The Business Data Connectivity Metadata Store is currently unavailable

BDC, Everybody aware as it was there in MOSS 2007 / SharePoint 2007 but now we have BCS – Business connectivity services, one of the important features in SharePoint 2010. Whenever we need to bring external content / connect to external content types then BCS comes into picture. Today’s article is also based on one of the BCS issue which I came across and resolved it with proper analysis and troubleshooting.

Problem description:

One of our users trying to connect to ‘External content types’ by means of SharePoint Designer and facing the following error.

Error message - 1:

The Business Data Connectivity Metadata Store is currently unavailable.

Error message - 2:

There is no business data connectivity service associated with the current web context.

We haven't used the BCS before so this is the first time we came across this error so when I started exploring our farm then I noticed that one of mandatory requirement to make this functionality working is – Service Application.

Point #1: Make sure you have the BCS service application (SA) exists.

So we have created the BCS SA and check the results but same problem i.e. same error message.

Point #2: Make sure you associate this service application with the respective web applications on which you have the site collections.

How to do this? – Here are the details.

1.   Open the Central Administration

2.   Application management

3.   Service applications

4.   Configure service application associations

5.   Make sure its listed under ‘application proxies’

Point #3: BCS service application has a dependency on managed metadata so make sure the managed metadata service application already exist in your environment. If it’s not then please create it.

Point #4: Make the account that you have used for creating the BCS service application has necessary permissions on the web application database.

Point #5: Make sure the Business connectivity service is in started mode via Services on Server.

How to check this? – Here are the details.

1.   Open the central Administration

2.   System Settings

3.   Servers

4.   Manage services on Servers.

5.   Check the respective service i.e. BCS and start it if it’s in stopped status.

That’s it – the issue should be resolved now after following the above recommendations.

If you find a different solution, please report it as a comment to this post. Be sure to double-verify it: undo your solution and verify that the problem comes back, then redo it and verify that the problem goes away.