MAUI and Xamarin SDK Troubleshooting

Important

Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.

Learn more about support timelines and alternatives.

• Android
• iOS
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• React Native
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• Windows
• MAUI/Xamarin

Collecting verbose logs

To get instructions on how to adjust the log level to VERBOSE, refer to Other APIs section.
You can find the verbose logs in the Debug > Windows > Output window.

Issues during setup

1. For a Xamarin.Forms app, make sure the packages are installed in all the projects that reference any libraries. Otherwise you'll see errors.
2. If you see this error when building for Xamarin.iOS: MTOUCH: Error MT3001: Could not AOT the assembly 'obj/**/Build/Microsoft.AppCenter.**.iOS.Bindings.dll' (MT3001) you need to update the Xamarin.iOS component to version 10.4.0.128 or later.
3. If you see this error when building for Xamarin.iOS: MTOUCH: Error MT5210: Native linking failed, undefined symbol: _OBJC_METACLASS_$_MS{SomeSdkClassName}. Please verify that all the necessary frameworks have been referenced and native libraries are properly linked in. (MT5210) or a similar error (MT5211 code with similar message mentioning App Center), make sure you call AppCenter.Start before using the APIs of a specific service. If you're calling Start but have this issue, you need to update Xamarin.iOS component to version 10.4.0.128 or more recent.
4. In the console, look for an Assert log with the message - "App Center SDK configured successfully". This verifies that the SDK is configured successfully.

Analytics data doesn't show up in the portal

1. Make sure you've integrated the SDK modules correctly.

2. Make sure correct App Secret is included along with the Start() method call. You can copy the exact Start() code by opening the app in the portal and navigating to Getting Started page.

3. If you want to see the logs that get sent to the backend, change the log level to Verbose in your application and the SDK will print logs in the console. Call the API below before you start the SDK.

   AppCenter.LogLevel = LogLevel.Verbose;
   

   Check the logs say "App Center SDK configured successfully" (in Info log level), then check if you see HTTPS request logs.

4. Make sure your device is online.

5. At times, logs might take few minutes to surface in the portal. Wait for some time if that’s the case.

6. To check if App Center backend received your data, go to the Log flow section in Analytics service. Your events should appear once it's been sent.

Crashes don't show up in the portal

1. Make sure you've integrated the SDK modules correctly.

2. Make sure correct App Secret is included along with the Start() method call. You can copy the exact Start() code by opening the app in the portal and navigating to Getting Started page.

3. Restart the app after a crash. App Center Crashes will forward the crash log only after it's restarted. Also, on Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Mac the SDK won't save any crash log if you attached a debugger. Make sure the debugger isn't attached when you crash the iOS app. On Xamarin.Android, you can crash while having debugger attached but you need to continue execution after breaking into the unhandled exception.

4. If you want to see the logs that get sent to the backend, change the log level to Verbose in your application and the SDK will print logs in the console. Call the API below before you start the SDK.

   AppCenter.LogLevel = LogLevel.Verbose;
   

   Check the logs say "App Center SDK configured successfully" (in Info log level), then check if you see HTTPS request logs.

5. Don't use any other library that provides Crash Reporting functionality, such as Xamarin Insights or HockeyApp. You can only have one crash reporting SDK integrated.

6. Make sure your device is online.

7. At times, logs might take few minutes to surface in the portal. Wait for some time if that’s the case.

8. If you want to check if the SDK detected the crash on the next app start, you can call the API to check whether the app crashed in the last session and shows an alert. Or you can extend the crash callback to see if it was successfully sent to the server.

9. To check if App Center backend received the crash, go to the Log flow section in the Analytics service. Your crashes should appear there, once it's been sent.

Distribute and in-app updates are blocking my automated UI tests

If you're running automated UI tests, enabled in-app updates will block your automated UI tests as they'll try to authenticate against the App Center backend. We recommend to not enable App Center Distribute for your UI tests.

Google Play rejects the application after adding DistributePlay

Google Play rejects apps that use the Distribute module because it contains in-app update implementation. To avoid this situation, App Center SDK has DistributePlay module, which contains stubs for the main module. It replaces the main assemble with stubbed assemble, which imitates the Distribute API. No additional changes are required in the client application. The DistributePlay doesn't have any in-app update related code. If after replacing Distribute module with DistributePlay your app still gets rejected, please follow the steps below to verify that the Distribute module was replaced correctly:

• Make sure that you replaced Distribute with DistributePlay in all your releases for all your publishing groups in Google Play Console.
• If you use Xamarin.Forms please make sure that you add the DistributePlay module to both shared and Xamarin.Android projects.
• Verify that your output file does not contain the Microsoft.AppCenter.Distribute.Android.Bindings.dll assembly. You can use the APK Analyzer to check it.

Messages in the console that indicate that the database couldn't be opened on iOS

App Center uses SQLite to persist logs before they're sent to the backend. If you're bundling your application with your own SQLite library instead of using the one provided by the OS, you might see errors like this in the console [AppCenter] ERROR: -[MSACDBStorage executeSelectionQuery:]/147 Failed to open database and won't see any analytics or crash information in the backend. Update the SDK to version 0.16.0 or later.

Protect the App Center secret value

The app_secret is an identifier of your app, it's required to know which app the traffic applies to and it can not be used to retrieve or edit existing data. If your app_secret is exposed, the biggest risk is sending bad data to your app, but it won't have an effect on the security of the data.

To retrieve any sensitive data, you'd need to provide an app/user token, which is generated on the client’s side. There's no way to make data on the client's side completely secure.

You can improve your app's security by using an environment variable to inject the app secret into your code. That way, the secret isn't visible in your code.