All Posts

All Posts (536)

• 

  Published on

  2023-05-09 8:03 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  androidoneplus

  How to enable Developer Mode on Android?

  This article dives into Developer Mode on Android and explains how to actually enable it on your device. You might need to do this if your device's factory defaults are stupid (like on my 2 last OnePlus phones), you need to debug an app on your phone or achieve some other somewhat advanced scenario. Background Enabling developer mode on Android is a straightforward process, but it's essential to understand what you're getting into.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-05-02 3:58 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  akscertificatesopenssl

  How to include the whole certificate chain in your .cer, .crt or .pem certificate file?

  Haha, another one of those "should've known it was this easy" in the books! This article explains how to include the whole certificate chain (so your "user certificate" with all the "intermediary certificates" and optionally, but not as recommended, the root certificate) in your PEM-formatted certificate. Because sometimes you just need to combine 5 certificates you've just successfully stolen from your own website using a script !

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-04-25 3:29 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  githubactionsmaui

  How to avoid sed in GitHub Actions removing spaces from your script steps?

  This article explains how to replace double quotes in string literal when replacing stuff in GitHub Actions using sed. Or rather, how to replace stuff with double quotes in it in GitHub Actions overall. Because it's not as straightforward as one would think. Or maybe I'm missing something obvious here? Either way, here's another thoughtful workaround!

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-04-18 2:14 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azurepipelinesgithubactionsmsbuild

  How to fix "MSB4044: The AndroidSignPackage task was not given a value for the required parameter KeyPass

  This article explains a quick fix to an error along the lines of "AndroidSignPackage" task was not given a value for the required parameter "KeyPass". In my case the issue occurred in a GitHub Actions pipeline, but you could get it in Azure DevOps or even when running the build command locally.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-04-11 2:50 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  mauiwindows

  How to set Window size for your MAUI app in Windows?

  This article shows you how to set a window size for a MAUI app on Windows. This is super useful for debugging - in my case, I wanted to retain a fast development cycle with lightweight debugging to work on my code quickly, but still see everything in roughly the right aspect ratio for my typical end-user device - an Android smartphone. But using the emulator for this was not usable, as it's comparably slow. And of course the same solution will work for production use cases.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-04-04 2:39 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  entityframeworkcoresql

  How to fix "System.InvalidOperationException: The property 'ItemBody.AdditionalData' could not be mapped because it is of type 'IDictionary', which is not a supported primitive type or a valid entity type. Either explicitly map this property, or ignore it using the '[NotMapped]' attribute or by using 'EntityTypeBuilder.Ignore' in 'OnModelCreating'." in .NET 7 and Entity Framework?

  Oof. What even is this title? Descriptive - sure, maybe - but also kinda long. Ah, okay. This article explains how to map complex data types to a SQL database when using Entity Framework. This time, I'm using Fluent API to do this. In my case, I just needed to store entities that I got from external source, based on entities coming from a dependency, into my service's database.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-03-28 3:27 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopspowershell

  Automatically get version number from project dependencies in Azure DevOps

  This article expands on my earlier article on automatically figuring out versioning in an Azure DevOps Pipeline. In the other article, you'd add Major and Minor versions as variables, and Patch (the last part of an x.y.z version scheme) would be incremented automatically.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-03-21 4:49 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  aadazure-ad

  Solving "AADSTS90097: An error has occurred during admin consent processing." issues in your app

  This article explains how to fix " AADSTS90097: An error has occurred during admin consent processing. " (or like the error message is actually worded - "occurred", which to me looks like a typo, but at least makes this easier to google. I mean - bing. Those are both verbs now until we all just start asking Tay our techy questions and get back definitely-not-hallucinated answers. Ah. Anyway. We should also be able to fix " AADSTS900971 - No reply address provided.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-03-14 2:27 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  blazormaui

  How to fix your MAUI Blazor app crashing on startup with "Failed to compare two elements in the array." ?

