SignTool reported an error - The signer's certificate is not valid for signing

Question

I'm having a problem publishing an application written in VB.NET in VS2005 using ClickOnce.

I get the error:

Code Snippet

Error    2    SignTool reported an error 'Failed to sign bin\MyApp.publish\\setup.exe. SignTool Error: ISignedCode::Sign returned error: 0x80880253

    The signer's certificate is not valid for signing.

SignTool Error: An error occurred while attempting to sign: bin\MyApp.publish\\setup.exe

'.    MyApp

I have just installed visual studio 2008 - could this be causing the problem? Any idea how to get round it?

Answer 1

I sorted it. I went to the project properties, clicked Signing, then Create Test Certificate. It warned me about it being signed differently when I published it but it worked and my app updated succesfully when I ran it.


EDIT

The above didn't work. I needed to renew my certificate using the renewcert thing you can find here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925521

Answer 2

Yes, you can create a new certificate, but if this is a problem for your users see the topic under the topic Words of Warning in the below link:

http://www.infoq.com/articles/ClickOnce-Versioning

which has a link to the instruction on how to extend the expiration date of a certificate.

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=925521

Answer 3

Thanks, this worked for me too.

My problem symptom was getting a 404 error when trying to download the setup.exe from the web server.

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Joseph Nielsen

Answer 4

Thanks J. Mitchell. I was having a same issue and i fixed it with your help.

Regards,