I created a MSI package with visual studio. It works fine for 80% of the users (some have errors with privileges and the like), but for two users the installation fails with the error message:
The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable
Which I find very odd because all the MSI does is set some registry values and put an OCX control into the system. Nothing with any network devices or anything else.
It also refers to a install[1].msi (when the actual MSI is called install.msi) which it supposedly can't find, which is obvious, because such a file never existed and is neither required for the installation nor even referenced in it in any way.
The package tries to locate this non-existent other package under C:\Documents and Settings\XYZ\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\M84S9GA4\, even though I started the MSI out of the local drive D:.
How can I resolve this / get closer the underlying cause?
A verbose log file should show you the exact error causing the issue. If it doesn't happen consistently, you'll probably be best served turning on the logging policy to get a log file all the time and when it repros, grab the log file really quick.
Alternatively, if you have a repro situation you can get a log file immediately by doing:
msiexec /i path\to\your.msi /l*v install.txt
As for the root cause, the fact that that the name is install[1].msi makes it sound like the MSI was downloaded using a web browser and launched out of the browser cache. The Windows Installer is very particular about the name of the MSI, you can read about that in an old blog entry of mine. The end result is that shipping a 'naked' MSI on the internet is never a good idea. Maybe you're seeing these errors when shipping a newer MSI? If so, that would make a lot of sense.
A verbose log file will show you for sure.
Related
Hi it's been few days having different Google Video Support Pluggin Installer tasks running
It happens the same this folk described here:
v78 of Chrome, Win 10, Every few hours a new instance of the video plugin installer exe kicks off and runs in parallel with the other(s) in place. Each instance takes ~ half a core and there is also always one MsiExec that terminates (similar usage) when the process is manually killed in task manager. The processes originate from \users\\appdata\local\google\update\install{GUID} - deleting the directories / files does no good, the updater downloads it after a few hours and tries again.
Video plugin installer is v 19.9.2600.0, 10,692,592 bytes
I'd like a way to stop this automated install or have it succeed. It seems I can do neither right now.
Any solutions to this in place?
Thank you in advance!
Quick Questions: 1) Are you behind an internet proxy server? 2) What is your security tool / malware suite / anti-virus? Can you
temporarily disable it whilst the installation finishes? 3) Have a look
in the "Deployment Mnemonic" section here? (for various causes of
deployment failure). 4) You can try to log in as another user and install fresh - see if that works. If it does, then you need a Chrome profile cleanup? 5) There is always the reboot. Always try that first to get it out of the way as the "one-size-doesn't-fit-anyone-at-all-really fix".
Technical: If I were to guess the problem is a custom action in the MSI that gets stuck "somehow". How many msiexec.exe entries are in the tast list and what context are they in? (user, system). There can be many msiexec.exe processes. Below is information on how to debug custom action failures (and other failures) by log analysis.
Logging: If this really is an MSI installer (Windows Installer), then you can try to enable MSI logging policy to create a log file for all MSI installations that run by following the instructions in the section "Globally for all setups on a machine" here. You will then find a log file in the TEMP folder after the installer has run (whenever that might be). Look for *.log files with a random name. Just sort the folder by change date to see the most recent files.
Open Temp folder: Windows Key > Tap R > Type: %TEMP% > Press: Enter.
Debugging: You can search the log for "value 3" first to find errors (see Rob Mensching's explanation in that link). You can find more information on interpreting MSI log files in the section "Interpreting MSI Log Files" here: Enable installation logs for MSI installer without any command line arguments
When i try to start one application (for instance application A.exe) error was throwing from already installed msi file (for Ex: B.msi) as "The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package 'B.msi'"
I have read some articles related to this error but all of them explaining if installer have any issues (if file have been damaged, deleted, moved, or quarantined by an anti-virus application) this error will occur but here when I try to launch one application then it is showing above mentioned error with another package name (B.msi) which I already installed.
Please let me know the cause of this issue it would be helpful to trace out this issue.
Note: For older version of our application don't have this issue (For creating installer earlier we have used Wise tool now using WIX tool. Is there any issue with WIX installer?).
Self-Repair Problems: This is generally a self-repair issue. I have written more times about this than I care to count, I'll see if I can send you here: MSI self-repair - the scourge of society.
Explanation: What is actually happening is that your installation goes through an integrity check when launced via an advertised shortcut, and a resource is found to be missing. The MSI will then try to repair itself (self-repair), but it is unable to find the required source files to retrieve the file it needs to reinstall - since the source files are no longer available at the location where you installed from. It is a good idea to install from a permanently available network location using administrative installations - especially for corporations.
Missing Source Files Resolution: In your case - to sort out the missing source files - you can either uninstall and reinstall (uninstall should not need source access in normal cases), and then preserve the installation files at a permanently available location (solving the problem for the future), or you can browse to the installation source when you are prompted to do so for your current installation (and there are some ways to automate setting new source paths). The installation source must be the one used to install the software originally (unless you know how to hack it, which is very involved).