  This article explains how to fix your Blazor Hybrid MAUI application (built with Blazor Webassembly, using MAUI to build & publish for multiple different platforms like Windows, Android and iOS at once) not starting up, but throwing an unexpected error instead, an error message being somewhat along the lines of "Failed to compare two elements in the array." What fun, right?

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-03-07 4:57 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  githubgithubactionsmaui

  How to build a functional CI/CD pipeline for a MAUI app on GitHub in less than 1 hour?

  Unlike most of my articles, this one isn't a description of an issue I had and the workaround or fix that I found. This time, I'm writing about something I found fun and pretty impressive - a fully functional continuous integration and deployment pipeline from a git repository all the way to your Android handsets, set up in less than an hour, using GitHub Actions and App Visual Studio App Center.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-02-28 4:57 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  mauiwindev

  How to solve "System.TypeInitializationException: 'The type initializer for 'WinRT.ActivationFactory`1' threw an exception.'" in the MAUI application?

  ... or "How to bang your head on a wall for hours on end when developing a MAUI application?" 😂 This article explains how to fix a surprising error you might get when trying to run a MAUI app in Windows. For me, it was thrown when I was simply reading a file from the disk, but I suspect the same or similar error ( "System.TypeInitializationException: 'The type initializer for 'WinRT.ActivationFactory`1' threw an exception.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-02-21 3:54 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  airqualityairthingshomeassistant

  How do Airthings sensors work with Home Assistant?

  This article describes some of my experiences with Airthings air quality sensors, especially when used with Home Assistant. I'm using a couple of sensors to keep an especially close eye on CO2, Radon and air pressure, in addition to temperature and humidity (which I already have plenty of Sonoff sensors for). As a nice bonus, both sensors I got also monitor VOCs. Background I have an older house, so I was fairly certain it has some air quality issues. An older device I have already measures PM2.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-02-14 3:22 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  maui

  How to read and write files in a MAUI application?

  This article explains how to read and write files in a MAUI application. No, not AppPackageFiles, nobody likes those, but actual NORMAL files. Real files. Dynamic files. Files that can change. Runtime files. I don't know what to call them. But I hope you get the idea. Someone needs to document this stuff for other people only now starting with MAUI, right? 😀 AI-powered summary: Mastering File Management in MAUI Apps Learn to manage files in MAUI applications effectively.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-02-07 4:54 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  mauimsbuildvisual-studio

  How to fix "There was no runtime pack for Microsoft.AspNetCore.App available for the specified RuntimeIdentifier..." after a Visual Studio update?

  This article offers a stupid workaround for a cryptic and seemingly unrecoverable problem that manifests itself after a Visual Studio / .NET update and causes the following error to be thrown: "There was no runtime pack for Microsoft.AspNetCore.App available for the specified RuntimeIdentifier 'browser-wasm'." Sorry, no real solution here - but at least I've got a way to recover from the issue. So read on if you stumbled into it as well!

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-01-31 3:33 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azurefunctionsazureiothubnuget

  Fixing "Encountered error while fetching the list of EventHub PartitionIds." with an IoTHub trigger in Azure Functions

  This article explains how to (possibly) fix an error along the lines of "Encountered error while fetching the list of EventHub PartitionIds" which is thrown by your Azure Function (or other code) trying to trigger based on IoT Hub or Event Hub messages. Problem When trying to debug or run your Azure Function (or, theoretically, some other code attaching itself to an EventHub or IoTHub to listen to messages), you get an error somewhat like this: Microsoft.Azure.EventHubs.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-01-24 4:06 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  homeassistantsonoff

  How to fix disconnected Sonoff Zigbee sensors in Home Assistant?

  This article explains how to fix and reconnect Sonoff Zigbee sensors in Home Assistant, after they have mystically disconnected themselves. The neatness of this solution is that while the eWelink app will assign your sensors a new device id any time you have to re-register them, this approach lets you use the same entity id you had for them before you had to reconfigure them.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-01-17 3:54 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  windowswindowsterminal

  How to fix all UWP/WinUI apps being laggy in Windows 10/11?

