UWP App Won't Start

Question

I have a UWP app. I'm using Visual Studio 2017 15.4.1. The UWP app is a store app and has been deployed to the Microsoft Store. My app was working fine in the store, and it was also working fine when I hit play in Visual Studio. Then recently, an isolated storage issue started occurring so I went in to the app in "Apps & Features" and hit Advanced Options -> Reset. Somehow this has fried my app installation on my machine. Our app no longer shows up as an installed app, and when I try to install the app from the store, I get an error with a code of 0x80073CF9. So, I can't uninstall, or reinstall on my machine. I've tried running sfc /scannow etc. to find out what's wrong, but nothing seems to help.

This wouldn't even worry me too much, but I can't even develop right now because when I try to run the app from Visual Studio, I get this error:

In order to debug this project, you must consume it from a Windows Store app project that creates a package and is marked as the Startup Project

I'm getting this error in the output window from the build

4>DEP0700: Registration of the app failed. [0x80073CF9] Another user has already installed an unpackaged version of this app. The current user cannot replace this with a packaged version. The conflicting package is [APP NAME] and it was published by CN=[Publisher].

What did I do wrong?

Carbuncle

Give this a shot: Right-click on your UWP project in VS and click Properties. Then go to the Debug tab and check the box "Uninstall and then re-install my package..." Now give it a whirl. – Vmail

Nah. No difference. – Carbuncle

I've had issues like this before and I was able to fix my environment by killing the app from powershell. Take a look at this link (scroll down to Option 3) tenforums.com/tutorials/4689-uninstall-apps-windows-10-a.html – Vmail

I tried calling Get-AppxPackage in power shell, and our app didn't show up there. – Carbuncle

I'm completely convinced that Windows has corrupted the installation of our app. – Carbuncle

What app is this? Is it in the store now? – Vmail

It's hidden from the public. – Carbuncle

That's fine. Do you have another user on your computer? If you do, sign in as that user and make sure they've uninstalled the app. – Vmail

Have you tried the StoreApp TroubleShooting? Settings > Security and Updates > TroubleShooting > Windows Store Apps. – Clapperclaw

Have you tried Get-appxpackage -allusers *<appname>* | Remove-AppxPackage ? The allusers option is important here. You can also try to manually remove the content of the application cache folder in C:\Users\<your name>\AppData\Local\Packages\<your app id>. If you have one locked file here, the whole deployment will fail. – Hoatzin

Champion! The app had gotten installed with a different username somehow and therefore I wasn't able to see it or uninstall it, and VS was not able to either. When I ran "Get-appxpackage -allusers", it appeared in the list. When I ran "Get-appxpackage -allusers <appname> | Remove-AppxPackage", the package was removed and then I was able to run my app from Visual Studio. @Vincent, please propose this as the answer. – Carbuncle

Answer 1

You can use Get-appxpackage -allusers *<appname>* | Remove-AppxPackage

The allusers option is important here.

You can also try to manually remove the content of the application cache folder in C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Packages\. If you have one locked file here, the whole deployment will fail.

Hoatzin

Note the other important part is that Get-appxpackage -allusers will list all installed apps for all users which was the key to finding the app in my system. – Carbuncle

Also: * Be sure to run powershell as administrator * note that the appname might look like a guid. I found the following command useful for reviewing all the installed apps: Get-appxpackage -allusers | select name, packagefullname | sort name – Persas