“Element is already the child of another element.” exception crashing your apps

Thanks for the suggestion. We hear you. Those above me also hear you. When I say 'those above me' that means pretty much everybody, so have no fear, the word is out.

I have been seeing this bug come through in my error reporting on my apps for months and not being able to figure it out or reporduce it as i was in test mode in my debugger. I wish i had been told earlier as i have released udpates and new apps since the sdk update release and had no idea there was even an sdk update and i read the forums most days.

Andrew.

Hi Douglas,

We just became aware today that a new release came out on 03/04 thanks to a post from Mark Chamberlain on the WP7 forum:

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/66644/472649.aspx

When are you guys going to tell us about the releases:

- in a special email sent just for the release?

- in the "weekly blog recap"? (it should be the first article with a big headline: new SDK RELEASED!)

- in the "Messages" section of the dashboard?

- in your own blog?

- in details in the download link? (a CHANGELOG would be great, listing the new features and bug fixes, so we can decide if it's critical or not for us to re-submit all our apps (a time consuming job) or not)

It's just ridiculous, especially as "pretty much everybody" knows about the lack of communication from PubCenter from the last release.

The trust is completely broken: the only way to know a new release is out is to refresh everyday this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b0f00afc-9709-4cc2-ba2c-57728db6cbd6

Oh so lame in 2011!

pastaGapp.com

Hi all,
Digging further into this new (stealth) update of the MSFT Ad SDK and doing MSFT's job (which we wouldn't have to do if the download page contained a proper CHANGELOG...):

Bottom line if you're in a hurry:
- If you use only the Silverlight version of the SDK: NO NEED TO UPDATE (nothing changed)
- If you use the XNA version of the SDK: DO UPDATE

Details:

Before installing the latest version (and using the Dec. 08 2010 version):
Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.UI.dll is at version 2.1.11120.1, filesize 89,912 bytes
Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.Xna.dll is at version 5.1.0.148, filesize 214,400 bytes

After installing
Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.UI.dll is at version 2.1.11120.1, filesize 89,912 bytes (NO CHANGE)
Microsoft.Advertising.Mobile.Xna.dll is at version 5.1.0.166, filesize 216,472 bytes

It can be extremely confusing because the download page (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b0f00afc-9709-4cc2-ba2c-57728db6cbd6) is now using the version of the XNA DLL and shows 5.1.0.166 as the version number, which is correct for the XNA library only.
Previously this same download page was using the version of the Silverlight DLL (2.1.11120.1) to show the version.

Dear PubCenter, obviously you cannot switch between using the Silverlight version of the DLL and the XNA version.
Either provide 2 different downloads links with their respective version tied to the DLL version and separate the DLLs, or come up with a compounded version number.
Next time you update the Silverlight SDK, your download link will have a version starting in 2.X, don't you think that will confuse everyone using the latest 5.1.0.166?

Thanks for fixing (and providing changelogs would be the best...)

Cheers,
pastaGapp.com

I understand the frustration. I, too, find out about the new SDKs from the forum. I find your comments online here and send them to the appropriate people.

Your comments do get read. The new notification process to alert developers  of new versions of controls, SDK, tools etc. is being finalized. I have no date for this nor any details of the method. They are getting complaints so I suspect it will be very soon.

Check out - http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/forums/t/68866.aspx

@Arthur Bierer and @Troy Wood

Thanks a lot guys, that's exactly what we needed: a changelog when the update gets released.

Now if at next release you also manage to tweet + email + add in the news letter + message in the Dashboard, that would be heaven.

The SDK revision numbering might be confusing though, as it's composed of 2 DLLs (XNA and Silverlight) with different revision numbers, and the whole SDK revision number is current using the revision number of the XNA DLL (before it was using the rev number of the Silverlight DLL).

So how will it work at the next update? It may look pretty confusing with revision numbers going down.

Again, thanks a lot for listening to our concerns and addressing them.

Cheers,

pastaGapp.com