InstallAware

UI Build completes successfully, but command line does not

We recently upgraded to Installaware 18 and have completed most of our changes for doing direct deploy. On our build machine (server 2008) I am able to build the installer within the InstallAware UI without issue, however issuing the command line build (which we have done for years) fails with: Error during build: Access violation at address 00000000. Write of address 00000000

In order to troubleshoot I temporarily installed on a different machine and could do both UI and CMD line successfully (I am admin on both). I determined that on the build machine the command line build was failing after it copied all of the files.. the next step that wold normally be written out is related to the install fonts plug-in (but it never shows that line). I've re-installed Installaware several times as well as the MD-Plugins (and rebooted), I also copied over the InstallAware directory from the machine that worked over to the build machine with no change in result.

I guess I'm stumped, it doesn't make much sense to me that the UI works, but the command line doesn't. Any help or pointers would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jason

Jason,

Does the command line build work if you create a new project, out of the box as it were, using one of the IA templates?

That is, no need to add anything of your own to it, just build it in the IDE and build it using miabuild. Does that work?

There's something about an access violation message that stirs a distant memory, like a problem within an MSIcode script but I may be having a "senior moment".

Ok, so doing a brand new one works for command line and UI on that machine.. hmm. let me play around with altering the content of the installer, and if I don't get anywhere there, then I'll go over the MSI script to see what might cause the issue.

Here's some new info, I rolled back my code from source control to a year ago. At that time we were using Installaware 2012, and could do command line builds on this machine without issue. We received the same error: "Error during build: Access violation at address 00000000. Write.."

Is it possible we have a script upgrade issue that's only presenting its-self on this machine and only while doing the miabuild.exe command line build?

Thanks,
Jason

Dear Jason,

In all honesty, I've never had a similar experience.

Are you sure that script file doesn't get corrupted for some mysterious reasons?

Regards

I can't imagine how, since I can go back and forth between the UI and the cmd line and the UI still works.. but at this point I won't rule anything out. My path forward is to go back a couple service releases to emulate the same upgrade path the our development machine went through. I'm clearing everything off the build machine and starting from nil. Will keep you updated if I figure this one out.
Thanks

Dear Jason,

Let me know.

Regards

Francesco,

So far no luck with couple different other tries.. since things work in the UI, I'm trying to figure out if it is somehow running in a different context than the command line. Is it safe to assume that the UI also uses the miabuild.exe executable to perform it's build? I'm trying to establish what is constant vs. variable between the two.
Thanks,
Jason

Dear Jason,

... Is it safe to assume that the UI also uses the miabuild.exe executable to perform it's build?

Yes, the same miabuild.exe executable is used by the UI as well ... so this is why, it seems strange the issue you are having.

Regards

It still doesn't work from a command prompt for some reason, but it does work ok as a visual studio project post build command.. That's good enough for now.
Thanks,
Jason