X5 Web media block failing to download

[rev23dev]

Hi there!

I have an interesting thing happening with X5-- I have one web media block that on some PCs just won't download. On others, and all of my test PCs its fine, but 1/25 or so, it seems to be failing. The file is there and accessible, server is responsive.

Is there any type of logging I can add so that when this occurs I can get a sense of what is happening with it? Or any other advice on why this might be the case.

Thanks!

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

did you check if the problem is caused by an installed Anti Virus?

Regards

[rev23dev]

Hi Francesco!

Yeah, I've looked into that.. interestingly the first packages before it gets to this one will download just fine, its just this specific one and only on some computers

I've tried rebuilding the block and replacing it, but same issue.

Also, I've never had issues with this particular package before. It seems to have started just with X5.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

if the problem is caused by an installed AV which blocks/alters/damages that particular WEB Media block, this has nothing to do with InstallAware.

To validate a file, any AV uses a sort of internal database and pre-defined patterns. For some reasons such information/pattern may be different or not present and consequently, the AV can treat that file as a virus (false positive).

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[rev23dev]

Hi Francesco,

Yes, I've looked at AV on the computers when this occurred. It was either not preset (or was just Windows Defender built into Windows 10), or still failed after being disabled.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

Windows Defender cannot be the problem.

Did you use the same identical IA version to generate the installer and the Web Media Blocks?

Regards

[rev23dev]

Yessir! I've even re-built that block several times just in case.

It's like it doesn't even attempt to download it, it just goes right to that "Cannot download.." dialog that gives you the option to retry which I've never seen work

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

if I am not quite sure which is dialog that gets displayed, but it looks like that such Web Media Block cannot be downloaded.
I suggest you to verify if that particular Web Media Block can be downloaded manually from the Browser.

Regards

[rev23dev]

It can And like I said, on most machines this is succeeding. Is there anyway to implement logging so I can see the error? If not, I think this would be a valuable feature to add.

The dialog I'm talking about is the one that says the web media block can't be downloaded and it gives you two radio buttons. One says try again and the other one says umm... something else I don't remember. Maybe you could implement something where if you double click the globe icon picture in that dialog it could show you more details about the error?

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

Are you referring to this dialog?

RetryExtraction.png (13.68 KiB) Viewed 13693 times

If true, this is not an error!

You just need to select "Download a fresh copy of the installation data".

This happens because probably, you tried to install different build versions of the same setup package.
It can happen that a Web Media Block was already extracted or partially downloaded and this doesn't match, with the check-sum of the component that your current installer version is trying to install.

Due of this, the installer is asking if you want to "Download a fresh copy of the installation data" and this may be displayed for each one of the Web Media Blocks that need to be installed.

Regards

[rev23dev]

Hi Francesco!

Actually, its the "Download of installation data from the web has failed" dialog that I'm seeing in these cases.

Clicking "Try to resume broken download" or "Download a new copy" doesn't do anything. When these few users have hit this, I have tried the web media block URL and it's up and running just fine. And the packages before this particular one downloaded and installed just fine. It's quite baffling!

Actually, that's the same case with the extraction one you've posted too though. I've never seen any of these dialogs work

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

the "Download of installation data from the web has failed" <dialog> gets raised as consequence of a failure generated by the default browser (the download process is released via a browser process).

So due of this, it may be interesting to try to manually download that Web Media Block while leaving displayed the "Download of installation data from the web has failed" dialog.

Last but note least and concerning these few users which have the issue, are these totally different users which don't have any relation each Others?

Regards

[rev23dev]

Hi there!

Yes, I did exactly that as a first level of troubleshooting it... attempted to download it via the browser and it went fine.

No relation to any of these users. It has been very sporadic and random. The next time I see one I will try more. Should I try downloading it in IE on the affected computers? Is that what IA is likely doing behind the scenes? Any other suggestions to look at when I come face to face with this one again?

[FrancescoT]

Dear Rev23dev,

...Should I try downloading it in IE on the affected computers?

Yes, it's what I suggested you previously.

are you sure that for some unknown reasons, it's not your server (the one you point to download your files from the installer) that goes offline sporadically?

Regards

[rev23dev]

Well, the server is an Azure CDN-- and it seems fine at the time. And like I said, it will download the other packages ok, its just this one that's being particularly weird

I hide error messages in some of my dialogs like these, so that's kind of what I was suggesting here. In that screenshot you posted for example, you could make it so double clicking the extract icon in the top left would show a more detailed message Just a thought!