lt;/SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish&gt;
      &lt;LaunchSiteAfterPublish&gt;False&lt;/LaunchSiteAfterPublish&gt;
      &lt;MSDeployServiceURL&gt;ibasis.scm.azurewebsites.net:443&lt;/MSDeployServiceURL&gt;
      &lt;DeployIisAppPath&gt;ibasis&lt;/DeployIisAppPath&gt;
      &lt;SkipExtraFilesOnServer&gt;True&lt;/SkipExtraFilesOnServer&gt;
      &lt;MSDeployPublishMethod&gt;WMSVC&lt;/MSDeployPublishMethod&gt;
      &lt;UserName&gt;$ibasis&lt;/UserName&gt;
      &lt;_SavePWD&gt;True&lt;/_SavePWD&gt;
      &lt;_DestinationType&gt;AzureWebSite&lt;/_DestinationType&gt;
      &lt;PublishDatabaseSettings&gt;
        &lt;Objects xmlns=""&gt;
          &lt;ObjectGroup Name="ibasis_Data_Transfer.ibasisLiveEntities" Order="1" Enabled="False"&gt;
            &lt;Destination Path="" /&gt;
            &lt;Object Type="DbCodeFirst"&gt;
              &lt;Source Path="DBContext" DbContext="ibasis_Data_Transfer.ibasisLiveEntities, ibasis-Data-Transfer" /&gt;
            &lt;/Object&gt;
          &lt;/ObjectGroup&gt;
        &lt;/Objects&gt;
      &lt;/PublishDatabaseSettings&gt;
    &lt;/PropertyGroup&gt;
    &lt;ItemGroup&gt;
      &lt;MSDeployParameterValue Include="$(DeployParameterPrefix)ibasis_Data_Transfer.ibasisLiveEntities-Web.config Connection String" /&gt;
    &lt;/ItemGroup&gt;
    &lt;ItemGroup&gt;
      &lt;_ConnectionStringsToInsert Include="ibasis_Data_Transfer.ibasisLiveEntities" /&gt;
    &lt;/ItemGroup&gt;
  &lt;/Project&gt;</code></pre>
  </div>
  </div>
  </p>
  
  <p>Update: As  far as i can tell the VS publishing of simple Apps to Azure with 'database first'  type entity(edmx) files is  not possible.</p>
  
  <p>The auto generated ....Web Deploy.pubxml gets filled with incompatible junk like   and "DeployParameterPrefix" which can't be removed and break the build.</p>
  
  <p>I only wanted to  call simple Stored Procedure e.g. </p>
  
  <pre><code> myappLiveEntities db = new myappLiveEntities();
   db.DoSomeDatabaseWork();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Will do  it "old school" method.</p>