Re: Diagnosing Windows Installer 3.1 hang

Harry,

I believe I am, yes. I am using the process handle filled in by the call to
CreateProcess in the PROCESS_INFORMATION structure.

By using Process Explorer I was able to see the msiexec that was created
from our process. It was a child process, so it was pretty apparent using
PE. It was also apparent that this instance did not exit, and was still
running while I looked at the system. This is what caused our application to
hang.

I agree that the msiexec we created should exit when there was a successful
install. The "interesting" part is that the install was logged as
"successful" in the system's application log, however the log file that we
are generating for the MSI we are executing is missing data towards the end
of the file, as if something cause msiexec to hang, hence the incomplete MSI
log file.

We are attempting to recreate the issue with verbose logging enabled for
Windows Installer, however, no luck so far.

Thanks.

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:

>
>
> "AJ" <AJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:4214C1E9-C374-44CD-9D6F-2E9E14704A18@microsoft.com...
> > We are encountering an issue regarding the usage of Windows Installer.
> > Our
> > system is Windows XP SP3 with updates applied. The version of Windows
> > Installer is 3.01.4002.5512.
> >
> > We have an automated installer that processes msi files. The msis are
> > invoked via the command line via msiexec. There is a random issue where
> > msiexec is not exiting and is thus causing our installation processing
> > application to hang waiting for it to return.
> >
> > Our application is creating an instance of msiexec via command line usage.
>
> > Using ProcessExplorer to do some diagnosis, there are also two additional
> > instances of msiexec being created outside of our application. So, there
> > are
> > a total of three instances created. One is the instance we create
> > ourself,
> > one is the Windows Installer service, and the third is a child instance
> > created by Windows Installer service.
> >
> > The interesting thing is that the specific install/msi that is hanging...
> > If looking at the application event log there is an event that says the
> > installation was successful. However, if we inspect the log file that we
> > are
> > creating for the msi, some of the entries in the log are missing towards
> > the
> > end as if something is hanging in one of the instances of msiexec.
> >
> > Our installation processing app is waiting for msiexec to return, so it
> > can
> > continue to the next msi to be installed, but because the msiexec never
> > exits, our app hangs.
> >
> > Are there any known issues with this version of Windows Installer that
> > might
> > cause this issue?
>
>
> Have you tried using ProcMon instead of ProcExp?
>
>
> >
> > Thank you.
>
> .
>