Xamarin.Auth: Account data not persisted when app is updated

Question

I'm using Xamarin.Auth to authenticate with services like foursquare and so. I've gotten my authentication code working all good, the problem is that the account data is not persisted when I deploy a new version of my app - each time I deploy a test version on the phone, I've to re-authenticate.

Here's how I store the account;

  /// <summary>
/// Stores the account.
/// </summary>
private void StoreAccount(AuthenticatorCompletedEventArgs eventArgs)
{
    if (!eventArgs.IsAuthenticated) // make sure we are authenticated.
    {
        Log.Debug(Logging.AppTag, "FourSquareClient can't store account as auth. is cancelled. ");
        return;
    }

    this.IsAuthenticated = true;
    this.Account = eventArgs.Account;

    AccountStore.Create(this.OwnerContext).Save(eventArgs.Account, "Foursquare");
}

and here is how I check if we have a stored account;

 /// <summary>
/// Retrieves stored account.
/// </summary>
private void RetrieveAccount()
{
    if (this.IsAuthenticated)
    {
        Log.Debug(Logging.AppTag, "FourSquareClient is already authenticated! ");
        return;
    }


    var accounts = AccountStore.Create(this.OwnerContext).FindAccountsForService("Foursquare");
    var enumerable = accounts as IList<Account> ?? accounts.ToList();

    if (enumerable.Any())
    {
        Log.Info(Logging.AppTag, "Foursquareclient found account data.");
        this.IsAuthenticated = true;
        this.Account = enumerable.First();
    }
    else
    {
        Log.Info(Logging.AppTag, "Foursquareclient no account data found!");
        this.IsAuthenticated = false;
        this.Account = null;
    }
}

Answer 1

The default behavior is for your Android settings to get reset every time the app is deployed. To prevent this, in Xamarin Studio --> Preferences --> Android --> check "Preserve data/cache between application deploys"

There should be a similar setting if you are using Visual Studio.