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Posted to dev@flex.apache.org by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> on 2014/05/03 05:55:19 UTC
Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
On 5/2/14 7:26 PM, "Justin Mclean" <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
>The Flex JS and Flex 4.12 SDK error rate > 50% on windows with the new
>installer btw, with mac it's 15% (still rather high in my option). It
>would be nice if we could improve that. (For FlexJS it's 117 failures/98
>success on windows, for 4.12.0 47 failures/46 success on windows.) Once
>the new installer is out if the rate holds we be getting 100+ failures a
>day and we're still not 100% sure what the issue is on windows -
>permissions and/or AIR using IE (and not default browser) to download are
>possible candidates.
I was going to start a new thread after the Installer was truly out the
door, but since you've already started. . .
For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
installer, probably because I have admin rights. Assuming folks don't
have admin rights and need them, what changes should we make to the
installer to handle this? We don't know the destination folder until
screen 2. Could we do a quick write test at that point?
One user reported error #2032 which is a stream error. I was unable to
reproduce it without disabling my network connection, but I'm already
using IE11 which doesn't have an offline mode. I'm wondering if it can
simply be caused by some glitch in the connection. We've already seen a
couple of bad downloads as well. I'm wondering if we'd have better
success if we put copies of the sdk-installer-config-4.0.xml file in other
places and build in some redundancy. If the installer gets a #2032 trying
to get the xml file from flex.a.o, it will try a set of other places. One
such place could actually be the mirrors. I wonder if the total time to
get the file off the mirror would be better than getting it from flex.a.o
for folks far away from the US. Another option is to put the file on a
CDN.
At minimum, I think we want to try to add a param to the tracking URL
about what stage the installer was at when it failed?
Timing-wise, the FlexJS 0.0.2 install script now tries to download the
Flex and Falcon dependencies from the mirrors (assuming you've specified
the latest versions). However, I had to fix a bug in the ant_on_air code
to get that to work, so we'll need to roll an Installer 3.0.1 with FlexJS
0.0.2 which I'd like to get out "soon" after we explore enhancements to
the tool chain for producing Cordova apps and apps that wrap other
frameworks. FlexJS 0.0.1 also had a Windows bug in the cross-compile
batch scripts that everyone on Windows is hitting, so there is a bit of a
rush to get that out of people's way.
Anything else we should add to the installer?
-Alex
RE: Re:RE: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by ma...@usmc.mil.
It looks fine.
-Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: DarkStone [mailto:darkstone@163.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 7:12 AM
To: Apache Flex Developers
Subject: Re:RE: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Hi Mark,
I just did that, not sure if I did it right though:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX-34319
DarkStone
2014-05-13
At 2014-05-13 06:40:17, mark.kessler.ctr@usmc.mil wrote:
>Would you please add an issue in JIRA if you would like to see it added. [1]
>
>
>[1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX
>
>-Mark
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: DarkStone [mailto:darkstone@163.com]
>Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:34 AM
>To: dev@flex.apache.org
>Subject: Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
>
>Hi all,
>
>Flex SDK Installer 3.0.1
>
>I wish it could add auto reload feature when downloading files:
>
>If a file downloading takes too much time (e.g. 30 minutes), auto reload it.
>
>Or if a user is staring at the screen, and he/she finds out a file
>downloading is hanging there not make any progress, the installer can
>display a retry button, let the user retry the downloading of that file
>immediately (not wait 30 minutes).
>
>Well, that's my little suggestion here, wish it could help.
>
>
>DarkStone
>2014-05-12
>
>
>
>--
>View this message in context: http://apache-flex-development.2333347.n4.nabble.com/Ideas-for-Installer-3-0-1-was-Re-DRAFT-Installer-3-0-Announcement-tp37443p37534.html
>Sent from the Apache Flex Development mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Re:RE: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by DarkStone <da...@163.com>.
Hi Mark,
I just did that, not sure if I did it right though:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX-34319
DarkStone
2014-05-13
At 2014-05-13 06:40:17, mark.kessler.ctr@usmc.mil wrote:
>Would you please add an issue in JIRA if you would like to see it added. [1]
>
>
>[1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX
>
>-Mark
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: DarkStone [mailto:darkstone@163.com]
>Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:34 AM
>To: dev@flex.apache.org
>Subject: Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
>
>Hi all,
>
>Flex SDK Installer 3.0.1
>
>I wish it could add auto reload feature when downloading files:
>
>If a file downloading takes too much time (e.g. 30 minutes), auto reload it.
>
>Or if a user is staring at the screen, and he/she finds out a file
>downloading is hanging there not make any progress, the installer can
>display a retry button, let the user retry the downloading of that file
>immediately (not wait 30 minutes).
>
>Well, that's my little suggestion here, wish it could help.
