What does NTSTATUS 0xC0150003 (STATUS_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT) mean?

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Description:

activation-context input data has an invalid structural representation.

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STATUS_SXS_CANT_GEN_ACTCTX	STATUS_SXS_ASSEMBLY_NOT_FOUND

STATUS_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT

The activation-context data is structurally invalid

STATUS_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT points to malformed data supplied for activation-context construction or interpretation. It is a structural-data result: Windows cannot treat the supplied data as a valid source of side-by-side metadata.

Do not collapse it into a missing assembly problem. A missing dependency can be resolved by supplying the correct assembly; an invalid data format requires identifying the source file or resource whose contents are no longer a valid activation-context representation. Compare the bytes and resource type from a trusted build rather than editing the installed copy in place.

What to inspect

Identify whether the source was an external .manifest, an RT_MANIFEST resource, or data prepared by code through ACTCTX.
Check the file encoding, leading bytes and XML namespace before relying on visual inspection in an editor.
Compare the affected resource or manifest with the artifact produced by the same build and signing pipeline.

References

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