External Lists not working

Question

Two problems.

1. Despite spending all day learning BCS and Enterprise Features and getting all the different levels of credentials set in Central Administration when I put an External List webpart on my page it does see my External Content Type that I have created however it gives me a login error as it is trying to login in as 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON' so the webpart content doesnt exist.

2. If I try to create an External List from within the browser it doesnt see my External Content Type. If i try to create an External List from within Designer it sees the External Content Type which it also say is good for lists however on creation it just says failed to save with zero information as to why.

help?

Answer 1

As the question is quite general and you didn't provide specific information how you created bcs connection, even what's the external data you're trying to connect to, There might be some possible problems that cause the problem.

1. I'm assuming that BCS service is started and running.
2. Check if the account you're creating the BCS connection (through SPD) is a farm administrator account. If not, search on how to use another account, there is a workaround.
3. What authentication mode are you using for your ECT? 2.1. If it's a BDC Identity make sure that you ran the scripts to enable BDC Identity 2.2. If it's a impersonate Windows Identity - check the Metadata Store Permissions and Object Permissions plus check if Secure Stored Application is set correctly for a user that connects with external data
4. If you're using SQL Server as external data then make sure that BDC Identity or whatever user account you're using for BCS connection is added to database you're trying to access.

If none of above ideas helped, please provide some more information.