Are you really cranking up all this infrastructure just to see if a directory exists? There's got to be a simpler way, even if it's only a horrible little VBScript 10 line custom action. At least that is natively supported by Windows Installer.
Phil Wilson -----Original Message----- From: McKinnon, Chris [mailto:cmckin...@atb.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 8:58 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Calling a managed custom action from a UI control Hi Blair, No log entries, unfortunately. I've let my installer sit spinning for about 20-30 minutes. I could let it sit longer but I don't think that would help. I'm going to try my installer on a Windows 2000 Professional workstation when I have a chance today. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to track down this issue. Thanks, Chris McKinnon -----Original Message----- From: Blair [mailto:os...@live.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:06 AM To: 'General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset.' Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Calling a managed custom action from a UI control Whenever Windows Installer launches a DLL-type custom action, it does so from a separate msiexec.exe process instance (sandboxing the custom action code, if you will). However, because this "sandbox" process may be reused, and because loading pre-4.x CLR runtimes "marks" the process preventing a different runtime from ever being loaded, DTF runs the assemblies in their own child process. When you build a DTF custom action assembly, a native stub is built/modified that contains an entry point for each method with a CustomActionAttribute, along with being "packed" with your assembly, config, and dependencies. This stub sends a copy of itself to RunDll.exe after creating a two-way communications pipe to communicate with its child process (which allows for querying the session for properties, running queries, etc.). The stub in the (grandchild) process establishes communication with its parent (the stub in the sandbox), extracts its payload, loads the indicated CLR, loads your assembly into an AppDomain, and finally calls your code (this is where the transition into managed code finally occurs). You seem to be hanging somewhere in this paragraph (at least until you kill the rundll.exe process). Are there any System or Application event log entries that may explain/describe some failure with the CLR spinup? Unfortunately calling MsiProcessMessage is documented to not work from a DoAction so any error or progress logging performed by the stub won't show up. -----Original Message----- From: McKinnon, Chris [mailto:cmckin...@atb.com] Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 10:52 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Calling a managed custom action from a UI control Thanks for the ideas Steve. I tried running my code in a separate thread, like yours, but it still hangs. I'm running on Windows Vista Business 32-bit. I noticed, by accident, that in Process Explorer when the custom action starts up that a new process tree is spawned: 1. msiexec.exe 2. msiexec.exe 3. rundll.exe (DTF Self-Extracting Custom Action) The custom action is run when I click the next button on the ServiceOptionsDlg in my installer. The 1st time I click the button it hangs. If I kill the process tree above and click the next button again, it runs my custom action. Every time after that, if I click "next", my custom action works fine. I'm baffled why. Here's the log from me, killing the process tree the 1st time (the one at 11:11:06:126), then running my custom action (Directory.Exists()) on a path of "t" and then on a path of "C:\": Action 11:08:53: ServiceOptionsDlg. Dialog created MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:08:58:414]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding ARCHIVE_PATH property. Its value is 't'. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:08:58:543]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding _DirectoryExists_Path property. Its value is 't'. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:08:58:543]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory Action 11:08:58: CheckArchiveDirectory. Action start 11:08:58: CheckArchiveDirectory. MSI (c) (CC:80) [11:08:58:573]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Users\e25735\AppData\Local\Temp\MSIF23D.tmp, Entrypoint: DirectoryExists MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:08:58:574]: Cloaking enabled. MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:08:58:574]: Attempting to enable all disabled privileges before calling Install on Server MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:08:58:575]: Connected to service for CA interface. Action ended 11:11:02: CheckArchiveDirectory. Return value 1. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:11:06:126]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory Action 11:11:06: CheckArchiveDirectory. Action start 11:11:06: CheckArchiveDirectory. MSI (c) (CC:A0) [11:11:06:184]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Users\e25735\AppData\Local\Temp\MSIE4A7.tmp, Entrypoint: DirectoryExists MSI (c) (CC:A0) [11:11:06:184]: Lost connection to custom action server process. Attempting to regenerate. MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:11:06:259]: Cloaking enabled. MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:11:06:259]: Attempting to enable all disabled privileges before calling Install on Server MSI (c) (CC:A8) [11:11:06:259]: Connected to service for CA interface. MSI (c) (CC!8C) [11:11:31:366]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding _DirectoryExists_Result property. Its value is 'no'. Action ended 11:11:47: CheckArchiveDirectory. Return value 1. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:11:47:571]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding VErr_Text property. Its value is 'The archive path specified does not exist.'. Action 11:11:47: ValidationErrDlg. Dialog created MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:11:57:555]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying ARCHIVE_PATH property. Its current value is 't'. Its new value: 'c:\'. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:11:57:731]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying _DirectoryExists_Path property. Its current value is 't'. Its new value: 'c:\'. MSI (c) (CC:24) [11:11:57:731]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory Action 11:11:57: CheckArchiveDirectory. Action start 11:11:57: CheckArchiveDirectory. MSI (c) (CC:14) [11:11:57:745]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Users\e25735\AppData\Local\Temp\MSIAE3D.tmp, Entrypoint: DirectoryExists MSI (c) (CC!E8) [11:12:05:774]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying _DirectoryExists_Result property. Its current value is 'no'. Its new value: 'yes'. Action ended 11:12:06: CheckArchiveDirectory. Return value 1. Action 11:12:06: VerifyReadyDlg. Dialog created It appears that the 1st time my custom action runs, it's hanging before it even gets to my code. I've tried putting MessageBox and System.Diagnosics.Debugger.Launch() as the 1st line of code in my custom action. They never get called. I also tried this on our SIT Windows 2003 server. The custom action runs without hanging. Here is the log: Action 11:44:17: ServiceOptionsDlg. Dialog created MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:20:682]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding ARCHIVE_PATH property. Its value is 't'. MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:20:854]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding _DirectoryExists_Path property. Its value is 't'. MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:20:854]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory Action 11:44:20: CheckArchiveDirectory. Action start 11:44:20: CheckArchiveDirectory. MSI (c) (68:1C) [11:44:21:651]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\DOCUME~1\e25735\LOCALS~1\Temp\1\MSI2.tmp, Entrypoint: DirectoryExists MSI (c) (68:AC) [11:44:21:667]: Cloaking enabled. MSI (c) (68:AC) [11:44:21:667]: Attempting to enable all disabled priveleges before calling Install on Server MSI (c) (68:AC) [11:44:21:667]: Connected to service for CA interface. MSI (c) (68!68) [11:44:22:745]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding _DirectoryExists_Result property. Its value is 'no'. Action ended 11:44:22: CheckArchiveDirectory. Return value 1. MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:22:901]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding VErr_Text property. Its value is 'The archive path specified does not exist.'. Action 11:44:22: ValidationErrDlg. Dialog created MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:29:480]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying ARCHIVE_PATH property. Its current value is 't'. Its new value: 'c:\'. MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:29:637]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying _DirectoryExists_Path property. Its current value is 't'. Its new value: 'c:\'. MSI (c) (68:74) [11:44:29:637]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory Action 11:44:29: CheckArchiveDirectory. Action start 11:44:29: CheckArchiveDirectory. MSI (c) (68:00) [11:44:29:668]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\DOCUME~1\e25735\LOCALS~1\Temp\1\MSI3.tmp, Entrypoint: DirectoryExists MSI (c) (68!00) [11:44:30:387]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying _DirectoryExists_Result property. Its current value is 'no'. Its new value: 'yes'. Action ended 11:44:30: CheckArchiveDirectory. Return value 1. Action 11:44:30: VerifyReadyDlg. Dialog created Anyone have any ideas what would be causing the hang? It was thinking it might be permissions or a group policy setting but then running the custom action should fail every time. Thank, Chris McKinnon -----Original Message----- From: Steve Green [mailto:sgr...