Active product installation suddenly shows "Feature Transfer Error"

[TAlteBruker]

Update 2: I was able to reproduce the same issue with InstallShield 2014 (but wanted to avoid cross posting)


Hi,

We have a released product shipping for a while now and suddenly get a reproducible "Feature transfer error". The file in question is part of a larger set and other files in the feature are copied fine. (Verified with Sysinternals ProcessMonitor)

As far as I can tell neither the file in question nor the code for the installer (which is a InstallShield Install Script project) has changed (as in "at all") in recent weeks. (Last change to the installer was about a month ago.)

The problem affects both server builds, as well as local builds on the InstallShield development machines. We currently use InstallShield 2012 Spring for this product.

Internet searches for the issue did not lead to even a pointer into the right direction so far and I was hoping maybe somebody else on here has seen such a behavior in the past.

Path length appears not to be the issue (from inspection and judging by the fact that other files in the component with longer paths copy fine) and the file itself had no change since last year.


What can lead to this suddenly showing up?
Could you provide any additional pointers as to how best find out what causes the problem? (InstallShield debugger appears not to be triggered by the problem - but I might miss a configuration option.)

Thank you for the time to read this and any advise on the issue!
-T


System info: IS2012 Spring; Windows 7 x64 PRO target machines (multiple); Windows 7 x64 IS development systems;





Update with additional information (07/21/2014 04:00PM):

It looks like the file in question exists twice in the source tree and gets pulled in twice - both times via components that use 'Dynamic File Links'. Can it be that InstallShield has trouble generating unique files when packaging the components?

File system layout:

[code]
[...]
+ Folder A
+ Folder AA
+ Folder AAA
+ Folder AAAA
- [...]
- BadFile.txt
[...]
+ Folder B
+ Folder BB
+ Folder BBB
+ Folder BBBB
- [...]
- BadFile.txt
[/code]

InstallShield layout:

[code]
+ Feature X
+ [...]
+ Component XX
+ Dynamic File Links for items under 'Folder AA' including sub-folders and BadFile.txt with it
+ [...]
+ Feature Z
+ [...]
+ Component ZZ
+ Dynamic File Links for items under 'Folder B' including sub-folders and BadFile.txt with it
[/code]


Am I running into a weird corner case with the InstallShield compiler / engine?

Thanks,
-T

[SimonG]

I have the exact same problem with an Installation I've just updated. I have a number of components that install the same files but to different places and am now getting the feature transfer error the system cannot find the file specified with the file name being an .rra one. Did you ever get this resolved?

[SimonG]

I recently ran into this problem again when I added a new feature. I tried a trial of the new InstallShield 2023 but it did not solve the issue.

Really frustrating as I don't understand what I can do to resolve the issue. Just adding a new feature and component breaks the installation. There is nothing special about these and it fails on the easiest bit (copying files).

[skrueger]

Have you tried a different media type, i.e. compressed vs. uncompressed?

[SimonG]

I have now and makes no difference. Tried creating a whole new release, but same issue and without cabinet files the whole thing goes horribly wrong too.

We're now at the point where we're going to have to tell customers to uninstall first, but they will lose all their settings when they do that so not ideal at all.