Decompression error #8

[timbojones]

This is an urgent issue.

I'm testing a disc-based installer to send to one of our contacts in Asia. It's been a while since we've needed to build an installer to be burned to disc. I keep running into Decompression Error #8, on the same file every time. net helpmsg translates this error as "Not enough storage is available to process this command." but there is plenty of free disc space.

I ran a filemon trace during installation and it looks like SetupBuilder successfully writes out the entire file, then discovers something it doesn't like and bails, deleting the file in the process. See the attached txt for the significant part of the filemon output. The uncompressed file is 37,718,683 bytes.

I've tried recompiling the installer several times, it still always bails on that file. A good number of files, some an order of magnitude larger than this one, get successfully written before this one fails. What is going on?

[linder]

Tim,

Seems to be a CRC-32 error. What happens if you create a new project and compress only this file into an installer. Does it also result in a Error #8?

Friedrich

[linder]

Tim,

By the way, it would be great if you could send us that specific file.

Thanks,
Friedrich

[timbojones]

It works fine in an installer by itself. Will it still be at all helpful to have a copy of it? Right now I'm trying a full package with this particular file singled out, moved to the front, and filtered out of the wildcard install files step. Will let you know how it goes.

[timbojones]

That just moved the error to another file: audio_v.pig, which would precede avatarstatic.pig if I hadn't pulled avatarstatic to the front.

It looks like I'm hitting some kind of cumulative size limit. But all the totals I've checked come to weird totals, often smack between 2^29 and 2^30. I would not be surprised to see something nearer to a common bit boundary like 2^32. The numbers I am seeing just don't shout "here I am, I'm the problem."

I'm going to try fiddling with the volume size and the way we collect files to be packed and see if that makes any difference.

[timbojones]

With 100mb volumes, it failed even earlier, on audio_g.pig.

With 10mb volumes, it fails on the first large file.

Looks like the commonality in all these cases is the switch from PotBS-Install.exe to PotBS-Install.001

However, with 1024mb volumes, it installed successfully. I guess the workaround is to switch back to a monolithic installer that's too big for Windows to find the application icon.

[linder]

Tim,

Thank you for the information.

That means it is not a compression problem per se (which is good news), but seems to be a disk-spanning issue. Item in review.

SetupBuilder 6.5 is code complete and we'll work on this next week.

Thanks again,
Friedrich

[linder]

Tim,

We have created 14 multiple-volume test installations (with 100mb, 50mb, and 10mb volumes). It always worked fine here on our test machines.

Would it be possible for you to send us your script and make the first files available that get into your .exe and the first .001 volume?

Thanks,
Friedrich

[timbojones]

Sorry for not responding to this earlier; I don't think I received a notice that you had responded, and the monolithic workaround fixed our problem well enough. I will gather those files together for you next time I have a chance. I'm pretty slammed atm.

I came back to this thread because I have a couple users reporting a similar error (decompression #8) with our small, non-disk bootstrap installer. This installer contains five files and compresses to a 13.6MB exe, so it's definitely not a spanning issue in this case. I've told them to try re-downloading but I'm hoping you might have some insight into why this might happen.

[linder]

Tim,

No problem at all.

BTW, I would suggest to enable the "Enable Installer Integrity Check". This can detect CRC errors (transmission errors, etc.) before the installer executes. You can use this feature if your installer is a single-file setup.exe.

Friedrich

[ferguslogic]

We have an install that worked here perfectly on all of our machines but was failing for 1 customer in the field with a Decompression error #8 when trying to decompress a quickbooks installer in our installation.

We assumed it was a bad download. The end user downloaded 5 times and it failed everytime. then our tech support dialed in and downloaded and it failed twice.

Finally we found that the end users system was running Avast antivirus. We shut it down, redownloaded and the install worked instantly. It is as if the anti-virus was preventing either A) the entire download from being received or B) the decompression of the qbooks installation file.

Hope this helps someone.

[linder]

Thanks for sharing this information!!! I think what happened in your case is, the installer was able to create the qbooks file and decompression started. But suddenly, the virus scanner "blocked" execution (decompression read and/or write process). The installer detected this scenario and reported a CRC-32 error.

Thanks again.

Friedrich