Reputation: 1938

Unable to Activate Windows Store App

I installed a retail version of Windows 8 Pro. I downloaded and installed Visual Studio Express 2012. I asked for and received a developers certificate. Then I tried to create a hello world app.

From there I get a "Unable to Activate Windows Store App" message box when I try to debug the app. Most commentary on the web says delete build directories. This didn't work for me

Does anyone have a solution for how to fix this and debug my app?

Upvotes: 46

Answers (29)

Troy M

Reputation: 1

I was getting the same error when remotely debugging on an XBox, but not when debugging locally. I tried deleting the bin folder, restarting the Xbox and PC, reinstalling VS2022, and deleting the local repo and cloning again. The only fix that worked for me was logging in to my account on the Xbox.

Upvotes: 0

Yecats

Reputation: 1815

For me, the fix was a combination of two of these answers -

Renew the developer license (How to get a developer license in Windows 8)
And deleting the build directories (though I deleted more then the screenshot depicted) Delete the Build directories

Upvotes: 0

Luzan Baral

Reputation: 3698

This sort of problems are common with Windows 8 Visual Studio. Such errors encounters when your developer license of Visual Studio has expired so you may want to renew or get a new developer license here's how you get that. How to get a developer license in Windows 8

And similar problem may also encounter with E_Fail issues here's how to solve Unable to activate Windows Store app E_Fail Issue

Upvotes: 0

laca

Reputation: 1

Playing with this issue for 3 days, tried every suggestions, nothing works. Until now!!!

The solution was this for me:

renew developer licence
build and deploy solution in Release mode (after this step it still not worked, but VS installed some packages in rpi)
start VS remote debugger with default account (http://:8080/#Debug%20settings)
configure remote device with Universal authentication mode (VS2017 -> Project settings -> debug -> target device: remote machine, authentication mode: Universal (unencrypted protocol))

Upvotes: 0

Rajeshkumar Kandhasamy

Reputation: 6461

Because of Two things i resolved this issue.

Basically, we just need to delete the bin\Debug and bld\Debug folders in our projects. Those contents will be regenerated by Visual Studio when you rebuild project.
Just Restart the Visual Studio. And Clean Build and Rebuild the solution and RUN it.

Upvotes: 0

rdth_uk

Reputation: 1

I changed configuration (in Build, Config Manager and UWP, Debug Pane) to Release, and also platform to x86. The exception was then resolved.

I then reverted back to Debug, not Release, and the exception is only resolved in x86 mode. I have no idea why..

Upvotes: 0

Andy Joiner

Reputation: 6581

As suggested by @Iman in a comment, in the UWP project settings, enable "Compile with .NET Native tool chain".

(After trying just about every answer in this question)

Upvotes: 0

Junofall

Reputation: 1

I was getting this error and nothing else worked so I had to dissect my program. Turns out I referenced a StaticResource in my App.xaml that didn't exist.

Seems like a silly error but you'd also think Visual Studio would pick up on something like that and throw a different error so if nothing else works, double check your application resources.

Upvotes: 0

Arunkumar Ramakrishnan

Reputation: 1

Any existing error in the code can also cause this issue. Make sure your previous version of the code is working fine. Compare the difference and make sure all looks good.

Upvotes: 0

Jennifer Marsman - MSFT

Reputation: 5225

This happened to me once too, but the deleting build directories advice fixed it. Specifically, you just need to delete the bin\Debug and bld\Debug folders in your projects. Their contents will be regenerated by Visual Studio when you rebuild. I assume that this is only one project since it's a Hello World app; otherwise I would ask if you deleted build directories from all projects in your solution.

You can also try running "Clean Solution" from the BUILD menu in Visual Studio.

I'm sorry...it's horrible if this is happening on a clean install as you describe.

Upvotes: 52

M Chase

Reputation: 11

Tried so many of the above fixes. Nothing worked (deleting bin, obj dirs, editing the manifest, editing the registry, changing package name, etc, etc.) My Avast antivirus software was running and so I uninstalled it completely. That was it. App now runs fine.

Upvotes: 1

Henry Wilson

Reputation: 3351

I've been having this problem a lot with a UWP Windows 10 app on Visual Studio 2019...for me the reliable workaround is to bump the Build number in the Package.appxmanifest file (Packaging tab). It's a huge pain...really hope Microsoft will sort this out soon

Upvotes: 0

Seva Alekseyev

Reputation: 61386

In my case, the C# UWP app had a native library which failed in the application startup code, and called exit(1). The symptoms were identical to those in the question, though. Visual Studio would throw a message:

Unable to activate Windows Store app '88888888-6666-5555-4444-111111111111_abcdefgh!App'. The Acme.exe process started, but the activation request failed with error 'Operation not supported. Unknown error: 0x80040905'.

