Problems with X509Store Certificates.Find FindByThumbprint

Question

I'm having a problem when I use the method X509Store.Certificates.Find

public static X509Certificate2 FromStore(StoreName storeName, 
          StoreLocation storeLocation, X509FindType findType, string findValue)
{
    X509Store store = new X509Store(storeName, storeLocation);
    store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
    try
    {
        //findValue = "7a6fa503ab57b81d6318a51ca265e739a51ce660"
        var results = store.Certificates.Find(findType, findValue, true);

        return results[0];                
    }
    finally
    {
        store.Close();
    }
}

In this case the Find Method returns 0 results (results.Count == 0), but if I put the findValue as constant the method find the certificate.

public static X509Certificate2 FromStore(StoreName storeName, 
           StoreLocation storeLocation, X509FindType findType, string findValue)
{
    X509Store store = new X509Store(storeName, storeLocation);
    store.Open(OpenFlags.ReadOnly);
    try
    {         
        //findValue= "7a6fa503ab57b81d6318a51ca265e739a51ce660"
        var results = store.Certificates.Find(findType, 
                              "7a6fa503ab57b81d6318a51ca265e739a51ce660", true);
        return results[0];
    }
    finally
    {
        store.Close();
    }
}

Answer 1

I suppose that you have copy-pasted the thumbprint from the Windows certificate information dialog box into your code (or to a config file if this is a simplified example). Annoyingly, the first character in the thumbprint textbox is the invisible Unicode "left-to-right-mark" control character. Try selecting the opening string quote and the first character of the thumbprint, deleting them (which will also get rid of the invisible character in-between), and retyping them by hand.

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I was subjected to this odd behaviour myself today, and it took me over an hour to figure it out. The way I finally saw it was by using the debugger to check the lengths and hash codes of findValue and of the Thumbprint of the certificate object, which turned out to be different. This led me to inspect the character arrays of those strings in the debugger, where the invisible character showed up.