EF 4.1 exception "The provider did not return a ProviderManifestToken string"
This can happen sometimes when you place the connection string within the app.config of the wrong project in Visual Studio.
For example, I got this problem in EF 4.1 (the released version) project + WCF Data Service project and I noticed that I didn't have a connection string specified in the Data Services Project, where it was being used.