Updater fails if not run as admin, even on a user installation

[marczellm]

Bug report

My check list

• latest package versions are installed
• MiKTeX log files are attached
• the bug can be reproduced by anybody (necessary input files are attached)

What I tried to do

Update MiKTeX with the GUI updater

What I expected to happen

Update succeeds.

What happened instead

End of log:

2018-02-04 22:23:48,355+0100 INFO  FileCopyPage - extracting files from miktex-pdftex-bin-x64-2.9.tar.lzma...
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - The executed process did not succeed.
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - The executed process did not succeed.
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - Data: fileName="D:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex/bin/x64\initexmf.exe", exitCode="1"
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - Data: fileName="D:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex/bin/x64\initexmf.exe", exitCode="1"
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process\Process.cpp:166
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 ERROR update.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process\Process.cpp:166
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 INFO  FileCopyPage - 
2018-02-04 22:23:49,942+0100 INFO  FileCopyPage - Error: The executed process did not succeed.

Strangely if I run the updater as admin, it succeeds without error. This is weird because I don't have a system-wide MiKTeX installation, only a user installation.

The other weird thing is that no matter how many times I run the updater, it always finds these two "to be repaired" tasks:

[edocevoli]

"D:\Program Files\MiKTeX" indicates a shared installation. And besides that, modifying the "Program Files" folder usually requires admin privileges.

[marczellm]

Dear Christian,

"The" Program Files directory is located at C:\Program Files.

The D:\Program Files directory was created by me and it's a perfectly regular directory. No admin privileges required.

My installation is not a shared install.

[edocevoli]

You haven't attach the log files (the update log is not enough), so it's difficult to get an idea about your setup. All I can say at the moment is that I cannot reproduce your problem when going the standard setup route.

[marczellm]

Which log file should I be looking for and where? (The update log is the only one in the `C:\Users\Márton\AppData\Local\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex\log` folder that is changed when running the updater.)

[edocevoli]

The log files are in miktex\log (relative to the user root directory). Try %LOCALAPPDATA%\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex\log.

[marczellm]

Which log files do you need? All 41 of them?

[edocevoli]

I don't know yet. It's your system. You know when it happened. You are in the position to inspect the log files. You have all the information. I have: not enough information to work on this issue effectively.

[marczellm]

Here's a debug trace, I hope it's useful:

[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - going to unload file name database 4 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - accessing file C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex/data/le\1756f6ade37d5f870f23c05a7f81e257.fndb: NOK 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - accessing directory C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex/data/le: OK 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - opening file C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex/data/le\1756f6ade37d5f870f23c05a7f81e257.fndb (1 0x2 3 0) 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - accessing directory C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex\data\le: OK 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - fndb creation completed 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - accessing file C:\ProgramData\MiKTeX\2.9\miktex/config\miktex.ini: NOK 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - MIKTEX_INITEXMF_CORE_NOREGISTRY => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - MIKTEX_MIKTEX_CORE_NOREGISTRY => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - MIKTEX_CORE_NOREGISTRY => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - MIKTEX_NOREGISTRY => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - [Core]NoRegistry => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - RegCreateKeyExW (FFFFFFFF80000002, "Software\MiKTeX.org\MiKTeX\2.9\Core") 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Access is denied. 
[4752]  
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Access is denied. 
[4752]  
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Function: RegCreateKeyExW 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Function: RegCreateKeyExW 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Result: 5 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Result: 5 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Data: path="Software\MiKTeX.org\MiKTeX\2.9\Core" 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Data: path="Software\MiKTeX.org\MiKTeX\2.9\Core" 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\win\winRegistry.cpp:186 
[4752] [MiKTeX] ERROR initexmf.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\win\winRegistry.cpp:186 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - MIKTEX_DEBUG_BREAK => null 
[4752] [MiKTeX] TRACE initexmf.core - uninitializing core library 
[4752] [MiKTeX] FATAL initexmf - Windows API error 5: Access is denied. 
[4752]  
[4752] [MiKTeX] FATAL initexmf - Info: path="Software\MiKTeX.org\MiKTeX\2.9\Core" 
[4752] [MiKTeX] FATAL initexmf - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\win\winRegistry.cpp 
[4752] [MiKTeX] FATAL initexmf - Line: 186 
[9484] [MiKTeX] TRACE update.core - read 690 bytes from the pipe 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - The executed process did not succeed. 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - The executed process did not succeed. 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - Data: fileName="D:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex/bin/x64\initexmf.exe", exitCode="1" 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - Data: fileName="D:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex/bin/x64\initexmf.exe", exitCode="1" 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process\Process.cpp:166 
[9484] [MiKTeX] ERROR update.core - Source: Libraries\MiKTeX\Core\Process\Process.cpp:166 
[9484] [MiKTeX] INFO  FileCopyPage -  
[9484] [MiKTeX] INFO  FileCopyPage - Error: The executed process did not succeed. 

