Solution alternatives to Silverlight “invalid or malformed application check manifest” error

Today while I was working on a Silverlight project, following strange error occurred.

[stextbox id=”alert”]Code# 2103

Invalid or malformed application: Check manifest[/stextbox]

After some searching on the internet I found some solution alternatives.

Namespace Changes

In most of the cases this problem caused by namespace changes. When you rename the application and/or change the namespace, you have to change the “Startup Object” in the project properties. Just follow the following steps.

• Right click on your Silverlight project and select Properties.
• On the Properties page, click Silverlight tab.
• Make sure the Startup Object property is correct. If not you have to select the correct one.
• Save and rebuild the project.

Unknown MIME Type

Make sure the MIME type for “.XAP” is set to “application/x-silverlight” in IIS.

Missing Assemblies

There can be some missing assemblies in your package. AppManifest.xaml file defines the items that are going to be packed in XAP file. You can check the entries in AppManifest.xaml by following steps.

• In ClientBin folder of web application find your xap file and change its file extension to zip.
• Open this renamed zip file to extract the contents and find your AppManifest.xaml file
• Open your AppManifest.xaml file. You will find the entries that are packed in XAP package.

These assemblies shall be copied to the ClientBin folder when the Silverlight application built. You have to change the Copy Local settings of these references to True in your Silverlight application.

These solutions are the ones I found on the web. The last one worked for me..

Hope this helps 🙂