Why can't MonoDroid find my assemblies?

Question

I made a simple Android HelloWorld app using Xamarin Studio 4.2.3 that doesn't do anything except it prints out some message if a random number is greater than 0.5. It works just great on a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 5.

The next thing I'm doing is to extract the .dll with the code from the app's apk (from the assemblies folder) using 7Zip. Using .Net Reflector and Reflexil I'm modifying a single instruction, usually the brfalse.s that gets generated by the IF statement in "if(rand.nextDouble()>0.5){doStuff()}" such that it branches to the instruction right in front of the call to doStuff(), thereby effectively making the IF statement useless and ensuring the method always gets called.

Next I'm saving the patched .dll, replacing the original one in the .apk with the patched one, sign and zipalign the .apk and finally I'm installing it using adb.

When I'm launching the app on my phones it crashes directly and LogCat shows the following:

03-20 10:12:08.709: I/ActivityManager(764): Start proc HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL for activity HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL/hellomonolvl.hellomonolvl.TrialSplashScreen: pid=23099 uid=10128 gids={50128} 
03-20 10:12:08.729: D/dalvikvm(23099): Trying to load lib /data/app-lib/HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL-1/libmonodroid.so 0x427154a0
03-20 10:12:08.729: D/dalvikvm(23099): Added shared lib /data/app-lib/HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL-1/libmonodroid.so 0x427154a0
03-20 10:12:08.739: W/libc(23099): WARNING: generic atexit() called from legacy shared library 
03-20 10:12:08.759: W/monodroid-gc(23099): GREF GC Threshold: 46800 
03-20 10:12:08.769: A/monodroid-assembly(23099): Coult not load assembly 'HelloMonoLVL' during startup registration. 
03-20 10:12:08.769: A/monodroid-assembly(23099): This might be due to an invalid debug instalation. 
03-20 10:12:08.769: A/monodroid-assembly(23099): A common cause is to 'adb install' the app directly instead of doing from the IDE. 
03-20 10:12:08.789: I/ActivityManager(764): Process HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL (pid 23099) has died. 
03-20 10:12:08.789: W/ActivityManager(764): Force removing ActivityRecord{42752a50 u0 HelloMonoLVL.HelloMonoLVL/hellomonolvl.hellomonolvl.TrialSplashScreen t238}: app died, no saved state

Since this didn't work I used the C# port of the LVL. Built the LVL sample app, deployed and it works on the phones. I again extracted the .dll with the license verification code, using Reflexil I changed the code of a method, injected the patched .dll in the apk, signed and zipaligned the apk. Again it doesn't work but crashes on launch and I now get:

03-20 10:21:19.049: D/dalvikvm(23507): Trying to load lib /data/app-lib/de.marius.lvl-1/libmonodroid.so 0x42711448 
03-20 10:21:19.049: D/dalvikvm(23507): Added shared lib /data/app-lib/de.marius.lvl-1/libmonodroid.so 0x42711448 
03-20 10:21:19.069: A/MonoDroid(23507): No assemblies found in '/data/data/de.marius.lvl/files/.__override__' or '/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.marius.lvl/files/.__override__'. Assuming this is part of Fast Deployment. Exiting... 
03-20 10:21:19.079: I/ActivityManager(764): Process de.marius.lvl (pid 23507) has died. 
03-20 10:21:19.079: W/ActivityManager(764): Force removing ActivityRecord{42bc3c60 u0 de.marius.lvl/.TrialSplashScreen t239}: app died, no saved state

It doesn't seem to make any difference if I'm using the apk that Xamarin generates in Release mode or Debug mode. I tried both using the apk versions from the bin folder of the project and the ones I pulled from the phone with adb pull.

I'm new to Xamarin so maybe my approach is naive. Is there something like a hash check that my patched .dlls don't pass? I saw that Reflexil has an option to remove StrongNames, I tried that but it didn't seem to make any difference (but I must admit I don't really know how those work).

Is it even possible what I'm trying to do? Any help is much appreciate.

Answer 1

Uninstall all the packages installed in your project including android support libraries like Android.Support.v4 support libraries and clean the solution.

Then again reinstall all the required packages and support libraries and rebuild your solution. It may help you sort out your query.