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How to fix platform extensions add-in store errors that can occur when using XNA Game Studio

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Every once in a while, I see a post on the App Hub forums (for example, here or here) where someone runs into an error related to the XNA Game Studio platform extensions add-in store when trying to open an XNA Game Studio project for Xbox 360 or Windows Phone.  The error message looks like the following:

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Microsoft XNA Game Studio
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The XNA Game Studio platform extensions add-in store returned the following error:

    Could not find the add-in deployment cache file, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\XNA\PlatformExtensions\PipelineSegments.store".  Please run AddInStore.Update or Rebuild (or run AddInUtil.exe on the command line).  Also, ensure your code has permission to read this file.

Please run Setup for Microsoft XNA Game Studio Platform Tools to repair your installation.
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OK  
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If you encounter an error like this while trying to use XNA Game Studio, there are a few different options that can be used to resolve it.  I suggest trying them in the order listed below, and skip to the next option if the current option does not resolve the error for you.

Option 1 – re-install Microsoft XNA Game Studio Platform Tools

The XNA Game Studio Platform Tools is one of the sub-components that is installed behind the scenes by XNA Game Studio setup.  You can re-install it by right-clicking on the platform tools MSI, choosing to uninstall it, then double-click on it and choose to install it.  The platform tools MSI can be found at the following location on a computer that has XNA Game Studio 4.0 (or the 4.0 Refresh) installed.

On a 32-bit OS:

  • %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnags_platform_tools.msi

On a 64-bit OS:

  • %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v4.0\Setup\xnags_platform_tools.msi

Option 2 – re-install Microsoft XNA Game Studio

For this option, you can go to the Programs and Features (or Add/Remove Programs) control panel and uninstall all of the following components:

  • Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 (or 4.0 Refresh)
  • Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable 4.0 (or 4.0 Refresh)
  • Microsoft XNA Game Studio Platform Tools

Alternatively, you can use the XNA Game Studio cleanup tool.

After uninstalling the above components, re-download and re-install XNA Game Studio.

Option 3 – re-build the XNA Game Studio Platform Tools add-in store manually

If the above steps do not help, it might help to manually re-build the XNA Game Studio Platform Tools add-in store.  These steps are run during Platform Tools setup, but in some cases they will fail, and running them manually can provide more useful error information for troubleshooting purposes.

Note – even though XNA Game Studio 4.0 (and the 4.0 Refresh) require VS 2010 and the .NET Framework 4, they will attempt to use the .NET Framework 3.5 to build the add-in store if the .NET Framework 3.5 is installed because platform tools components are shared by previous versions of XNA Game Studio (3.0 and 3.1), and older versions of XNA Game Studio cannot read the add-in store if it is re-built by the .NET Framework 4.  Because of that, I recommend using the .NET Framework 3.5 to re-build the add-in store if you have it installed.

If you have the .NET Framework 3.5 installed, run the following commands from an elevated cmd prompt:

On a 32-bit OS:

  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PipelineHosting\." -Rebuild
  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PlatformExtensions\." -Rebuild

On a 64-bit OS:

  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PipelineHosting\." -Rebuild
  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PlatformExtensions\." -Rebuild

If you do not have the .NET Framework 3.5 installed, but have the .NET Framework 4 installed, run the following commands from an elevated cmd prompt:

On a 32-bit OS:

  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PipelineHosting\." -Rebuild
  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PlatformExtensions\." -Rebuild

On a 64-bit OS:

  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PipelineHosting\." -Rebuild
  • "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\AddInUtil.exe" -PipelineRoot:"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Common Files\microsoft shared\XNA\PlatformExtensions\." -Rebuild

Option 4 – re-install the .NET Framework

If the above options do not help, it might be necessary to repair/re-install the .NET Framework on your computer.  As I described in the notes for option 3 above, the XNA Game Studio Platform Tools will use the .NET Framework 3.5 to build the add-in store if the .NET Framework 3.5 is installed on the computer.  As a result, you will need to try to repair/re-install both the .NET Framework 3.5 and the .NET Framework 4.