>
>
>DarkStone
>2014-05-12
>
>
>
>--
>View this message in context: http://apache-flex-development.2333347.n4.nabble.com/Ideas-for-Installer-3-0-1-was-Re-DRAFT-Installer-3-0-Announcement-tp37443p37534.html
>Sent from the Apache Flex Development mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
RE: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by ma...@usmc.mil.
Would you please add an issue in JIRA if you would like to see it added. [1]
[1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLEX
-Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: DarkStone [mailto:darkstone@163.com]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:34 AM
To: dev@flex.apache.org
Subject: Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Hi all,
Flex SDK Installer 3.0.1
I wish it could add auto reload feature when downloading files:
If a file downloading takes too much time (e.g. 30 minutes), auto reload it.
Or if a user is staring at the screen, and he/she finds out a file
downloading is hanging there not make any progress, the installer can
display a retry button, let the user retry the downloading of that file
immediately (not wait 30 minutes).
Well, that's my little suggestion here, wish it could help.
DarkStone
2014-05-12
--
View this message in context: http://apache-flex-development.2333347.n4.nabble.com/Ideas-for-Installer-3-0-1-was-Re-DRAFT-Installer-3-0-Announcement-tp37443p37534.html
Sent from the Apache Flex Development mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by DarkStone <da...@163.com>.
Hi all,
Flex SDK Installer 3.0.1
I wish it could add auto reload feature when downloading files:
If a file downloading takes too much time (e.g. 30 minutes), auto reload it.
Or if a user is staring at the screen, and he/she finds out a file
downloading is hanging there not make any progress, the installer can
display a retry button, let the user retry the downloading of that file
immediately (not wait 30 minutes).
Well, that's my little suggestion here, wish it could help.
DarkStone
2014-05-12
--
View this message in context: http://apache-flex-development.2333347.n4.nabble.com/Ideas-for-Installer-3-0-1-was-Re-DRAFT-Installer-3-0-Announcement-tp37443p37534.html
Sent from the Apache Flex Development mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Nicholas Kwiatkowski <ni...@spoon.as>.
Standard Windows users don't have write permissions to all directories in
Windows Vista and beyond (similar to OSX, and other systems). For example,
the Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories are off-limits for
normal users (and this would be a common place people would want to extract
the SDK if they have Flash Builder 4.6 or 4.7).
The big difference is that in Windows XP and below, it was almost always
common for users to work with admin privileges.. Vista changed that and
forced most users to work as standard users.
That's why I'm saying that we should check to see if we can write to the
directory and either inform the user, or escalate the app's privilege so we
do. If the user selects a directory they have write permissions for, then
we would never need admin rights.
-Nick
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 11:30 PM, Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Perhaps a silly question but why does the installer need admin
> permissions? All it doing is downloading and copying files into a directory.
>
> Is it the choice of directory that causes the issue? And is not required
> if people don't try to install in a privileged place?
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by OmPrakash Muppirala <bi...@gmail.com>.
On May 3, 2014 8:51 PM, "Justin Mclean" <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> >> Is it the choice of directory that causes the issue? And is not
required
> > if people don't try to install in a privileged place?
> >
> > Yes, that is the case.
>
> So the easy solution would be to try and write a file to the selected
directory and if it fails ask the user to select another directory and/or
run as admin?
>
I think that should work.
Thanks,
Om
> Thanks,
> Justin
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
>> Is it the choice of directory that causes the issue? And is not required
> if people don't try to install in a privileged place?
>
> Yes, that is the case.
So the easy solution would be to try and write a file to the selected directory and if it fails ask the user to select another directory and/or run as admin?
Thanks,
Justin
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by OmPrakash Muppirala <bi...@gmail.com>.
On May 3, 2014 8:30 PM, "Justin Mclean" <ju...@classsoftware.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Perhaps a silly question but why does the installer need admin
permissions? All it doing is downloading and copying files into a directory.
>
> Is it the choice of directory that causes the issue? And is not required
if people don't try to install in a privileged place?
Yes, that is the case.
Thanks,
Om
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
Perhaps a silly question but why does the installer need admin permissions? All it doing is downloading and copying files into a directory.
Is it the choice of directory that causes the issue? And is not required if people don't try to install in a privileged place?
Thanks,
Justin
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
OK, no CDN for Apache. I'd seriously consider paying for this one small
file to be hosted on a CDN if it made a difference in responsiveness.
Another potential improvement is around checksumming the AIR and other
downloads. Bad downloads seems to be the next most common problem. IIRC
the AIR and player checkums sometimes change when Adobe pushes some minor
update to that version's SDK. Would we need to run some task to
constantly update the checksums? Could we do that as a Jenkins task?
-Alex
On 5/3/14 8:41 AM, "Nicholas Kwiatkowski" <ni...@spoon.as> wrote:
>Most Windows installers will set the "requiresPrivilage" metadata in the
>.exe, so Windows requires elevated permissions before it launches. I've
>seen some that wait until they run across something they can't install
>without permission before they elevate. It's all over the board.
