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Troubleshooting the Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator

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[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]

This topic includes information to help you resolve issues that you might experience when using Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator. This topic includes information about the following issues:

  • Accelerometer, GPS, or Camera Does Not Work

  • Animations Do Not Appear, or Black Screens Appear

  • Application Created For Another Platform Does Not Work As Expected on Windows Phone

  • Application Deployment Fails with a Disk Full Error Message

  • Application Does Not Start

  • Application Throws a MissingMethodException

  • Blur or Drop Shadow Effect Is Not Visible

  • Cannot Connect to an Intranet Site over a VPN

  • Cannot Connect to an Intranet Site over HTTP

  • Cannot Connect to the Internet

  • Emulator Does Not Start

  • Emulator Does Not Start Inside a Virtual Machine

  • Emulator Performance Is Slow

  • Emulator Stops Supporting Orientation Changes

  • Multi-Touch Is Not Working on a Touch Screen

  • Push Notifications Do Not Work

  • The Current Display Adapter Does Not Meet the Emulator Requirements to Run XNA Framework Applications

  • Video Does Not Work

Accelerometer, GPS, or Camera Do Not Work

These features are not supported in the emulator. You can simulate GPS or accelerometer data in the emulator. For more information, see How to test apps that use location data for Windows Phone 8 and How to test apps that use the accelerometer for Windows Phone 8

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Animations Do Not Appear, or Black Screens Appear

Possible causes for this issue include the following:

  • Your computer does not meet hardware requirements for GPU emulation.

  • Elements that require GPU emulation are not being cached.

Note

If you are running the emulator on Windows Vista, you might encounter driver incompatibilities even if your video card meets the hardware requirements.

For additional information about GPU emulation and requirements, see System requirements for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

If you are running the emulator inside a virtual machine, see Emulator Does Not Start Inside a Virtual Machine.

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Application Created for Another Platform Does Not Work As Expected on Windows Phone

To resolve this issue, ensure that you are using only APIs that are supported on Windows Phone, and that behavior on Windows Phone is the same as the behavior on Windows. For more information, see Porting your app to Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone API reference.

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Application Deployment Fails with a Disk Full Error Message

The virtual disk might be full because of the presence of debug apps. Close and restart the emulator to clear the virtual disk.

Note

If you encounter this error when you are deploying an app to a device, delete one or more apps to add available disk space.

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Application Does Not Start

If the Start Debugging and Start Without Debugging commands are unavailable, or the Windows Phone Device option in the Select Target for Windows Phone projects list is unavailable, you might be trying to start a Windows Phone Library project. The startup project must be based on a different Windows Phone project template. If you are trying to deploy to a Windows Phone device, see How to build an app for Windows Phone 8.

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Application Throws a MissingMethodException

To resolve this issue, ensure that you are using only APIs that are supported on Windows Phone. For information about supported and unsupported APIs, see Windows Phone API reference.

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Blur or Drop Shadow Effect Is Not Visible

BlurEffect and DropShadowEffect are not supported in Windows Phone SDK.

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Cannot Connect to an Intranet Site over a VPN

For information about connecting to an intranet site over VPN, see Proxy support for Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator.

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Cannot Connect to an Intranet Site over HTTP

For information about connecting to an intranet site over HTTP by using a proxy, see Proxy support for Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator.

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Cannot Connect to the Internet

Verify that the issue is specific to the emulator rather than the host computer.

  • Verify that you have network connectivity on the host computer.

  • Verify that the Internet can be accessed by opening a non-cached Web page from the host computer, and then open the same page by using Internet Explorer on the emulator.

If the issue is specific to the emulator, and you are using Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD), see Proxy support for Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator. If the issue is still unresolved, you may be able to find more specific help in the Windows Phone Community Forums.

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Emulator Does Not Start

Possible causes for the emulator failing to start include the following:

  • The development computer does not meet minimum hardware requirements for RAM.

    To verify that your development computer meets the minimum hardware requirements for RAM, see System requirements for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

  • Another virtual machine (VM) is running.

    If another VM is running, you will typically see a message that indicates this. The following procedure describes how to make sure that there is no other VM running.

To verify that there is no other VM running

  1. Verify that Windows XP Mode virtualization is not running.

  2. Verify that VPC.EXE is not running in Task Manager.

  3. Try to restart the emulator.

    If the emulator still fails to start, verify that Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) service is running. The emulator requires the VMM service. To verify that the VMM service is running, type the following at a command prompt:

    sc query vmm

    The returned state must be running. If the VMM service is not running, there might be a conflict with another VM. You must identify the VM before you can resolve the issue.

  4. Close all VM instances running on the computer, wait several minutes, and then restart the emulator.

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Emulator Does Not Start Inside a Virtual Machine

Running the emulator inside a VM is not supported in Windows Phone SDK.

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Emulator Performance Is Slow

Possible causes for slow performance in the emulator include the following:

If you are running the emulator inside a VM, see Emulator Does Not Start Inside a Virtual Machine.

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Emulator Stops Supporting Orientation Changes

If you enable your computer's keyboard while using the emulator, the emulator will not support orientation changes. Disable the computer's keyboard, and the emulator will support orientation changes again. For more information, see How to use the computer keyboard with the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

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Multi-Touch Is Not Working on a Touch Screen

Make sure that the latest drivers are installed on the system. If this does not resolve the issue, the problem might be specific to the hardware. You might be able to find more specific help in the Windows Phone Windows Phone Community Forums.

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Push Notifications Do Not Work

Possible causes for this issue include the following:

  • Windows Phone Emulator is not fully started.

  • A SOCKS proxy must be configured.

The push client service on Windows Phone Emulator must be ready before you can use push notification APIs. Push client service on the emulator takes two minutes to activate after you start the emulator, starting from when the Start screen first appears.

Note

The service may start faster if you wait until the Start screen appears, and then deploy the app again without closing the emulator.

If the emulator host computer is behind a proxy, the SOCKS proxy must be configured on the development computer. To configure the SOCKS proxy on Windows Phone Emulator, see Proxy support for Windows Phone OS 7.1 Emulator.

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The Current Display Adapter Does Not Meet the Emulator Requirements to Run XNA Framework Applications

When you run an XNA Framework app in Windows Phone Emulator, you might receive the following message: The current display adapter does not meet the emulator requirements to run XNA Framework applications. Make sure your computer meets the minimum hardware requirements. For more information, see the section XNA Framework apps in the topic System requirements for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

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Video Does Not Work

Possible causes for this issue include the following:

  • The video is not encoded in a supported video format (WMV simple, main, and advanced profiles).

  • Your computer does not meet hardware requirements for GPU emulation.

    Video requires GPU emulation. For additional information about GPU emulation and requirements, see System requirements for the emulator for Windows Phone 8.

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See Also

Other Resources

Windows Phone Emulator for Windows Phone 8