Access violation from miabuild.exe

cpdaniel · Postby **cpdaniel** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:40 pm

I'm using IA 8 Studio sp1. Building from the command line (or from a FinalBuilder script), I get an error from miabuild:

Copied file .... (lots of files)
Built plug-in action ... (lots of plug-in actions)
Created Windows Installer database
Error during build: Access violation at address 004A7EA5 in module 'miabuild.
Read of address 00000010

I've seen a variety of posts from people with similar problems, but haven't found a solution in those threads.

I'm running InstallAware 8 on Windows 7 Home Premium x64. I'm able to build the same project from the IA8 IDE without issue on this same computer. I'm also able to build the same project from the command line on another system running Windows Server 2008 R2 X64 and also on another system running Windows Server 2003 X64, so I'm suspecting that this might be a W7 HP-specific issue.

Upgrading to a newer version of IA is not an option - hopefully there's an easier solution.

Postby **giaviv** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:53 pm

Dear cd,

Have you tried uninstalling InstallAware, regenerating your license and then reinstalling with your new license?

cpdaniel · Postby **cpdaniel** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:09 pm

No, I haven't tried that - How would i go about re-generating my license?

cpdaniel · Postby **cpdaniel** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:52 pm

This is some kind of UAC-related bug in InstallAware. When I run FinalBuilder elevated (hence, the miabuild command line runs elevated), no error occurs. I don't have to run elevated on my Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, so there must be some W7 HP-specific difference that requires elevation where Server 2K8R2 does not.

Running elevated is an acceptable solution for now, but there's really no excuse for IA to require elevation at all.

Postby **giaviv** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:54 pm

Dear cd,

Could you potentially create a reproducing project and send it to support at installaware.com so I could look at it?

cpdaniel · Postby **cpdaniel** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:50 pm

Here we are, years later, and I'm running into this same issue again, this time on Windows 2008 R2, which wasn't a problem before. I'm still on IA8 - upgrading is not an option.

Judging by what I can see in the residue of my failed build, this error occurs during packaging of the MSI database and the other files into the EXE file.

Any fresh information on what causes this? Apparently I concluded three years ago that it was a UAC/permissions issue - but permissions on what?

Postby **FrancescoT** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:45 am

Dear cd,

unfortunately, there isn't any fresh information about this specific issue to share with you.

Anyway, if you was able to use the command line build tool without problems, I may suggest to verify if any Anti Virus application is the source of your problem.

Additionally, you could also try to run the MIABUILD as Admin from an elevated CMD prompt ... to verify if it is a UAC/permissions issue.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

cpdaniel · Postby **cpdaniel** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:26 pm

Thanks for the reply.

I've been trying for the better part of a day to figure out why this thing is crashing, and I think I just stumbled into the solution: I explicitly granted Full Control of the C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallAware folder to the user that's running miabuild (it's part of a build process running under FinalBuilder server).

With that change, it now appears to be working. I hope the error reporting in this application has improved since IA8 - I'll never know, because the next time this installer needs any serious work, I'm re-writing it to use WiX.