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All Posts (553)

• 

  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.

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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!

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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

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• 

  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?

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• 

  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

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• 

  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

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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!

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• 

  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!

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• 

  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.

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• 

  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).

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• 

  Published on

  2022-11-15 8:53 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsdotnetpowershell

  How to avoid global.json version conflicts in Azure DevOps

  In Azure DevOps, you sometimes have a project that's being built with a certain .NET version. It'll require that particular SDK version, and most typically that is defined in the global.json file. However, if you also need to install a certain .NET tool, running dotnet tool install MyBuildTool will fail. And it'll fail before it actually tries to install the version of the tool you wanted! This article explains how to work around the .

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• 

  Published on

  2022-11-08 3:48 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsvscodeyaml

  How to fix Azure DevOps "Variable reference is not valid. ':' was not followed by a valid variable name character. Consider using ${} to delimit the name"

  This article explains one possible reason why you might run into an error like " Variable reference is not valid. ':' was not followed by a valid variable name character. Consider using $ to delimit the name " when using a PowerShell task in an Azure DevOps pipeline. But hey - at least Azure DevOps is helpful enough to point out the line that causes trouble, right? Not so fast. Confusingly, the offending line might be this: Write-Host ('##vso[task.

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• 

  Published on

  2022-11-01 4:58 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  hacktoberfestpnppowershell

  Hacktoberfest 2022

  ... And that's a wrap! This year I had the chance, and the privilege to once again participate in the month-long celebration of open-source, Hacktoberfest . And unlike last year, I took the time to write about the experience again! And for someone like me, who doesn't really do much open-source stuff, it is a bit of an experience. And the event itself has come a long way! 2022: Hacktoberfest has matured

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• 

  Published on

  2022-10-25 3:32 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopscrossplatformpowershellubuntu

  Azure DevOps fails with "The path [path-to-your-repo] does not exist" even though the repository is there for sure?

  Eh, this was a weird one. This article explains how to get around an issue where your build tools fail due to weird "path does not exist" errors when you're using bash to execute a restore to your project. The build would probably succeed nicely, but it fails due to missing dependencies - in my case, at least the whole node_modules folder was missing. And of course, it is - the restore failed, after all. But let's take one step at a time. What did I run into, this time?

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• 

  Published on

  2022-10-18 3:44 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  cgraph-apigraphexplorer

  One way to fix "Unsupported or invalid query filter clause specified for property" for your Microsoft Graph API queries

  This article explains one possible fix to an annoyingly generic exception thrown by the Microsoft Graph API (namely, "Unsupported or invalid query filter clause specified for property") or an even more generic exception thrown by PnP PowerShell ("Exception of type 'PnP.PowerShell.Commands.Model.Graph.GraphException' was thrown.

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• 

  Published on

  2022-10-11 4:24 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  powershell

  Why do you get a "Missing closing ')' in expression." error when piping a collection to a for loop in PowerShell?

  Today, I'm writing about a stupid error. Yeah, I do make those every now and then. After adding a for loop to my PowerShell script, I started to get annoying ParserErrors about my for loop missing a closing bracket. But it was NOT missing one - what gives? Problem So, what I was trying to do was to concatenate a kinda random collection of strings after the first few items. I was going to iterate through the strings by piping them into a loop.

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• 

  Published on

  2022-10-04 5:47 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  homeassistantsonoff

  How to configure your Smart Home wifi devices that fail to connect due to a weak wifi signal?

  This article describes a solution to a problem that I have had with pairing different Smart Home devices with my app or some cloud service using wifi. Weirdly, wifi can be strong enough to provide connectivity to any of the devices, but weak enough for the pairing to fail. Fun stuff. You can usually just move the devices closer to your router, but with some devices that might be a bit more complicated... But as usual, workarounds exist!

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• 

  Published on

  2022-09-27 2:47 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsgit

  How to import an Azure DevOps Git repository... From another Azure DevOps organization?

  A while ago, I needed to move an Azure DevOps Git repository from one organization to another. And that was far easier than I thought. For once, a nice surprise from Git _and_ Azure DevOps 😀 So, let me tell you how that's done! Well, how it's done if it goes well, anyway. And if still works as it used to when you're reading this. We'll see! Solution

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• 

  Published on

  2022-09-20 4:07 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsnuget

  How to fix NU3028 and NU3037 errors in Azure DevOps builds?

  This article explains a solution to a rather annoying issue, where certificate validation for builds trying to fetch NuGet packages published by Microsoft fails when using .NET 5. This happens at least with Docker build when you're relying on some Microsoft-provided images... But probably also in a lot of other cases. Problem When running an Azure DevOps pipeline with any task that does any Docker stuff, your build fails.

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