When you run your WP7 app in the emulator, does it die unceremoneously, without warning, without ANY indication of WTF is going on?  I think I have two clues for you!  Please read on!

For the last two nights, I've been fighting with my WP7 app dying on me without ANY indications of WTF was going on!!!!  ggggrrrrrr  After 2:00AM last night, I THOUGHT I had it licked, but then it came BACK tonight.  GGGGRRRRR 

SVN saved me last night, maybe it can do it again tonight?  hhhmmm wait a sec, something's not right here, everything started to go south (like the Leafs in the playoffs? LOL) but something finger flicked my brain (I HATE it when that happens) to look at the Assembly Startup object.....hhhmmmmm clue #1 my dear Watson!

This all started when I wanted to change/modify my namespaces.  Seems like a simple enough thing to do right?  We all do refactoring right?  Right?  RIGHT?  And that's clue #2 Watson!

I started off with updating the project's Assembly info.  Below is the before and after picture.  Notice the Startup object is the WP7App.App.  And that's the "finger flick" I should have been paying attention to earlier!  I guess I just assumed the renaming would ACTUALLY RENAME IT EVERYWHERE....but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once I changed the Assembly info, next it's time to update the XAML.  Easy enough to do with Search'n'Replace.

Cool, things are going smoothly so far right?  Yup, I thought so too for the PAST TWO NIGHTS AS WELL!  But I digress, let's continue. 

Next is code/C#.  Notice how cause the XAML changed, InitializeComponent() is mucked up?  Let's go ahead and do another Search'n'Replace, and BINGO, everything's happy again.

See, even the CSC.exe says everything is good.  Hey, if it compiles, it should be good right?

 

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL, the problem is, this is where things started to fall off the rails.  When I hit F5 to run, everything started up JUST fine, the SplashScreenImage.jpg even comes up correctly, but then, JUST as soon as I'm about to think easy-as-pie.......the WP7 app dies!  DOH!  HUH?  What happened.  Putting breakpoints inside ANYWHERE won't work!  There's NO uncaught exceptions, there's no KNOWN exceptions being thrown.  It's as if nothing's being run, BUT the SplashScreenImage IS coming up, so VS knows enough to run my app.  What's going on?  I'm going crazy!

Well, back to my clues above Watson!  Let's revisit the Assembly Startup object now, yup, after refactoring.......hhhhmmmmm  Where's the Startup object?????!!!!!  THAT'S IT!  Mind you, the first time I ran this, I was left with the default "WP7App.App" which I had NO way to change/update/modify.

 

Now, in my case, up above, it was a SIMPLE matter of selecting the new OITD.Kiost.WP7App.App and everything was GREAT again.

However, the first time I did this, I had a problem, there wasn't any such option, nope, it continued to have the OLD reference in there no matter what I changed, nor how ever many times I power cycled VS2010!

The trick was to manually modify the project's SilverlightAppEntry node.  Yup, back to hand coding XML files, but only for a quick moment.

Above, you'll see what I saw before I started with the refactoring efforts above.  Once I made the manual change, I was back to the OITD.Kiosk.WP7App.App again, and everything ran perfectly!

Now that you know how to diagnose and hopefully fix your latest WP7 Emulator "issue" with refactoring, it's time to grab a coffee and get coding!