Fixit #2: Xamarin build results in “The application has not been built”

Fixit

Fixits are small posts that provide a straight forward answer for issues that occur during development.Chances are that you’re reading this post because your Xamarin iOS project decided to give you the “The application has not been built”.

This is a message it gives you during building the project.If that is the case, you likely recently deleted your /bin and /obj folders in that same project.

Expected result
You press “build” and the debug/release build runs and deploys your project to your iOS device.

Real outcome
The project builds but then gives you an alert stating: “The application has not been built”. No deploy, no running the app. No dice.

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Fix
I spent quite some time Googling. And as it appears, when you delete those folders it is possible that the project gets a little upset.

Luckily, all you need to do is remind the project how it has been setup. You can do that by opening the Xamarin iOS project’s settings, switching(as in: changing, changing back) some build setting and saving the configuration.

After that I got my project deploying in debug mode again. It installed the project on my iPhone like building was never broken in the first place.

Resources
I found this on the Xamarin forums after Googling around: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/comment/158275/#Comment_158275.