Cancel during .NET installation causes hang

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:14 pm

If I press the Cancel button during the installation of the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 prerequisite on Windows XP, the installer hangs forever. This prerequisite is installed by the setupnet2sp1 script from InstallAware.

It is called like this:

Code: Select all

~InstallAware Clipboard Data~
~Include Script~
~{9E96681A-5706-4DB5-9AD7-1411143F51AF}~
~setupnet2sp1~

The setupnet2sp1 script is unaltered. It looks like it is installing .NET by using (Un)Install MSI Package, thusly:

Code: Select all

~InstallAware Clipboard Data~
~(Un)Install MSI Setup~
~{7769EE0E-E0DA-4C4B-967D-23A74E4F2CFA}~
~VSEXTUI=1,FALSE,,TRUE,$NET2SP1_BOOTPATH$\\net2sp1bin\\Netfx20a_x86.msi,,NET2SP1_RESULT,NET2SP1_ERROR,FALSE~
~mMSI.dll\\mMSIExec.dll~

And if I press cancel from the Progress Prerequisites dialog, the message box asks, "Are you sure you want to cancel?" I click Yes, and then the installer is frozen. Looking at the setupnet2sp1 script, it looks like it should error out with "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 could not be installed..." But it never gets this far. It seems as if it's never returning from the (Un)Install MSI Package call when the cancel button is pressed.

Thoughts?

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:08 pm

I just discovered that the same thing happens if I click cancel when uninstalling my own product. That is, after completing an install, run setup again and choose the repair option. While the progress dialog is shown and it's uninstalling, click cancel and answer yes to the message box - the installer freezes.

zims · Post by **zims** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:34 pm

I have the same problem, when pressing Cancel at diffrent places in the setup proces the installation freezes and nothing happends.

I solved it by "removing" the cancel button

Zims

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:51 pm

Thanks for the reply. As you might be able to guess, that's not really an acceptable solution for me. I'd really like to know if this is a bug in InstallAware or if there is some way that I can fix it.

I found this thread from March reporting the same thing. No replies:

http://www.installaware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3492

There's this one from a few weeks ago. The poster's solution was to remove a call that doesn't exist in the setupnet2sp1 script, so it won't work for me:

http://www.installaware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4191

Finally, there's this doozie of a thread in which IA argue that it is not a bug or flawed design that installation continues after the user presses Cancel bug before he answers the "are you sure" message box, even though such a message box is modal in nearly every if not every other application out there. They describe a user clicking cancel but not answering the "are you sure" message box immediately as a "contrived test scenario." In the end, the user just removed the cancel button, thus hiding rather than fixing the problem:

http://www.installaware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=473

In my case, I'm not willing to sweep the problem under the rug; I need to fix it properly. I'd like to know if this is something that I can fix, or if it is a bug in InstallAware.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:53 pm

From these reports, it seems that the (Un)Install MSI Setup plug-in is not properly processing the cancel request. We'll investigate.

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:03 pm

MichaelNesmith wrote:From these reports, it seems that the (Un)Install MSI Setup plug-in is not properly processing the cancel request. We'll investigate.

That's great to hear. I'm looking forward to hearing what you find. Thanks!

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:27 pm

Unable to reproduce. We've tested both .NET and also the native InstallAware uninstaller during an upgrade of InstallAware itself. The plugin was responding properly.

Can you provide VERY extensive details on your test setup?

You may also contact me privately if data you wish to submit does not go well in the forum (size limitations, etc).

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:02 pm

Hi Michael. It's easily reproducible for me by creating a new empty project that requires the .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 runtime.