  This article explains one way to fix a horribly laggy desktop user experience in Windows 10 (and probably 11) when your laptop is beefy enough it should not lag and even has a dedicated NVIDIA Graphics card. At least applying this fix is going to be quite straightforward - but let me first explain the issue I experienced and what it was actually like. Background

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-01-10 4:11 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  certificatesopensslpowershell

  How to export the SSL (or TLS) certificate from a website using PowerShell?

  Every now and then, you run into a situation where you might need an SSL (or TLS, as they nowadays usually actually are) certificate. You could always generate a self-signed one - but that won't be trusted by anyone, so that's no bueno. You could also order one online, even for free - but that's kind of cumbersome, and might come with some weird verification steps. Sounds quite bothersome. Most of the time, it's easiest to just borrow a certificate from someone else, right?

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2023-01-03 9:17 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  russiaukrainewaryearreview

  2022 Year Review - Stop Caring & Just Enjoy The Ride!

  2022 is over, and it's high time to write the annual Year Review again. The ongoing pandemic and the 3rd World War on my doorstep have made me a little bit cynical, but in all fairness, the year was not all bad. Last year , I promised a new article every Tuesday in 2022. I think I've just managed that, as long as this one actually goes out in time... But that's enough of that, what was up in 2022? Koskila.net in 2022

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-12-27 3:16 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  akscertificateskubernetes

  How to replace the default fake "ACME" certificate for Kubernetes/AKS?

  A while back I got a request to change the default certificate for an AKS cluster. A customer didn't like the "Kubernetes Fake Certificate" that's shown when no other matching certificates can be found, and they wanted it changed. So yours truly started googling, and as a result, this article explains how to do just that! NOTE: This article has been updated and rewritten in late 2025. You can find the updated version here: How to replace the default certificate in AKS? Background

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-12-20 2:06 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  akscertificatesonedriveopenssl

  How to export the private key from your Certificate Signing Request on Windows?

  This article explains another small but significant gotcha you "just need to know" when working with certificates and certification authorities, and you - just like me - are for some reason still using Windows as your workhorse.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-12-13 3:53 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsyaml

  Working YAML sample of a remote repository CI trigger in Azure DevOps

  It took me something like 10 years of struggling to get remote triggers to finally fire in Azure DevOps, and in this article, I'll share how I finally got the remote repository trigger to work for an actual Team Project in real production use (and that's a first!) 😃 Okay, I know, that's a bit rich - they've been supported for maybe a few years, so there's no way I've been struggling with remote triggers for 10 years. And I haven't!

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-12-06 4:03 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  powershellwinrm

  winrm complaining "Error: Invalid use of command line." - easy fix :)

  Heh, this article is going to be another one of those "Drat, I should've known this" articles. But maybe it'll be helpful for someone else as well! In this post I will explain how to get around the "Error: Invalid use of command line. Type "winrm -?" for help." error being thrown at you. And if you're like me (and your error is the same as mine), you'll mostly get to blame yourself for this one!

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-11-29 4:33 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  microsoftofficemicrosoftword

  How to apply a .dotx template to your existing Word files (.docx)?

  This article explains how you can apply formatting and styles from a Microsoft Office Word Document Template (.dotx) to your already existing Word Document (.docx). You might want to do this if you've got a file with plenty of content, especially if it's stuff that might break when copy-pasting (embedded media, pictures with text around them, table of contents, references - actually, anything else than just normal paragraphs). Took me a while, but this article documents how to do it.

  Read more →
• 

  Published on

  2022-11-22 4:09 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  akscertificatesopenssl

  Using openssl to verify a certificate matches a private key

  This post explains how to verify a private key (possibly a .key file) that you somehow got your hands on, that matches a certificate file (.cer) you also somehow are in possession of. I have no idea where I got mine, but I had to figure out how to make sure a key and a certificate matched before I uploaded mine to AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service).

  Read more →