Deploy An C# Website With A Linq To Sql Component?

I have a .NET 3.5 web application that I recently added some Linq to Sql functionality to -- a dbml file, etc. Locally, it works fine.

However, when I try to deploy it, I get a null reference exception, apparently when it's trying to call the constructor for the context object.

To add to the complexity, I use a Web Deployment Project which compiles it into a single DLL. I assumed the Linq to Sql stuff would get compiled along with everything else. However, now I'm thinking that I need to move the dbml file up along with the DLL.

I had the dbml file in the App_Code directory, so I tried recreating that directory structure on the remote server. But .NET will not let me have an App_Code directory on a precompiled application. So I just moved the dbml file into the root directory -- but I still get the error.

Here's the stack trace for the error I'm getting:

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
codeCS.SarcStateDataDataContext..ctor() +28
DB_Interface.SarcStateDataDB..ctor() +26
eSARC_Basic..ctor() +56

[code]....

I don't send it a connection string or connection object, because both the local and deployed versions of the program use the same remote database. But could that be the problem? The local application has access to the connection string in the dbml file, but the deployed application doesn't?