asif0012
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:30 pm

Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:15 pm

We have an installer with Advanced Installer version 19.6. We are facing an issue where after the reboot of the PC, the installation starts again.

We are using the "Force Reboot After Install" feature of AI. When the installation is complete, we restart the PC using the Reboot prompt. Sometimes it happens that after the PC is restarted, the installer starts installing again. After the prerequisites installation, it shows us the "Modify, Repair, and Delete" window.

If I close the installation prompt, the application works fine. We are struggling to find the reason behind the problem. It doesn't happen all the time. It mostly happens in VMs where the resource is limited but we could not establish any reliable pattern.

FYI, we are running some PS and batch scripts as custom actions and in all those scripts we use the "Wait for custom action to finish before proceeding" option. So, the scripts should not cause any issues because they should execute one after another.

We also do not use the "Reboot system after installing this prerequisite" option for any prerequisite.

Is this a bug of Advanced Installer? If not is there any suggestion on how can we pinpoint or debug the problem?

Catalin
Posts: 6536
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:49 am

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:07 pm

Hello,

As you have already mentioned, this might indeed happen due to the fact that the PCs where you are testing this (be it physical or virtual) has limited resources and is slow in deleting the registry entry that causes your setup to restart.

Basically, what happens during a restart, a "RunOnce" registry entry is created so the machine knows to resume the installation after reboot.

If the machine is slow due to limited resources, it might take longer for it to remove the registry entry and therefore we encounter this behavior.

As you could have seen, even on those machines, you are not able to constantly reproduce this.
We are using the "Force Reboot After Install" feature of AI. When the installation is complete, we restart the PC using the Reboot prompt. Sometimes it happens that after the PC is restarted, the installer starts installing again. After the prerequisites installation, it shows us the "Modify, Repair, and Delete" window.
Considering this, I am assuming you are using post-install prerequisites as well. If you move those to the "feature-based" section, does this still occur?

Best regards,
Catalin
Catalin Gheorghe - Advanced Installer Team
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asif0012
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:30 pm

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Wed Feb 01, 2023 9:55 pm

Hi Catalin,
I am not using any Post-Install prerequisite but I am running a custom action after the Finish Execution stage. The custom action executes a batch file. I am running the custom action after the "Finish Execution" stage because I need to run it after the IIS site configuration. I need some IIS sites configured to successfully run the script.

When and in which location should I look for the "RunOnce" registry entry? Can I debug the registry entry deletion failure scenario from the installation log?

Can you suggest me a way to resolve the installation starting again scenario? Is it possible to prevent this?

Catalin
Posts: 6536
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:49 am

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:52 pm

Hello,

Here would be an article on the registry entry:

Run and RunOnce Registry Keys
Can I debug the registry entry deletion failure scenario from the installation log?
I'm afraid not.
Can you suggest me a way to resolve the installation starting again scenario? Is it possible to prevent this?
To be fully honest with you, I am not quite sure how to avoid this as it happens mostly because the registry entry is not removed in time because the machine is slow.

Have you managed to reproduce this on a machine that has proper hardware?

Best regards,
Catalin
Catalin Gheorghe - Advanced Installer Team
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asif0012
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:30 pm

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Wed Feb 08, 2023 4:34 pm

Hi Catalin,
Unfortunately, we also faced this issue in a machine with the proper hardware [ Intel processor, 16 GB RAM, Windows 11 ]. Rebooting after the installation finished, started the installation again when the machine started. We faced this issue one time in that machine. But other times it worked okay. We are pretty confused why this behavior occurs sometimes.

Is it a bug of Advanced Installer? or are we doing something wrong which generates this behavior?

Can we modify the installer in some way so that the installer can delete this registry properly?

Catalin
Posts: 6536
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:49 am

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Fri Feb 10, 2023 1:07 pm

Hello,

Thank you for your followup on this!

On the respective machine, if you reboot it one more time, does the installer still start?

If not, then it looks like eventually the task is removed.

On the machine where this reproduces, could you please check the following registry entries:

Code: Select all

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
or

Code: Select all

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and let me know if you find anything there?

Best regards,
Catalin
Catalin Gheorghe - Advanced Installer Team
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mrudolph
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri May 22, 2009 6:30 pm

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Tue Aug 15, 2023 3:40 pm

We are having a similar issue, if not the same.

The installer does not have any setting that specifically asks for a reboot and for anything to happen after a reboot. However, after rebooting the computer following an install (no matter how long we wait), an "Error" is displayed once windows is up and running stating 'Another instance of setup is already running.' Task Manager shows our installer process as running until the Error is dismissed. The message has only an OK button.

In addition, if I had installed and uninstalled 3 times before rebooting, there would be 3 instances of this message and 3 'installer' process listed in Task Manager.

Most of our Prerequisites are Pre-install, one is Feature-based. There are 2 custom actions in the Finish Dialogs Stage and a bunch before that.

Any tips? It looks like this thread went cold.

Thanks,

mr

Liviu
Posts: 1034
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:29 am
Contact:  Website

Re: Reboot after installation finish again starts installation

Mon Aug 21, 2023 3:21 pm

Hello mr,

Are you able to reproduce this issue using version 20.9.1? With the 20.9.1 version of Advanced Installer, we introduced a major redesign of the Prerequisite support.

Also, are you able to reproduce this issue on multiple machines or it is specific to one machine only?

Can you please send us by email to support at advancedinstaller dot com so we can further test and investigate this, the following resources:

1. the .AIP (setup project) file.
2. a download link for your setup package.
3. an installation log when this problem occurs.

Best regards,
Liviu
________________________________________
Liviu Sandu - Advanced Installer Team
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