Exception when accessing Assets folder in WP 8.1 - windows-phone-8

Question

I am trying to upgrade an app from Windows Phone Silverlight 8.0 to 8.1. I am hitting an exception when I try to access the 'Assets' folder on 8.1. I was able to reproduce this in a sample project which works fine when targeting 8.0, but produces an exception when upgraded to 8.1.
Here is the XAML for the sample app's MainPage:
<phone:PhoneApplicationPage
x:Class="PhoneApp1.MainPage"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:phone="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
xmlns:shell="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
mc:Ignorable="d"
FontFamily="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}"
FontSize="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeNormal}"
Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}"
SupportedOrientations="Portrait" Orientation="Portrait"
shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True">
<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Transparent">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,17,0,28">
<TextBlock Text="MY APPLICATION" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}" Margin="12,0"/>
<TextBlock Text="page name" Margin="9,-7,0,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}"/>
</StackPanel>
<Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0">
<Button Content="Get Assets" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" Click="Button_Click"/>
</Grid>
</Grid>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage>
And here is the MainPage code-behind:
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Windows;
using Microsoft.Phone.Controls;
using Windows.Storage;
namespace PhoneApp1
{
public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private async void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
try
{
var assetsFolder = await StorageFolder.GetFolderFromPathAsync("Assets");
foreach (var file in await assetsFolder.GetFilesAsync())
{
Debug.WriteLine(file.Name);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
}
}
}
When this project is targeting 8.0 you should see AlignmentGrid.png and ApplicationIcon.png listed in the Assets folder. On 8.1 I just get an exception even though the Assets folder still exists. Does anyone know why this happens and what I should do in order to access the Assets folder?
On a related note the same error seems to occur with a Windows Phone Univeral app.
Update:
Some additional detail. The above code generates a "System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the expected range." Another developer suggested trying /Assets, so I tried that and \Assets but neither worked, I did get different exceptions though:
Assets - System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the
expected range.
/Assets - System.Exception: The specified path is
invalid.
\Assets - System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is
denied.

Answer 1

try this
var package = Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledLocation;
var assetsFolder = await package.GetFolderAsync("Assets");
foreach (var file in await assetsFolder.GetFilesAsync())
{
Debug.WriteLine(file.Name);
}
Make sure you set "Build Action" for resources that you want to access as "Content"