“A specified communication resources(port) is alre

Question

I have just upgrade my windows phone 8 to windows phone 8.1. When I connect my phone to pc and run my project it gives me

a specified communication resources(port) is already in use by another application.

I restarted my PC and Phone, removed all connected external devices but still getting same error while running my code through Visual Studio 2012.

I can see it's deployed on phone but I can't debug it. Debugger is not attaching.

Here is my screen shot:

Answer 1

A specified communication resources(port) is already in use by another application

This is a generic error for any failure when Visual Studio attempts to connect it's debugger. There is no silver bullet solution to this problem. The problem persists in Visual Studio 2013, and on Windows Phone 8.1. You'll often notice that the application is actually deployed, but the debugger just couldn't attach itself.

However, uninstalling anything is never a correct solution to this problem.

Now, generally the following options can fix the 'problem' (sometimes one or more are required):

• Unplug, and re-plug the USB cable
• Uninstall the application from the phone and redeploy from Visual Studio
• Redeploy from Visual Studio
• Restart the phone
• Restart Visual Studio

Bad USB cables or USB ports can also cause this issue.

Answer 2

@Ajay, I have ran into exactly the similar problem after upgrading my device to phone 8.1

I have two different machines, Machine1 runs VS2012 Premium with update 3, it prompted for update 4, but some unknown reason I cannot get this update installed on that machine. Machine2 runs VS2013 Professional with Update 1. After deploying an app to 8.1 device, Machine2 can run the debugger successfully, but Machine1 pops the aforementioned error window. I tried @LukkhaCoder approach, but it didn't help.

Edit: You have to run your code in VS2012 update 4 or VS2013 to debug in a 8.1 device.

Answer 3

Project GUID conflict

Yet another possible reason for this error is the Project GUID conflict. If the project / app GUID of the application you are trying to debug is the same as the GUID of another application installed from the store (can be the same application, and doesn't matter if you already uninstalled it), this error may occur.

I was testing in-app purchases for my app for which purpose I had to change the app GUID in WMAppManifest.xml and AssemblyInfo.cs to the GUID from the Windows Phone Store. Having the app installed from the store itself (for testing purposes) previously, I uninstalled it for the purpose of debugging. Yet that didn't help and anytime I changed my app GUID to match Windows Store App Guid I got this error. Changing the GUID back to the original project's GUID caused the error to go away and debugging was working well again.

VS2013 Ultimate Update 2, testing with 8.1 Device.

Answer 4

You may need to deploy the app on the phone before debug mode can be ran. Right click the project and select Deploy. Use this link to see more detailed information.

Answer 5

If you're getting this error when trying to debug a Xamarin App targeting a Windows Phone emulator, make sure you have Deploy ticked for the WinPhone project:

Solution > Properties > Configuration Properties > Configuration

Answer 6

1. Close VS
2. Delete the files from C:\Users\Luke\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Phone Tools\CoreCon
3. Open VS and hopefully you can deploy

Source: @Stadler (https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/772570/wp8-emulator-a-specified-communication-resource-port-is-already-in-use-by-another-application)