We all know by now you can deploy features using a SharePoint solution package. This is a great addition for SharePoint developers as it easily allows us to quickly and efficently upgrade our customizations, plus it helps keep everything organized.

One thing I ran across was after deploying a solution that included a feature, I realized that I wanted to create a feature receiver for that feature to run some code upon activation and deactivation. I noticed that the feature is partially updated when running a solution upgrade. This means that the feature.xml is updated to look for the specified feature receiver class, but when you activate the feature after the upgrade you receive and error saying the receiver couldn't run.

My resolution that seemed to work for me was to reinstall the feature manually. I ran the following command and I was then able to activate the feature as normal and have the feature receiver kick off as well.

stsadm -o installfeature -name <featurename> -force