In addition, there was a message in the UWP app Windows log under Microsoft\Windows\Apps\Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational: event ID 5961, message:

Activation for 88888888-6666-5555-4444-111111111111_abcdefgh!App failed. Error code: Unknown HResult Error code: 0x80040905. Activation phase: COM App activation

Internally, the C# part would try to construct a native class instance from the App constructor, the native class constructor would encounter an unrecoverable error and bail. From the UWP subsystem standpoint, and from the debugger standpoint, though, this looked as something distinct from the mere programmatic exit. I'll leave this answer here, 'cause I've spent some time chasing various UWP failure scenarios instead of running under a native debugger.

I've replaced the exit() call with throw ref new Exception(E_INVALIDARG). At least this way the error manifests in the managed debugger, and the message is descriptive.

Upvotes: 0

Tobias

Reputation: 25

Increasing the revision number of the package worked for me

Upvotes: 1

Sansei

Reputation: 93

Making a new certificate works for me. For this, go to Package.manifest->Packaging, and follow the Choose certificate.... Click on Configure certificate and select Create test certificate. Give it a name and press OK.

Upvotes: 1

Mohsen

Reputation: 51

For me changing the Package Name in Package.appxmanifest fixed the problem

Upvotes: 0

Dave Friedel

Reputation: 1088

This gift was courtesy of Microsoft's automatic updates for VS2015 which was one of the 2 culprits:

KB3022398 KB3165756

It also broke SourceTree and other apps that draw the GUI - making an outline of the app but not drawing the contents.

Upvotes: 0

MovGP0

Reputation: 7783

this can happen when the application signing key (.pfx file) is missing.

Try the following:

Open the Package.appxmanifest file in Visual Studio
Go to the register "Packaging"
Select [Choose Certificate…]
- Select the test certificate using [Configure Certificate…] [From File…], or create a new one using [Configure Certificate…] [Test Certificate…]
- When using a test certificate, ensure that it is in the .gitignore file. There should be an entry like !**\*_TemporaryKey.pfx to include the key in Git.
  - Note: The certificate for release build should only be available to the build server and not included in Git.
Rebuild the project

Upvotes: 2

Jnr

Reputation: 1684

For those who get a similar error but who are searching for a solution while debugging an IOT background app on a local machine specifically - you can find it here.

Using the search term "unable to activate windows store app the activation request failed with error" brought me here.

Upvotes: 0

Shweta Goyal

Reputation: 94

This error generally comes when you try to deploy in debug mode.

I would suggest, deploy the app first in release mode and then try in debug mode.

This worked for me.

Upvotes: 1

Rami Sarieddine

Reputation: 5432

The issue might be caused because NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.

And the solution in this case would be to Remove the App.config

Upvotes: 1

RCairns

Reputation: 155

This has happened to me in the past and I have always found that deleting the build directories resolves it.

However this time this is not working for me. I have tried - Rebooting - Deleting build directories - Running Build | Clean Solution in VS - Renewing Developer Account

The only thing that will work for me is changing my Package name under the Package.appxmanifest

However I am not overly happy with this as a solution. I will keep investigating.

Upvotes: 1

Hari

Reputation: 21

I had a similar problem, and the cause was creating the project on a USB thumb drive. Creating a project on a normal hard drive volume works.

Upvotes: 2

Nimit Johri

Reputation: 61

This can be solved by Uninstalling the app from the start screen then again building the app from Visual Studio.

Upvotes: 4

user3714810

Reputation: 127

NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.

Solution:

Remove the App.config

and build again

Upvotes: 0

Harri

Reputation: 838

For me the problem was that I created the app on a TrueCrypt mounted virtual drive and when I moved the project files to a normal drive then everything worked just fine. Weird.

Upvotes: 8

Niels Gjeding Olsen

Reputation: 287

For me a RESTART of pc solved this error message.

Upvotes: 8

Dharmendar Kumar 'DK'

Reputation: 2102

I was getting the exact same error. In my case the culprit was a NuGet package. It had added an app.config file to the project and it was confusing VS. I removed the app.config file and it solved my issue.

I got the solution at Iris Classon's site.

Upvotes: 5

Drealmer

Reputation: 5686

I ran into the same issue, and tried rebuilding, cleaning, deleting temp files, rebooting the computer, etc... and nothing helped.

Then finally I made a release build then went back to debug. And now it works.

I have no idea what happened, nor if that really helped, but it's worth a try.

Upvotes: 21

Unable to Activate Windows Store App

Answers (29)

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