[edocevoli]

The updater tries to write into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section of the registry. For that operation you need admin privileges, i.e,, you must run the updater as admin. I still don't know how to reproduce your setup and so can't give you more help here.

[marczellm]

Isn't there the bug right in clear view? "The updater should never attempt to write the registry when the installation is not a system-wide install."

[marczellm]

Indeed the only registry key in that location is "LastAdminMaintenance." Writing that is unnecessary when the updater is not performing admin maintenance. The updater of a user installation is never performing admin maintenance.

[edocevoli]

You are absolutely right: this is a bug. But I can't reproduce the bug because I don't know how to do it. You gave me nothing to work with (no step-by-step recipe for a dummy developer).

Here is what I did:

1. install MiKTeX as user to D:\Program Files\MiKTeX
2. run the update wizard several times

Everything is OK. No error messages, all packages are up-to-date.

On my side, there nothing I can do to fix the bug, sorry.

[marczellm]

Christian, I understand your viewpoint. However during my continued use of MiKTeX over the last 6-7 years, I’ve found that this kind of updater bug (or unusable distribution after an update) pops up once or twice every year on MiKTeX installations that have been in use for a longer time. Which is very annoying. As a user I know nothing about how to help you in fixing these bugs. I did the exact same two steps that you did, except that step 2 was “run the updater several times over several years while using MiKTeX as intended”. I know that your time and resources are limited, but I still feel like the user experience here could be a little better: - Please do not close issues/bug reports without verifying that you have an accurate understanding of the problem. (this also happened in https://sourceforge.net/p/miktex/bugs/2586/) - Better error handling: instead of a meaningless exit code, initexmf could report the cause of the error back to the updater, and that could show it in a dialog to the user (or write the real cause into a log file which didn’t happen in this case) Those are my suggestions and thank you for your hard work on MiKTeX.

[edocevoli]

Yeah, thank you for the suggestions. I promise to improve this.

[xzzh999]

I have the same problem too, when i first installed it's ok, but when i want to change it to every one share to use it, and try to reinstall it again, it always failed with exit code = 1 error.

[anooprana986]

I have the error "initexmf.exe exitcode=1".
Iam attaching the screenshot.

[diegoguffanti]

I have solved It.!!!
I was around one week working on this issue.
What I did?.
First of all, uninstall MIKTEX following the common steps and delete the folder found in C->Program Files.
After that:
Type: Win+R
Write: regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
HKEY_USERS-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
With these steps you delete all KEYS registered by the program during earlier installations and you can reinstall it.

[deweiwork]

Hi @diegoguffanti : I also encounter this problem today, your solution is valid for me, thanks!

[upassos]

I will try it

[upassos]

I will try it

Very good

[ana975]

@diegoguffanti
I had the same problem...
Where do you have to write "regedit "to find the folders that we have to delete ?

Write: regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
HKEY_USERS-SOFTWARE-MIKTEX (delete this folder)
With these steps you delete all KEYS registered by the program during earlier installations and you can reinstall it.