Self-Repair Resolution: To sort out the actual self-repair conflict, you essentially need to find the culprit component causing the repair in the event viewer and then find some way to resolve the situation. All linked or explained in the above answer (repeated here). Proposed "real-world solutions" can be found in section 5 here: What do I do when launching an application triggers repeating, endless Windows Installer self-repair? As a workaround, you might want to try to launch the EXE files in question directly, to verify that the self-repair does not happen (generally this will prevent the self-repair, but it can still happen if there is a COM conflict or some other advanced conflict).
You can see a list of "Primary Cause of Self-Repair" some way down in this answer: How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair? (bad MSI packages with conflicting resources - COM conflicts?, security software quarantining files unexpectedly, cleanup scripts wrecking havoc, etc...). I would recommend you skim this list for ideas.
Uninstall Problems: This "installation source not found" problem can also occur so it prevents uninstall in special cases. Here is an answer which tries to summarize aspects of this problem: Powershell Silent Uninstall "Microsoft Report Viewer Runtime 2012" (somewhat too elaborate, but worth skimming I think).
Some Links (for reference and easy retrieval):
Installshield 2013 Installscript MSI: Wrong .msi location during Repair
Wix / MSI : Unable to uninstall
Uninstall without an MSI file
Our application is deployed to the target machine with an msi file. All works nicely. Our tester has gone through his plan, and one of the tests requires deleting the application's configuration file. The application is designed to alert the user with a dialog on startup saying "missing config". However, what happens is that - somehow! - the software starts the installer again and retrieves the missing file from the msi! Which is nice, but not what we want. How do we disable that behaviour?
without going into much depth of the windows installer mechanics (if you interested in that there a plenty of articles about this), the shortcut of the software is probably advertised, which means the windows installer checks if everything is in its place before the software is started.
if you can edit the msi, make the shortcut non advertised.
if you can't, install it with DISABLEADVTSHORTCUTS
e.g. msiexec /i myMsi.msi DISABLEADVTSHORTCUTS=1
please note that this is only a quick (and dirty) workaround,
to fix this proper you need to understand the whole windows installer advertising (also called repair or self resiliency) mechanism.
but explaining all the causes and the mechanism of the repair is far beyond this answer and there are quite some articles and posts about that on the internet (and especially on MSDN and stackoverflow)
There is a more correct answer to this, and it is NOT DISABLEADVTSHORTCUTS. You set the component id to null in the MSI file to prevent repair of that individual file. See ComponentId comments here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368007(v=vs.85).aspx
Edit the MSI file with Orca to delete the Componenty ID, and write an uninstall custom action to delete the file at uninstall if it's there.
In addition, that's a redundant test. Windows will restore that file for you if it's missing, so the idea that you need a test to notify that it's missing is pointless. The true test should be that Windows will restore the file if it's lost, and your app needs to do potentially nothing about the missing file.
You don't mention what tool you are using to make your MSI but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess Visual Studio Deployment Projects (.VDRPOJ).
One of the (many) horrible things about this tool was that it fails to expose the foundational concept of components. Instead it makes every file a key file of it's own component and hides the existence of the component from you. I say 'was' because Microsoft killed this project type in VS. There are around 50k people complaining on UserVoice to bring this tool back and I'm guessing that 49,990 of them don't know what a key path is.
Windows Installer has a concept called the component rules and each component has a keypath. The keypath teaches MSI how to handle repair scenarios. But your tool has to allow you to be able to control this to make it work.
Windows Installer is functioning exactly the way it's supposed to function. You just aren't up to speed on what that is.
However, if you want to ignore Windows Installer best practices and continue using the tool you use today, the trick is to install the app.config file as a different file. Then have the application copy the file to the real file name on run. Windows Installer won't service what it didn't install.
Several answers have been provided that can work:
You can install the file with a blank guid. Then you need to remove it on uninstall using the RemoveFile feature. You will also run into issues if you want to replace it during an upgrade. Could be tricky at times.
You can disable the advertised shortcut(s), but this affects too much in my opinion.
Finally you can use my suggestion to install a separate non-advertised shortcut to use to launch the application. Such a shortcut bypasses the self-repair check. It may still be invoked by other means such as missing file associations, COM registration or similar, but those are exception states.
However, my preference is that an application can start without a config file present, if at all possible. I always suggest a good startup routine with "internal defaults" available. The startup routine should also degrade gracefully if faced with any file system access denied conditions.
Most importantly you should place this config file in the userprofile so you can generate the file on first launch for the user in question. It can even be copied from a read-only copy in the main installation directory.
When you generate a file from internal defaults and put it in a userprofile location, the file will have no interference with Windows Installer at all. The issues that results is how to clean up user data on uninstall. I discussed this with Stefan Kruger (MSI MVP) at one point, and I agree with his notion that user data is indeed user data and should not be automatically dealt with by your installer at all. Leave it installed, and clean it up via system administrator tools if necessary - for example logon scripts.
