Setup.exe not extracting MSI?

[jmallon]

We've got a Basic MSI script built as media type Web, where the setup.exe contains the compressed msi, built in is2020R3Sp1.

Some times, some users, in some wild environs, the Setup.exe does not extract so we get odd behavior.  For example you execute, the UAC will prompt, you click yes, nothing happens. Disable UAC, execute - nothing happens. Execute via command line to run logging - nothing happens. 

As far as we can tell, Setup.exe is not completing successfully and we can't determine why. Anyone seen this? Any debugging suggestions? 

[Revenera_Ian]

Hi @jmallon,

Thank you for your post.

Antivirus software and security-related software are known to interfere with installers.

If you can, I suggest only temporarily disabling all antivirus software and only temporarily disabling all security-related software then running the installer. Does the issue still occur?

Alternatively, you could try running the installer on a physical machine or a virtual machine that does not have any antivirus software or security-related software installed. Does the issue still occur?

If the issue persists, you could generate a setup debug log on a machine where the issue does not occur and a Process Monitor log on the same machine. You could generate a setup debug log on a machine where the issue occurs and a Process Monitor log on the same machine. You could then analyze both sets of logs for differences.

A setup debug log is generated with this command syntax from an Administrator command prompt:

<PathToSetupEXE>\setup.exe /debuglog"C:\TEMP\mysetupdebuglog.txt"

where the C:\TEMP folder exists prior to running the command.

Note that there's no space between /debuglog and "C:\TEMP\mysetupdebuglog.txt"

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!

[jmallon]

Hi @Revenera_Ian 

Yes we've tried disabling AV and Security Apps. 

As noted this is happening on end users machines, with random frequency.  So getting and collecting data is limited. 

I had not known about the /debuglog argument so yes we will be trying that. However, as also noted the msi logging /V"/l*vx C:\Temp\SetupLog.txt" did not work. 

[Revenera_Ian]

Hi @jmallon,

Thank you for your reply.

Since you mentioned that the issue occurs when the setup.exe is extracting the MSI, that's early on during the install. The setup debug log is generated by the setup.exe itself so I believe that will be early enough to hopefully capture what's going on. The MSI itself will not be running at that point, so a verbose MSI log would not capture the issue. I understand that you're limited as far as data collection given that this issue occurs on an end-user's machine. But if you can generate one, a Process Monitor log would help also, specifically a Process Monitor log generated at the same time as the setup debug log.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!