assembly error

Question

An error occurred while signing: Failed to sign bin\Release\app.publish\PrestonTrans.exe. SignTool Error: No certificates were found that met all the given criteria.

Answer 1

Hello ron desanti,

Thank you for reaching out. The error you’re seeing indicates that the signing process could not locate a valid certificate that meets the criteria required for code signing. This usually happens when the certificate is missing, expired, placed in the wrong certificate store, or does not have a private key available.

To resolve this, please verify that you have a valid Code Signing certificate installed on the machine. You can check this by opening the Certificate Manager (certmgr.msc for Current User or certlm.msc for Local Computer) and confirming that the certificate appears under Personal → Certificates with a valid date and an associated private key. If the certificate has expired, or if it was installed without a private key, you’ll need to renew or re-import the certificate.

Also ensure that the certificate is stored in the correct location (Current User vs Local Machine) based on your signing configuration in Visual Studio, and that the account running the build has permission to access the private key. If your project is configured to select a certificate by thumbprint or subject name, double-check that the values match exactly.

If you continue to encounter the error after verifying these settings, I recommend re-importing the certificate from a .pfx file with the private key included or obtaining a new code signing certificate. Running Visual Studio as Administrator during the signing process may also help in case of permission issues.
Best regards.