Upgrade to 13.5 uninstall failure 1603

[thill]

Since upgrading from 12.8 to 13.5 our core product installer fails uninstall.

The uninstall fails leaving the product orphaned where it cannot be uninstalled or installed and fouls Windows badly. The files and Programs & Features entry are not removed.

We optionally use shared folders but none were used for this installation. The uninstall exception:

MSI (s) (E0:78) [09:51:32:616]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIB3F5.tmp, Entrypoint: UninstallShareFolders
Action start 9:51:32: AI_UninstallSHFolders.
CustomAction AI_UninstallSHFolders returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)
MSI (s) (E0:18) [09:51:32:616]: Note: 1: 2265 2: 3: -2147287035

Nothing has changed in the project since the 12.8 upgrade to 13.5.

I'm stuck. Will Zip the project and uninstall log and email attach to support.

[Dan]

Hello,

Indeed, it seems to be a problem with the AI_UninstallSHFolders custom action. The official fix will be added in the 13.6 version of Advanced Installer. Until then, you can download the following fixed dll:
AI_UninstallSHFolders fixed

Replace the existing .dll from the installation folder of Advanced Installer e.g. the default one is:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files (x86)\Caphyon\Advanced Installer 13.5\custact\x86

Rebuild your project. Please let us know if everything is working as expected.

Best regards,
Dan

[thill]

Replaced that DLL, thanks.

With a scratch clean install the later uninstall does not blow-up.

But it also only removes the Programs & Features entry and the Start program group. It does not remove services, installed files, desktop shortcuts, or HKLM/SOFTWARE registry entry.

Well argh ... it behaves correctly on VMs that have not had the 13.5 version installed before the DLL change. THAT shared folder DLL exception appears to have left those systems in a bad state somehow.

Do you know of any way to clear-out old (failed) uninstalls from the registry completely?? I do not know how to get past it other than burning them down for a complete scratch operating system rebuilt.

Thanks once again for your time and effort.

[davidholsgrove]

+1

I have software out in the wild which were built with 13.5, and won't uninstall!

Pushing out a normal update to my software (with an installer using 13.5 + the sharedfolders.dll) triggers an uninstall first, which fails and blocks the update.

Telling customers to run FixIT is not a viable solution. I've had to revert to AI 13.1 due to large number of bugs introduced with each version recently - but this one might be the most fatal...

[Dan]

Hello,

Do you know of any way to clear-out old (failed) uninstalls from the registry completely?? I do not know how to get past it other than burning them down for a complete scratch operating system rebuilt.

To remove a broken installation, you can try to repair the broken msi and recache it. For this, you can follow the steps: How do I remove a broken installation? from the following article.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

Best regards,
Dan

[corner4]

Same problem here - we have thousands of installations out there with 13.5 (and a shared folder) - no updates will work anymore!!!
Advanced Installer 13.6 must fix this issue when updating to a newer version automatically. Before uninstalling the old version -> AI 13.6 must get the cached MSI of the old version and replace the custom action in it. Then it must recache the fixed MSI of the old version and then start uninstalling it.

I need a solution now - our customers are waiting!

[Daniel]

Hello and welcome to our forums,

First of all we deeply apologize for all the inconveniences caused by this issue. A fix for this issue will be available starting with the next version of Advanced Installer (13.6) scheduled for the release this week. We will update this thread as soon as the new version is out.

Unfortunately, there is no way so we can fix this issue for the upgrades scenarios. We cannot recache the old MSI version. To recache the old MSI you should first build a fixed version of your MSI and this is a job which can be done only at build time. We cannot build a fixed version of the old MSI at install time. Thank you for your understanding.

To achieve what you want here is an approach you can follow after we release AI 13.6:

1. open the setup project of your old product version in Advanced Installer 13.6
2. rebuild the setup project and get the rebuild MSI (only this file could be recached)

Then, in the setup project of your new product version you can add a custom action which will recache the old version MSI using a command line like this:

Code: Select all

msiexec /fv <pathToRebuiltMSI>

The custom action should be scheduled only in the "Wizard Dialogs" Stage" and, thus the upgrade scenario will work only in Full UI mode.

Also, as another workaround you can build a patch to apply the fix for the old MSI. And before delivering the major upgrade setup you should first deliver the fixed patch to your customers.

All the best,
Daniel

[Dan]

Hello,

This was fixed in version 13.6 of Advanced Installer released on February 15th, 2017.

Best regards,
Dan

[thill]

Excellent! Thanks Dan.

I just downloaded 13.6 locally and will build things and run through our regression tests.

We are doing that now before installing it "for real" on our build server.

Thanks again.