Boxstarter does not wait if other msiexec processes are already running.

[kirannhegde]

What You Are Seeing?

My environment details are as follows:
Windows Server 2016 English, 1607, OS build:14393.2724
Boxstarter Version 2.12.0

I am using BoxStarter to perform a series of installations. During one of my runs, the msiexec process was already in use by some other installer(possibly McAfee). BoxStarter even printed the message:
VERBOSE: Boxstarter: Checking for other running MSIEXEC installers...
However, instead of waiting for the currently running msiexec process to complete, BoxStarter went ahead and executed the googlechrome choco package which internally runs another msi package. This resulted in the googlechrome chocolatey package installation failure.

You can see this being printed in the log file as follows:
VERBOSE: A n o t h e r p r o g r a m i s b e i n g i n s t a l l e d . P l e a s e w a i t u n t i l t h a t i n s t a l l a t i o n i s c o m p l e t e , a n d t h e n t r y i n s t a l l i n g t h i s s o f t w a r e a g a i n .

The expectation here was that, BoxStarter should have waited before executing the googlechrome chocolatey package, which internally installs a msi package.

This is a deviation from what the Boxstarter documentation states:
Detect other MSIEXEC processes

Before all MSI based installations, Boxstarter will look for other MSIEXEC processes and wait until those have completed before commencing with the Boxstarter package being installed. This prevents the same installation failures described above.

There was nothing special that i did to run into this issue. In fact, i have run into this issue even in the past sometimes. However, i never bothered to raise this issue.

Here is the complete log file from the BoxStarter run:
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kirannhegde/b1d4b657959c791bbb45027f867bf2f6/raw/8fb7fb8a3dbfe085aaba140818c3ddc17f318cf4/MsiexecNotStopping.txt

I think this is a bug and needs a fix.

Regards,
Kiran Hegde

[ferventcoder]

I wonder if this is something where Chocolatey isn't waiting, and not Boxstarter itself?

It could also be a missed wait since I believe Boxstarter has its own check for running MSIEXEC processes.

[kirannhegde]

Hello @ferventcoder Does chocolatey have a check of it's own? Are any more logs required to debug the issue?

Either way, if BoxStarter has its own check, then BoxStarter should have waited before proceeding with the installation, since BoxStarter is the one which is executing the series of Chocolatey packages.

Regards,
Kiran Hegde

[kirannhegde]

This has become a big issue where i work and is leading to a lot of BoxStarter installation failures. Has a fix been thought about this?