Visual Studio Team Services tools installer extension not working

[driojas73]

I've got a build definition for VSTS using the 2 AI extensions of tool installer and build runner. The tool installer worked in a hosted agent run only the first time I ran the build. But now every time i run the same build definition, i get this error:

Checking if a cached copy exists for this version...
Cache does not contains this Advanced Installer version. Will be downloaded and installed.
Downloading Advanced Installer. URL: https://www.advancedinstaller.com/downl ... dvinst.msi
Downloading: https://www.advancedinstaller.com/downl ... dvinst.msi
Extracting Advanced Installer
C:\Windows\system32\msiexec.exe /a d:\a\_temp\0b56622c-03e2-4627-ab79-37b8617dfeea TARGETDIR=d:\a\_temp\AdvancedInstaller\resources /qn /l*v d:\a\_temp\AdvancedInstaller\advinst_install.log
"The Temp folder is on a drive that is full or is inaccessible. Free up space on the drive or verify that you have write permission on the Temp folder."
Failed to extract Advanced Installer.

The temp folder being referred to shouldn't be inaccessible or full. Again, this worked the first time i ran the build definition so I'm not sure why this is happening every time now and i cannot get the package to extract and install using the tool installer extension. Am I missing something here or do you have any suggestions on how to correct this problem? Attached is the log from d:\a\_temp\AdvancedInstaller\advinst_install.log but i don't see anything helpful in here but maybe your can point out something.

Additional info:
AI version downloaded : 14.0.2
VSTS Hosted Agent 2017

[driojas73]

i realized i forgot to attach the log

[Daniel]

Hello,

We tested the scenario but we cannot replicate at all the error. Can you try to redo the test using our latest version of Advanced Installer (14.5.2) installed on your Team Services environment?

Also, when queuing the build, could you please set the "system.debug" variable to "true" and send us all the output logs?

screen.jpg (200.6 KiB) Viewed 6569 times

All the best,
Daniel

[driojas73]

Thank you for the reply. My last maintenance period release of AI was 14.0.2. If i put the higher version on the build server, will it still compile my older project? I'm assuming its backward compatible and should work but i want to confirm that scenario is valid. I'll try this and send you the logs if it still doesn't work.

Thanks,
David

[driojas73]

After changing the parameter to install 14.5.2, the same error occurs. Attached are the debug logs

[driojas73]

oh. i realized that you are using the Hosted option in VSTS. I'm having difficuty with Hosted 2017. I need to use this hosted agent because the MSBuild compiler needs to be 2017 for my .net project. Try changing to hosted 2017 to duplicate.

[driojas73]

Another update:
I was able to work around my problem by separating the AI compile from my build pipeline. Instead, I put the installer build in the release pipeline using the working Hosted agent. So, in my CI build, i just compile the .net code using Hosted VS2017 agent and upload the build artifacts along with the aip project files. Then if i need a release of a build, i run a release definition using the selected build artifacts and compile an installer using the Hosted agent in the release pipeline.

This works but if would have been nice to just create an AI installer with my CI build. Then my releases could just use the exe artifact from that build.

So the problem with the Advanced Installer tasks in VSTS appear confirmed in the Hosted VS2017 agent option. If you fix this, please let me know and i could think about changing my build/release process back to my original intent.

Thanks,
David

[Daniel]

Hello David,

Thank you for your follow up on this.

Indeed when using the Hosted VS2017 agent option we replicated the error. I've created a ticket in our bug tracking system and we will try to fix this in the future. Once a fix will be out we will notify you.

Thank you for your help to isolate the problem.

All the best,
Daniel

[Daniel]

Hello David,

Our development team has just released an update which should include a fix for this issue. Could you please install our latest version of Advanced Installer Tool Installer and see if everything works now?

All the best,
Daniel

[Dan]

Hello,

This was fixed in version 14.6 of Advanced Installer released on February 19th, 2018.

Best regards,
Dan