Cannot find Keystore Entry. But I know it's there

Question

Android Studio on Windows 10

cannot load key store: unrecognized keystore entry

I have an existing app compiled and signed. I've created a new version of it. The unique id for the app is the same (com.name.appname). I want to sign the new version with the existing key. I have the key. I know the password. I know the alias is correct. All I get back is: cannot load key store: unrecognized keystore entry

More specifially: Error:Execution failed for task ':app:packageRelease'.

com.android.ide.common.signing.KeytoolException: Failed to read key [name] from store "[path]\publishKey": Unrecognized keystore entry

All of the answers I see here are along the lines of "use the command line utility to find the key alias", bla bla bla...

I know this stuff is there and correct. It's just not letting me use it.

What am I missing here? Is there something I need to edit to let it know that I indeed DO want to use that signature?

Answer 1

It appears that somehow, someway, the keystore file got corrupted. Perhaps one of the later entries did it. I do not know. But the way I got around this was by using a KeyStore Explorer, I was able to save the file from there, and remove the last couple of entries.

I was then able to find the alias and sign my app normally. Both from the old machine and the new one.

Just leaving this here in hopes that someone else will find it useful.