Missing mia.lib

[kpendergast]

I have received the following message when running my installation on a clean test machine:

This application has failed to start because mia.lib was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

I have read the forums for sources of problems and still cannot determine the cause of this message.
- There is no mismatch between my IA license and my IA version.
- There are no cached files to fix. This is a clean machine.

So, I have some basic questions related to the mia.lib file.
1. Is this file included with Windows, or is it in a runtime that needs to be distributed with the setup application?
2. Where should this file reside on any machine running my setup application?
3. How can a license mismatch in IA generate this message when running the install application? Or alternatively, how can fixing a license mismatch fix this problem?
4. In the absence of a license mismatch problem, how can ensure that there is a valid, working mia.lib on the client machine?

Thanks
Ken

[giaviv]

Dear Ken,

1. The mia.lib file is a part of the InstallAware installation engine and not a part of Windows
2. The file is deployed by the installation and therefore doesn't have a local copy
3. Mismatching a license and the installed version can generate many errors regarding built packages (such as Vietnamese message boxes).
Regenerating your license and and installing makes changes to the InstallAware engine and therefore it could solve your problems

How did you make sure that your license is compatible with the version installed?
Have you tested this on other machines (possibly other OS's) to see if the error exists elsewhere as well?

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv,

Well I regenerated the license again and it now appears to be working. The only thing that was different this time is I had rebooted my build machine.

I don't understand how a licensing issue can affect my install behavior. It seems like it should prompt me at build time. Can you tell me why this is so? Also, can you give me a definitive way to determine whether I have such a mismatch?

Thank you

Ken

[giaviv]

Dear Ken,

Our license is built right into the core engine of InstallAware, therefore any discrepancies between the license and the actual installed version can cause unexpected behavior.
The best way to determine whether a discrepancy exists is to install your license and examine the version.
If the version remains the same, you are good. For example, lets say you downloaded and installed IA 9.
In that case, if you install a IA 10 license, checking the license again would reveal version 10 instead.

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv:

Well, I re-ran my IA build without changing either my IA version or my license and got the "missing mia.lib" message again on a test machine. I don't understand why this is happening and what I can do to prevent it in the future. It seems my only way to ensure that I don't get this is to regenerate my license before every build; this can't be right.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks
Ken

[giaviv]

Dear Ken,

I apologize - this definitely should not be the case. Once regenerated and properly installed, you should not encounter any further problems.
Are you able to solve this by clearing your %TEMP% folders and rebooting your computer?

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv:

I will try that and let you know.

FYI. This seems to be an alternating problem. Here are the details:

I have two projects that I'm building, one is a vb6 application using COM and one is a .NET application. I have separate IA projects, one for each application. Although I haven't exactly confirmed this, here's what I think is happening:

- I build the vb6 application setup app, get the missing mia.lib message during install on the end user machine.
- I regenerate my license, re-build the vb6 setup app in IA, works.
- I build the .NET application setup app, get the missing mia.lib message during install on the end user machine.
- I regenerate my license, re-build the .NET setup app in IA, works.
- I build a new version of the vb6 application setup app, get the missing mia.lib message during install on the end user machine.

It is my guess that if I regenerate my license, my vb6 application will install ok, but the .NET application will not.

I will now try clearing my %TEMP% folder, rebooting my machine, and rebuilding the vb6 setup app WITHOUT regenerating my license and see if that works. I will post with the results.

Thanks
Ken

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv:

I cleared the %TEMP% folder and rebooted my machine. I did NOT regenerate my IA license. Now, the vb6 application setup app installs ok. I then re-built my .NET app setup app and it does NOT install ok and shows the "missing mia.lib" message".

Please advise.

Thanks
Ken

[giaviv]

Dear Ken,

Could it be that your setups are messing up your licenses somehow?
Are you sure that you are properly rebuilding the installers every time you are testing?

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv:

To answer your questions:

1. I don't understand how anything in my IA setups could possibly mess up my license; please tell me how this could happen.
2. I'm running the build the same way I always have, so I don't know how I could be building them incorrectly.

This all started happening when I started building my .NET application setups. Before this, all of my setups were for VB6 applications and I never ran into this problem. Now, I'm building both VB6 and .NET application setups and am encountering this problem.

Ken

[giaviv]

Dear Ken,

Creating .NET setups should not have created this issue. Furthermore, unless your setup literally temper or alter the InstallAware setup on your computer (or revert your computer to an earlier snapshot) this shouldn't happen.
Perhaps try reinstalling InstallAware all together - I apologize for this, I really can't think of any sensible situation that might cause this.

[kpendergast]

Hi Aviv:

I believe that somehow, IA must be caching information about my build machine when it runs a setup build and that this information is invalid when I run the build on my other project. This cached information is then cleared when I either regen my license or clear the %TEMP% folder and reboot. I say this based on empirical data and not on any direct knowledge of the inner workings of IA.

I think the cleanest way to approach this is to use separate machines for the builds. I will try this and see if this works (I believe it should).

Thanks
Ken

[KevinTX]

I have run into the same problem. And as Ken pointed out, after clearing the %temp% folder, the installer works on the end user machine. This problem seems new in R10.10. I did not have this problem in R9.

Regards,
Kevin

[giaviv]

Dear Kevin,

Does this constantly happen on all machines? I am not able to reproduce this..

[KevinTX]

Dear Kevin,

Does this constantly happen on all machines? I am not able to reproduce this..

I have tried this on two different PCs, both running 64-bit Win7, and same result. Note that if I clear my %temp% each time before I build the installer package, there is no "missing mia.lib" problem.

Regards,
Kevin