How to Fix - An exception was thrown while activating - 53,300 database connection errors

Error: System.Exception: failed InternalServerError: An exception was thrown while activating - 53,300 database connection errors 

Description: 

If you are getting this type of errors on your datadogs -> error sections then how to trouble shoot those? 

To address this, we have implemented the following fix and will continue to monitor its impact.

Solution Implemented:

Search this line in your API code - Ctl+ shift + F = Database.EnsureCreated();

Removed the following line from the API startup configuration: Database.EnsureCreated();

Why This Change Was Required

Purpose of EnsureCreated()

- Intended only for local development

- Suitable for in-memory or demo databases

Behavior

- Checks if the database exists

- Automatically creates the database and tables from the EF model

- Completely bypasses EF Core migrations

The issue is that Database.EnsureCreated() executes on every DbContext initialization, which triggers a database existence/schema check each time. In a high-traffic production API, this results in excessive DB connections and initialization calls.

This behavior is well-documented by EF Core: EnsureCreated() is intended only for local or test scenarios and should not be used in production systems with an existing database.

The change is based on:

- Known EF Core behavior of EnsureCreated()

- The fact that our DB schema is already managed outside the API

Why It Caused Issues in Our Environment

- Executes on every DbContext creation

- Triggers repeated database initialization checks

- Leads to excessive database connections

- Results in large spikes in connection errors and timeouts

Result After Fix

- Database connection usage dropped significantly

- ~53,300 database connection errors stopped

- Security API timeouts no longer observed

Once you applied this change then Create PR and monitor this on your dev environment. Your datadog error count will reduce.