This app failed to launch because of an issue with its license

Question

I'm happily in the middle of coding then I try to launch my app in debug mode but I get this error message.

Unable to activate Windows Store app

This app failed to launch because of an issue with its license

The app was launching fine a few minutes earlier so this came as a surprise. I tried restarting Visual Studio but doing so did not help.

I got the annoying "renew your developer license" dialog yesterday I think. It had renewed without issue.

How do I make this error message go away so i can debug my app?

Answer 1

go to BUILD-->Clean Solution and click and after its has been cleaned again go to BUILD-->Rebuild Solution. After it has successfully rebuilt your solution just deploy it(Ctrl+F5). This solved the problem for me.

Answer 2

I've had this issue a few times now, most of the time deleting the Bin and Obj folders will clear the issue up (These folders are automatically generated during a project build so don't worry about deleting them)

I have found whilst debugging on a remote device (A tablet or phone) that Deleting these folders doesn't solve the problem though - in this case the best solution I have found is just to do a restart on the device I was remote debugging to.

Simple but it works!

Answer 3

I see doing stuff with the bin and obj folders appears to be the accepted answer to this.

I fixed this issue by selecting the 'Uninstall and then re-install my package. All information about the application state is deleted.' check box under the Debug tab of the project properties. You can uncheck it once you've done it once for all future builds.

I haven't had any issue with this solution. Simple fix and you don't have to worry about someone doing something to folders that could cause bigger issues.

http://daxdude.blogspot.com/2013/04/c-error-unable-to-activate-windows.html

Answer 4

I just cleaned my solution and re-started Visual Studio. That did the trick for me - and didn't involve hunting around for files to delete, so you might want to try that first.

Answer 5

I just uninstalled the existing version of the app from the start screen, and then launched the app again from Visual Studio and it is launched just fine.

I think the reason behind this is because of renewing the license of Visual Studio and trying to launch an app that was installed when the previous license was active.

Answer 6

I recently had a similar issue. In my case I had to uninstall the re-install the app to get it working.

Hope this helps someone. Also, to find out further detail about why it failed, you can checkout the event logs:

Event Viewer > Applications and Services logs > Microsoft > Windows > Aps > Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational

There might be some more detail in there. In my case it was logged as an error event which said the app could not be launched because of a temporary issue with its license.

Answer 7

Well, I got it working by deleting the main project's 'bin' and 'obj' folders. Cleaning and Rebuilding wasn't enough. Hope this answer saves someone else the few minutes of confusion I just experienced.