@gtl.biz] Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 2:38 AM To: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Calling a managed custom action from a UI control Chris, I had a similar problem opening the windows OpenFileDialog common dialog. I found it would work fine on Windows Server 2003 but on Windows 7 it just hung, showing the same spinning wheel. I ended up having to open the dialog in a new thread, then all worked fine. My C# code was as follows: public class ShowOpenFileDlg { private OpenFileDialog _dlg; private Session _session; public ShowOpenFileDlg(Session session) { _session = session; _dlg = new OpenFileDialog(); } public void Show() { if (_dlg.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { _session["BROWSEFILE"] = _dlg.FileName; } } } [CustomAction] public static ActionResult ShowFileOpenDlg(Session session) { ShowOpenFileDlg dlg = new ShowOpenFileDlg(session); Thread thread = new Thread(dlg.Show); thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); thread.Start(); thread.Join(); return ActionResult.Success; } As for debugging, I had the same problem with the log file so ended up just adding MessageBox.Show(...) lines through my code. Hope this helps. Steve McKinnon Chris wrote: > > Hi, > > I have built a managed custom action to check if a UNC path exists. I'm > not installing to this path. This path is simply being set as the value > of a .config file setting during the install. I just want to verify > that it is a valid path. The custom action is defined as follows: > > [CustomAction] > public static ActionResult DirectoryExists(Session session) > { > CustomActionService service = new CustomActionService(); > return service.DirectoryExists(session); > } > > I created the custom action project using the Visual Studio template for > a C# custom action. This custom action expects a > "_DirectoryExists_Path" property to contain the path to check. And it > populates a "_DirectoryExists_Result" with a "yes" (true) or "no" > (false) result. The custom action is just calling > System.IO.Directory.Exists() to do the check. I have the custom action > defined in the installer like so: > > <CustomAction Id="CheckArchiveDirectory" > BinaryKey="AppDevInstallCustomActions.dll" DllEntry="DirectoryExists" > Execute="immediate" Return="ignore" Impersonate="yes" /> > > And to be called in the UI, like so: > > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" > Value="ServiceCredentialsDlg">1</Publish> > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Next" > Property="_DirectoryExists_Path" Value="[ARCHIVE_PATH]" > Order="1">1</Publish> > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Next" Event="DoAction" > Value="CheckArchiveDirectory" Order="2">1</Publish> > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Next" Property="VErr_Text" > Value="The archive path specified does not exist." > Order="3"><![CDATA[_DirectoryExists_Result = "no"]]></Publish> > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Next" Event="SpawnDialog" > Value="ValidationErrDlg" Order="4"><![CDATA[_DirectoryExists_Result = > "no"]]></Publish> > <Publish Dialog="ServiceOptionsDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" > Value="VerifyReadyDlg" Order="5"><![CDATA[_DirectoryExists_Result = > "yes"]]></Publish> > > When run to the installer and click the "Next" button, I get the > spinning blue wheel of death. I've tried adding a > "System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch();" line to the above code but the > debugger is never launched. If I run a verbose log, it just ends at the > line before the custom action call. Here's the last 5 lines: > > Action 10:41:55: ServiceOptionsDlg. Dialog created > MSI (c) (20:44) [10:41:57:524]: Doing action: CheckArchiveDirectory > Action 10:41:57: CheckArchiveDirectory. > Action start 10:41:57: CheckArchiveDirectory. > MSI (c) (20:6C) [10:41:57:541]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: > > I'm stumped. Any ideas or tips for debugging this would be > appreciated. I'm also encrypting (and decrypting) my .config files > using this same managed custom action dll, so I know the DLL is > partially working. These custom actions are scheduled in the > InstallExecuteSequence after "InstallFinalize", however. > > Thanks, > > Chris McKinnon > > > > The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may contain > privileged information. 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