Windows Phone 8 Error - Installation of the application failed

Question

I am working on a Windows Phone 8 project where we are deploying it as a company app through HockeyApp. I have a .PFX file generated from our Symantec cert and the correct .aetx file installed on the device.

If I take the .XAP file I intend to deploy and copy it somewhere separate and test it by deploying it using the XapDeploy.exe tool, it will install silently and work properly. Then I use the XapSignTool to sign the .XAP against the .PFX successfully ("XapSignTool Success: Successfully signed = C:\xxx").

When I attempt to test this recently signed XAP with the XapDeploy tool I will get the error "Error - Installation of the application failed. Run time error has occurred. Fix the Capabilities in the WMAppManifest.xml file." If deploy this file with HockeyApp the install will silently fail on the device and appear to just sit there after download.

Does anybody know what could be causing this after code signing?

Answer 1

I was able to resolve my issue. First, a codesigned XAP will not run in the emulator unless you have already installed the AET file on that current running version of the emulator. So, it was incorrect for me to to expect not to see a failure after the XAP was signed.

I then encountered some other issues when deploying to my device. This was resolved by making sure that the Publisher ID GUID was the same as the Publisher ID used for the Symantec cert.

Also, as opposed to using the XapSigningTool directly I ended up using the PowerShell script that runs both the MDILXAPCompile and signs the XAP in a single step (making the post-build step easy to write). The ps script BuildMDILXap.ps1 is found under \Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v8.0\Tools\MDILXAPCompile\ and ships with the SDK apparently.