Failed to open descriptor file - Android

This is an error that seems to be happening for a very long time - first questions on these date back to 4.6.

Here is the issue: I package my project without any errors for the Android platform. Always worked fine, uploaded into Google Play Store - worked absolutely fine. On one relatively small update in the app, it now only works on iOS and not on Android - every time I try to run it it says “Failed to open descriptor file …/…/…/NeuroCube/NeuroCube.uproject” and stays in the splash screen forever.

Workarounds previously proposed:

  • Rename executable to remove the names in front of the project name (i.e. the “-Android-Shipping-armv7-es2” and leave just the project name) - does not work
  • Delete the intermediary, build, save, etc etc etc and repackage - does not work
  • Erase the folder in the Android and try again - does not work (I’m using Firebase for testing, and their devices are always start from scratch)
  • Transform the blueprint only project into code - I don’t know but really don’t want to do that. I use in-app purchases and they become a nightmare for non-blueprint-only projects

Instead of workarounds it would be great if the bug was actually fixed, but in the meantime does anyone know any alternative or have successfully resolved this problem before?

I found the issue. Due to a recent Visual Studio update, it now asks to confirm that you actually want to open a certain project. I found it by accident, as I tried to install a newer version of the engine to see if the bug was sorted, and as I opened the source code the message from Visual Studio came up asking whether I really wanted to open the file. I then unchecked the option to always ask whether to open files, and then it all compiled well (using the original engine version 4.20).

So there you go, it was Visual Studio’s fault after all.

Happy coding all.