Database Connection Initialization Issue

I have a web config file with the connection string to my db in it. The same connection string is used throughout my application.





I authenticate users via my own Login page - this page uses the connection string in the web config file, connects to the db and proceeds to log the user on (a record of access is stored within the db). It then redirects to a second page. This page uses the same connection string from the web config file but on the "open" I get the following error:





Error Message: System.InvalidOperationException: The ConnectionString property has not been initialized. at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()





The dim in the code is always the same:


Dim cnMyConn As New SqlConnection(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("connectionString"))





and the open is:


cnMyConn.Open()





This only happens on my hosted site. When I run locally on my test machine the page is displayed fine???? I have connection pooling set on in the remote web config file.





The web config remotely looks like:


<add key="connectionString" value="Server=???;uid=???t;pwd=???;database=unifuturenet; min Pool Size=3; max Pool Size=5;pooling=True;" />





??? set to appropriate values.





within the code, the connection is set by:


Dim cnMyConn As New SqlConnection(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("connectionString"))








If anyone has any bright ideas, I would appreciate it. It may be worth mentioning that I am running version 1.0.3705 and I have this in the remote web config file:





- <startup>


<supportedRuntime version="v1.0.3705" />


</startup>





Kind regards,


Rob