InstallAware

So in doing a test installation I'm getting the following error message in the "Validating Install" portion:

"The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing the package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2725."

The installer log (and Google) tell me that error 2725 means "Invalid database tables", but that's maddeningly short of the information I need. Does that refer to tables in the database that I'm installing? If so, which ones?

Any help anyone might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated. I can supply the installer log or excerpts thereof if needed.

Thanks,

Eric

That's odd, at a minimum we'll probably need your setup, and information on your test system to troubleshoot the error. This will require a support ticket as the process will be research intensive.

Try to weak your setup and see what lines in your MSIcode script cause this problem. If you can pinpoint the issue, then a support ticket won't be required, if I can isolate the problem as an issue in InstallAware itself.

Thanks for the quick response.

Is there a good way pinpoint the problem other than temporarily removing installer tasks until it works? Install the logger plugin that gets mentioned from time to time? Sorry for what are probably basic questions but I'm fairly new at the whole installer thing.

Thanks,

Eric

I'm afraid not, Eric. Despite the tediousness, it will actually be the fastest way to isolate the issue.

After several days of experimentation, I have made some progress determining the nature of the problem, but I still have no idea of the cause.

Outside of the offline content, the installer has 30-some web blocks, each of which do a recursive "Install Files from folder" task. Inside each of these web block folders are hundreds of files. Whether or not each Install Files task executes (and consequently whether the web block is downloaded) depends on a bitmask derived from a registration code entered by the user.

It appears that I can have about 23 web blocks (not including the offline content) and everything is fine, but if I add any more, I get the validation error. Is there an absolute limit on number of web blocks allowed, or number of files allowed?

Eric

Actually no - you can build ultra large setups, both as in size, and as in number of files (ex: some very large files, or lots of small files, or a combination thereof).

Interesting situation - what does this setup install? Just curious.

It might help if you replace individual Install Files commands that you have for single files with wildcards. Reducing the number of separate commands might resolve the issue.

Well, let me know what else I can to do help!

I am using wildcards for the folder/file copy. The main installer script is 567 lines - not that long.

The application is used to prepare informed consent documents for medical procedures. Each web block is a specialty, so a physician can purchase, say, all the ophthalmology documents without also purchasing otolaryngology. Within each specialty, there are (typically) hundreds of documents, and each document consists of up to about 20 physical files. All told, it makes for a lot of files to move around.

At the moment I am running Orca's validator, but that is taking several hours - again, probably, due to the large number of files.

Eric

I think that should really be working well, then. If you cannot resolve the issue, please go ahead and purchase a support ticket, send us your full setup and sources, so our engineers can take a look at it for you. If we identify the cause as a problem in InstallAware, we'll happily refund your ticket.

One more thing to run by you before I open a support ticket. According to Orca, the version of the installer that failed has 33423 rows in the File table, while a version of the installer with one fewer web blocks included, which succeeds, has 32614 rows. See where I'm going? Once you get more than 32678 (i.e. 2^15) rows in the File table, things fail. Purely conjecture, of course, but a compelling bit of circumstantial evidence, in my opinion.

Eric

I think this page from Microsoft validates my hunch:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... _table.asp

Under the discription of the Sequence column in the File table, it says:

"The maximum limit is 32767 files."

It goes on to provide a link on how to author installers with larger files - are these techniques supported within InstallAware? Or should I be looking at alternate means to limit the number of files, such as placing the files from each web block into a single archive (.zip, .7zip, etc.) and extracting them as an explicit step in the install process?

Eric

Very puzzling...I know our MSI databases already use the I4 types in the relevant tables to transcend this limit.


Maybe its best to take the workaround approach that you have already thought of.

In that case, what's the easiest way to create .7zip files so they can be manually extracted? I didn't see anything like that under the Tools menu.

Eric

I cracked open the msi once more to verify, and the Sequence column of the File table is indeed listed as Short Integer, Length of 2. I belive you are mistaken when you say "our MSI databases already use the I4 types in the relevant tables to transcend this limit." If you could double-check this assertion, I'd appreciate it, as this is causing us no end of grief.

Eric

Sure, I'll be happy to report this. Which version of IA are you currently running?