Option 5 – if none of the above help

If none of the above options solve this error, please do the following:

  1. Use the log collection tool to collect all of your setup log files.
  2. Upload the file named %temp%\vslogs.cab that the log collection tool will create to a file server (such as https://skydrive.live.com).
  3. Post a comment on this blog post that includes a link that I can use to download your log files and take a closer look.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 20, 2015
    I followed the above steps and they fix the add-in errors when running Visual Studio. However they do not fix the (similar) error when running the XNA Performance Monitor Tool. It says "The Add-in store is corrupt. ... ...XNAPlatformExtensionPipelineSegments.store " (I didnt include the full message, those look like the relevant parts. Im running Win 7 64 Bit, XNA 4.0, .NET 4. I realize this post is years old. Hoping you still might be able to help. Im doing a hobby project on the side in XNA still, and need to do some garbage collection analysis that the performance monitor would help with! Thanks in advance (Ill gladly upload the logs if that helps checking first to see if theres any reason to :) ) --Phantasie

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2015
    Hi Phantasie - The workarounds listed in this blog post should allow you to resolve that type of error, even in the XNA Performance Monitor tool.  Did you try all of the first 3 options listed above already?

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2015
    [And the rest...] Software

  • Windows 7 SP1 64 bit (legal copy)
  • Visual Studio Pro 2010 SP1 (legal copy)
  • XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh 4.0.30901.0 (valid, active, creators club membership)
  • .NET 4.5.1 I realize you're busy and XNA is no longer being supported. So any help you are able to give me would be greatly appreciated. For what its worth, I'm actually a professional game dev - 10 years as a programmer and another 5 in production. I currently work pretty closely with various AM's and RM's at Microsoft :) This XNA project is just a side thing Im doing for fun. I miss 80's RPG's :) Finally, I ran the log collection tool in step #5, and uploaded the 25 MB (!) CAB to my one drive. I'd prefer not to share that publicly, so if you do have time to take a look at it, shoot me an email r.diego.barnes [AT] gmail {DOT} com or accept the friend request I just sent you on XBL and I can share the link with you :) Thanks --Rich

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2015
    Hi Aaron Your hunch about 3.5 being corrupt was correct; using the supplied config you provided, XNARPM now runs. I've connected XNARPM to my XNA title and, right off the bat, I'm embarrassed to see some obvious allocations off the heap I'm doing every frame :) Next up is getting Pix running :) To answer your question, Device Center and XnaPack both worked fine. XNARPM was the only tool to give that error. If you do want the log files, let me know and I'll post them for you. I appreciate your help. While this was for a personal project, I do work for a games publisher - if you want a package with some free games (xbox, pc, etc) shoot me a email at r.diego.barnes@gmail.com - Happy to send you some cool stuff :) --Rich

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2015
    Hi phantasie17 - I'm glad to hear that the workaround of creating XNARPM.exe.config worked for you.  We shipped config files like that for Device Center and XNAPack as a part of XNA Game Studio setup, but we somehow missed adding one for XNARPM back then. Now that we've figured out the issues, I don't need to look at your logs. I'm not sure what other side effects the .NET Framework 3.5 corruption might have on that PC, so if you run into other weird issues with .NET apps, you may need to create more config files like this, or you might want to try to repair the .NET Framework 3.5.  Here are the steps that I typically recommend that folks try in order to repair versions of the .NET Framework that ship as a part of Windows (like .NET 3.5 does on Windows 7):

  1.  Install the latest Windows service pack and updates if you haven't yet.
  2.  Try to run the System Update Readiness Tool from support.microsoft.com/.../947821.
  3.  Try to repair the files that are a part of your OS by using the steps listed at blogs.msdn.com/.../how-to-repair-the-net-framework-2-0-and-3-0-on-windows-vista.aspx.

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2015
    Thanks again! Very appreciated!

  • Anonymous
    February 01, 2015
    Both this and the 'how to install outside of the installer' post were very useful and worked perfectly - many thanks!