Invalid uninstall control file

[sfitzp2]

We are running into a problem where the irunin.xml file that gets generated during the install will occasionally be empty. This then leads to the "Invalid uninstall control file" error when trying to uninstall. We have seen this for a while but it seems to be happening more frequently recently. Unfortunately we are stuck at version 9.1.0.0 and can't upgrade at the moment. We are currently seeing this on Windows Server 2016 but we have seen it on older windows versions in the past.

Is it possible this is something that was fixed in a more recent version? Is there something that we could be doing that could cause this?

An ideas would be helpful. Thanks.

[Ulrich]

I do not remember that I ever heard of this problem during the years I am offering product support, so my suspicion is that you might be doing something in your installer which could be causing this error. Do you manipulate the uninstall data file in some way in your setup, adding or removing elements? An installation log file could be useful from an installation where the XML file was left empty.

Ulrich

[sfitzp2]

Thanks. We don't manipulate the uninstall data file in any way. I compared the log file from an installation that created a good xml file and a log file from an installation that created the empty xml file and I didn't see any significant difference. We have the "Include action details" option set to "Extended Errors" for logging. In both log files I see where it creates the XML file but I don't see anything about writing to the XML file. I am assuming it is the "File added to uninstall list" lines?

[sfitzp2]

Any ideas?

I don't know what I should be doing to fix this. As I said before we aren't modifying the XML file and the log file doesn't show any difference between when it works and when it doesn't.

[Ulrich]

You mention that you have seen this issue more than once, which could mean that there might be something strange in your project. If you could share your project file, and two installation log files - one with a normal install, and one where the uninstall was somehow damaged, I may be able to spot something unusual. I cannot make promises.

Ulrich

[sfitzp2]

Thanks Ulrich. I have attached a zip file containing the setup and the two log files I mentioned. The one with the 2017-04-27 date in the name is the one that reproduced the problem. The other one is from a previous install on the same system that worked. I did not notice any significant difference between the two but hopefully I missed something.

Any ideas you might have would be helpful.

Thanks

[Ulrich]

Thank you for this. According to these two log files, the installation aborts after the deployment of the file dds_access.dat, in both cases.
There should be further events in the log file, such as the On Post Install and the On Shutdown events. Also, according to the log, the After Installing screen is not shown at all, so it looks as the setup does not finish gracefully, and does not close open files, and flush data. This could be the explanation why you are getting these inconsistent results.
At this point I would say that there is something happening during the install, after the file mentioned above.
Please check the build log, and see which file would be deployed after the one I mention - perhaps this could be a clue why the setup is terminated.

Ulrich

[sfitzp2]

Sorry for taking a long time to respond to this. I have been tweaking our installation then giving time for our testers to see if they run into the problem again.

A system reboot is required to finish our install so we had been setting the _NeedsReboot flag to true which results in the user to be prompted to reboot when the installation finishes. It appears that something with this is causing our problem. I temporarily modified our installation so it doesn't set the _NeedsReboot flag but instead pops up a dialog telling them to manually reboot after closing the installation. I have not had any reports of this problem occurring since I made this change.

Is there any chance we are using the built in reboot behavior incorrectly? All we do is set the _NeedsReboot flag when the Finish button is pressed and then let the g_HandleSystemReboot function in the OnShutdown action handle it. We initially had our own reboot button but we removed that to see if that was causing the problem and the problem still occurred. It was only when we stopped setting the _NeedsReboot flag that the problem went away.

Thanks