* InstallAware button -> New Project -> Quick Start
* Choose Project Wizard
* Click OK
* In the project wizard, click next on every step until you get to the Build Media dialog. Tick the radio button for "Compressed Single Self-Installing EXE" before clicking next to complete the wizard.
* When the first automatic build completes, go to Application Runtimes in the Design view.
* Tick the checkbox for "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 with Service Pack 1."
* InstallAware button -> Save All
* From the MSIcode view, Build -> Single File
* Copy "New Project.exe" to a computer that does not have .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 on it. I'm using Windows XP Pro SP2 on a VMWare 6 VM.
* Launch the installer.
* Click next to start the installation of the .NET 2.0 SP1 prerequisite.
* Wait for it to get to about 5% installed, then click Cancel.
* Click Yes on the "Are you sure" message box.
* At this point, the installer is frozen. On one of about seven runs while setting up this sample, the cancel actually took and I got an out-of-disk-space error from the .NET installation. All other times, though, the setup froze.

I have attached the project, zipped up, to this message.

File Attached:

CancelFreeze.zip

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:28 am

Unable to reproduce. I get this moments after clicking cancel:

---------------------------
ndhang Setup
---------------------------
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 could not be installed. User cancelled installation

Please use Windows Update to manually install this update on your system.

ndhang Setup cannot continue.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

I think your VM probably has very little memory and is executing the rollback stage when you think its hung. Open Task Manager, sort by CPU utilization, see what process is consuming the CPU. It's probably msiexec.exe doing the rollback. Just let it complete!

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:38 pm

I think you may be a little over-eager to dismiss this issue, Michael. Did you attempt to cancel the .NET installation more than once? As I mentioned in my step-by-step write-up, there was one instance where the cancel was honored by the setup. But in most cases, it freezes.

I just reproduced the issue here again to get the following statstics. At the time of the incident:

Physical Memory
Total: 261616
Available: 123880
System Cache: 137992

Commit Charge (K)
Total: 115608
Limit: 631456
Peak: 174948

Hard Disk
Total Size: 9.98 GB
Free Space: 7.34 GB

Task Manager (sorted by CPU utilization)
System Idle Process 99
VMWareService.exe 00
taskmgr.exe 00

... and lots of others at 0% CPU usage. I am showing processes from all users. There is no msiexec.exe process listed.

It has now been 45 minutes since the installer froze after I clicked cancel and it is still sitting there. It's not going to finish. I urge you to attempt a few more times to reproduce the issue.

Thanks.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:53 pm

In that case I'm going to ask you to send us a VM which accurately reproduces this issue. We have virtually no reports of this from the field and are unable to reproduce it in-house.

Be sure to include your setup project sources as well as binaries.

Please compress the VM using 7zip compression so its as small as possible.

You may post the URL here or privately message me.

jsmith · Post by **jsmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:21 pm

Michael,

I do not believe it is necessary for me to provide a copy of the VM because I have just reproduced the bug on my workstation - that is, on my physical computer. I also sent the setup to a friend outside of our company to test. It froze for him, too, when canceling the .NET 2.0 SP1 setup.

Be sure to include your setup project sources as well as binaries.

I already did this. In my comment posted on Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:02 pm, I attached a zip archive containing the entire source to a very simple InstallAware project that produces an installer that exhibits this behavior. Did you not already download this? If not, how did you attempt to reproduce the issue? If you did, maybe the installer produced by the InstallAware project when you build it differs from when I build it. To eliminate this difference, I'd like to send you the setup.exe that results from my building the InstallAware project I linked to before. Do you have a place I can upload it to?

Thanks,
Jack

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:30 pm

I'm afraid you do need to send us a VM if you want to receive further assistance on this issue. Please revisit our support policy page if you have any questions.

thollebeek · Post by **thollebeek** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:08 am

[quote="MichaelNesmith"]
We have virtually no reports of this from the field and are unable to reproduce it in-house.
[quote="MichaelNesmith"]

This is the fourth time it has been reported, as has already been pointed out. I recognize how frustrating it is to try to solve an issue you cannot reproduce internally, but ignoring it, or pretending the issue doesn't exist, isn't the solution. The fact that this keeps coming up means it will continue to come up until it is taken more seriously.

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:02 pm

All other referenced items are other reports.

We're asking for your help in reproducing it. Don't blame us for not trying!