ASP.net why are these queries not executing?

Question

In my code neither of these queries appear to be running. The debug label is printing as "end" so it is executing something inside that code block, just appears it doesn't like the queries?

// Check input is all valid
if (Page.IsValid)
{
    debug.Text = "begin";

    using (SqlConnection cn = new SqlConnection(
       ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["LocalSqlServer"].ToString()))
    {

        // Verify that username is unique
        using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(
           "UPDATE tblSiteSettings SET isActive = 0", cn))
        {
            cn.Open();
            cn.Close();
        }

        using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(
           "INSERT INTO tblSiteSettings (allowProductRatings, allowComments, " + 
           "siteName, settingDate, isActive) VALUES (@allowRatings, " +
           "@allowcomments, @siteName, getDate(), 1)", cn))
        {
            cmd.Parameters.Add("@allowRatings", SqlDbType.Bit).Value = 1;
            cmd.Parameters.Add("@allowcomments", SqlDbType.Bit).Value = 1;
            cmd.Parameters.Add("@siteName", SqlDbType.VarChar, 128).Value = "lol";
            cn.Open();
            cn.Close();
        }
        debug.Text = "end";
    }   
}

A few questions:

1. Why are they not executing?
2. In classic ASP for inserts, updates and deletes I would use con.Execute(query) as supposed to using a recordset, am I running my update statement correctly here?
3. Is my design of the queries good, or should I be executing them in a different manner?

Answer 1

Your are missing

cmd.ExecuteScalar();

You may also reuse you SqlConnection, you can open the connection right after the using (SqlConnection cn = new Sql... statement. You don't have to close the connection when the SqlConnection is in a using block, accordning to the documentation the connection is closed when you are leaving the using block.

Answer 2

The reasn it's not doing anything is because you're not actually executing the queries. What you need to do is:

// Verify that username is unique
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("UPDATE tblSiteSettings SET isActive = 0", cn))
{
    cn.Open();
    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
    cn.Close();
}

using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("INSERT INTO tblSiteSettings (allowProductRatings, allowComments, siteName, settingDate, isActive) VALUES (@allowRatings, @allowcomments, @siteName, getDate(), 1)", cn))
{
    cmd.Parameters.Add("@allowRatings", SqlDbType.Bit).Value = 1;
    cmd.Parameters.Add("@allowcomments", SqlDbType.Bit).Value = 1;
    cmd.Parameters.Add("@siteName", SqlDbType.VarChar, 128).Value = "lol";
    cn.Open();
    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
    cn.Close();
}

It's the line cmd.ExecuteNoneQuery(); that you're missing. There are various different Execute methods exposed by the SqlCommand class, the most commonly used are:

• ExecuteNonQuery: Executes a query and returns no result from the query (it does return the rows affected as its return value however)
• ExecuteScalar: Executes a query and returns the value in the first column of the first row
• ExecuteReader: Executes a query and returns the data to a SqlDataReader