I am having a problem installing an msi on to a windows 2008 web server. The exact same msi previously installed successfully. The msi is for a .net 4.0 web application that I have created and being installed in to IIS.
What happens is that the msi seems to be installing correctly, and it reaches 0 seconds remaining on the progress bar, then suddenly it starts rolling back. I checked the event viewer for information on this but none appeared there, to assist with getting to the bottom of what the issue may be.
As the msi previously installed without issue on to the box, I believe the problem may be to do with a change to the server rather than to do with the msi.
Anyone experience this before or have an idea as to where I may be able to find more information as to why the msi installer is rolling back?
Ok, what I have done with the help of Bogdan Mitrache reply was to compare logs from a successfull server and the server causing the problem and this is the section where I found the error to occur:
FAILED: -2147024864
FAILED: -2147024864
Custom Action failed with code: '32'
Custom Action failed with code: '32'
Custom Action completed with return code: '32'
Info 1903. Scheduling reboot operation: Deleting file << root directory >>\TBD2D0E.tmp. Must reboot to complete operation.
Info 1903. Scheduling reboot operation: Deleting file << root directory >>\TBD2ED3.tmp. Must reboot to complete operation.
Info 1903. Scheduling reboot operation: Deleting file << root directory >>\TBD2F41.tmp. Must reboot to complete operation.
And then at the very end of the process:
Return value 3.
I have done searching on the internet but I have found no concrete reason as to why the above may be occuring. Anyone have further information on the above, or where i may look?
The best method to see exactly why the MSI package fails is to create a verbose log, using this command line: msiexec /i "msi path" /L*V "debug.log"
The log should contain more details about the cause of the rollback. As you suspected probably you have a duplicate IIS web site/app that conflicts with the package.
The return code mentioned in the log means this: "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.". The reboot messages are automatically included by Windows Installer when a file that needs to be updated is currently in use.
According to Windows Installer standards, the return code of a custom action must be 0 to be considered it executed successfully. Any return code different from 0 is considered failure.
What you should do is to add another custom action, scheduled in the beginning of the installation, that stops any services/applications that could use resources updated by the package.
You should be using virtual machines with snapshots to rule out changes to the environment vs changes to the installer. And you should certainly be logging and reading your windows installer log.
When trying to remove our application in Add/Remove Programs, the following error pops up, and the application fails to uninstall:
Error
'mFileBagIDE.dll' is not a valid short file name.
The curious thing is that you only get this error if the original installation DVD is not in the drive. If the DVD is in the drive, the uninstall works perfectly.
Here's the real kicker: we did not catch this bug until after our application was already widely deployed, and our clients' situations are such that it is likely many of them no longer have their original DVD. This means that the next version's installer (doing a windows installer major upgrade) will fail because it is unable to first remove the previous version.
So, my question is twofold:
What did we do to create this problem so we can avoid it in future releases?
Is there a way to tell our next windows installer to ignore this error and go ahead and remove the previous version?
Our current installer (the one that is causing problems) was generated using InstallAware. We're likely moving to WiX. But solutions in any platform (InstallAware, WiX, raw MSI tables) are appreciated!
UPDATE: I have the following row in both the InstallExecuteSequence and InstallUISequence tables in my MSI, which may very well be relevant, but I have no idea what the SRCDIREX property is, or where it is being set.
| Action | Condition |
|---------------|--------------|
| ResolveSource | NOT SRCDIREX |
Probably one of the actions (either standard or custom) that references the original MSI was not conditioned to run on installation only (for example, ResolveSource should be conditioned as "Not INSTALLED"). You might be able to workaround this with a patch (an MSP file) that changes the condition on the relevant action.
I would start by determining which action is causing the error. Here's how I would do that:
Install your app from the dvd
copy the msi file to some local folder, let's say "c:\temp"
Remove the dvd
kick off the uninstall like this: "msiexec /x yourapp.msi /L*v c:\temp\uninst.log"
When the error comes up, the uninstall is effectively paused. You can then check the end of the log to see exactly where you are in the sequence. That should help you to debug.
If the answer really is ResolveSource, regular patching may not be an option.
Heath Stewart mentions this in his blog -
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/10/25/resolvesource-requires-source.aspx
"In general, do not schedule ResolveSource. If this runs when installing a patch, for example, the user will have to insert the original media whether they would otherwise need to or not."
If that's the position you find yourself in, you could create a transform that updates the condition on your ResolveSource action, and apply that to the cached copy of the msi file manually. It's a bit of a pain, but I'm pretty sure that would work.
have you tried to copy those files to %WinDir%/system32 folder?
EDIT: Make a setup to copy all the setup MSI package to the disk, and install it from the diskdrive.
Remove every files uneeded to uninstaller. Adobe, HP and many other companys are doing that.