Azure DevOps Task Hangs

[tstephansen]

Hello,

We recently created a new installer for the next version of our software. When we push it to Azure DevOps and run the pipeline everything works correctly until the Advanced Installer Build task. The task starts but it just sits there until the entire build times out. I've recreated the installer twice and created a new pipeline but it's the same result. If I open Advanced Installer on our build server and try to build the project from the GUI it works just fine. It just hangs in the devops pipeline. Is there a way to make the task write a log of what's happening so I can try and resolve this issue?

Edit: I wanted to add the following additional details.
We are using Advanced Installer 21.5.1.
It hangs if we use powershell to do the same thing the installer task does (call the com file /execute).
I built a console app that creates the aic file and calls AdvancedInstaller.com /execute to see if that might work and that hangs too.
I changed the user that the pipeline's service runs under and that didn't make a difference.
Our current version's build (different aip file) works without issue.
I've ran this on another build server as well to see if that would work and it hangs there as well.
I've tried to run the build with and without signing the package.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Tim

[Catalin]

Hello,

This might happen if the "Ask me at every change" option is set for your Version field in the "Product Details" page.

For more details, please have a look over the following thread which discusses a similar problem:

Never ask to "Generate new Product Code"

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Catalin

[tstephansen]

I rebuilt the installer step by step and was able to figure out what was causing the hang. When you set the Version to reference the version of the executable it hangs. If you leave the version as 1.0.0 and then set the version using command line args in the build task (SetVersion 2024.1.1) it doesn't hang. We recently updated from .NET 4.8 to .NET 8 and are using the published file to get the version instead of referencing a net framework executable. The GUI for Advanced Installer reads the version correctly and builds fine when using the app but in the DevOps pipeline this is causing the hang.

[Catalin]

Hello,

Thank you for your followup on this.

I am glad we managed to find the culprit here.

Best regards,
Catalin