>
>I'd be surprised if Apache didn't have some sort of mirror system for
>their
>sites... Maybe it's a question that we need to ask.
>
>-Nick
>
>
>On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 5/3/14 5:41 AM, "Nicholas Kwiatkowski" <ni...@spoon.as> wrote:
>>
>> >My only worry about putting the XML file on DIST is that it does break
>>the
>> >realm of trust (some nefarious mirror could modify this file to
>>download a
>> >modified version of the SDK).
>> Good point. And I think I have to go back to a.o to get the mirror.cgi
>>to
>> find the mirror. What about using a CDN?
>>
>> >I'm assuming that we hard-coded the CRC
>> >checks to go back to apache.org to validate the downloads, which still
>> >means there could be errors.
>> AFAICT, the Installer goes back to a.o for the checksum.
>> >
>> >As far as permission goes, there is a Windows API to escalate the
>> >privilege
>> >of the running program to Admin. We could do a write test to the
>> >directory
>> >chosen (just touch a file and delete it) right as the user selects it,
>>and
>> >if it fails, we could call that API. It would require an ANE, but I
>>think
>> >I have one already that does that, if people want me to bring it in.
>> Sounds interesting, but is that really "ok"? Do other installers do
>>that?
>>
>> >
>> >-Nick
>> >
>> >
>> >On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Justin Mclean
>> ><ju...@classsoftware.com>wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> > For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
>> >> > installer, probably because I have admin rights.
>> >> I assume we can read the permissions on the directory chosen and warn
>> >>the
>> >> user if it's not writable and ask them to select another?
>> I don't see an AIR API for this, but I could have missed it.
>>
>> -Alex
>>
>>
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Nicholas Kwiatkowski <ni...@spoon.as>.
Most Windows installers will set the "requiresPrivilage" metadata in the
.exe, so Windows requires elevated permissions before it launches. I've
seen some that wait until they run across something they can't install
without permission before they elevate. It's all over the board.
I'd be surprised if Apache didn't have some sort of mirror system for their
sites... Maybe it's a question that we need to ask.
-Nick
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/3/14 5:41 AM, "Nicholas Kwiatkowski" <ni...@spoon.as> wrote:
>
> >My only worry about putting the XML file on DIST is that it does break the
> >realm of trust (some nefarious mirror could modify this file to download a
> >modified version of the SDK).
> Good point. And I think I have to go back to a.o to get the mirror.cgi to
> find the mirror. What about using a CDN?
>
> >I'm assuming that we hard-coded the CRC
> >checks to go back to apache.org to validate the downloads, which still
> >means there could be errors.
> AFAICT, the Installer goes back to a.o for the checksum.
> >
> >As far as permission goes, there is a Windows API to escalate the
> >privilege
> >of the running program to Admin. We could do a write test to the
> >directory
> >chosen (just touch a file and delete it) right as the user selects it, and
> >if it fails, we could call that API. It would require an ANE, but I think
> >I have one already that does that, if people want me to bring it in.
> Sounds interesting, but is that really "ok"? Do other installers do that?
>
> >
> >-Nick
> >
> >
> >On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Justin Mclean
> ><ju...@classsoftware.com>wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> > For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
> >> > installer, probably because I have admin rights.
> >> I assume we can read the permissions on the directory chosen and warn
> >>the
> >> user if it's not writable and ask them to select another?
> I don't see an AIR API for this, but I could have missed it.
>
> -Alex
>
>
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0
Announcement)
Posted by Alex Harui <ah...@adobe.com>.
On 5/3/14 5:41 AM, "Nicholas Kwiatkowski" <ni...@spoon.as> wrote:
>My only worry about putting the XML file on DIST is that it does break the
>realm of trust (some nefarious mirror could modify this file to download a
>modified version of the SDK).
Good point. And I think I have to go back to a.o to get the mirror.cgi to
find the mirror. What about using a CDN?
>I'm assuming that we hard-coded the CRC
>checks to go back to apache.org to validate the downloads, which still
>means there could be errors.
AFAICT, the Installer goes back to a.o for the checksum.
>
>As far as permission goes, there is a Windows API to escalate the
>privilege
>of the running program to Admin. We could do a write test to the
>directory
>chosen (just touch a file and delete it) right as the user selects it, and
>if it fails, we could call that API. It would require an ANE, but I think
>I have one already that does that, if people want me to bring it in.
Sounds interesting, but is that really "ok"? Do other installers do that?
>
>-Nick
>
>
>On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Justin Mclean
><ju...@classsoftware.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> > For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
>> > installer, probably because I have admin rights.
>> I assume we can read the permissions on the directory chosen and warn
>>the
>> user if it's not writable and ask them to select another?
I don't see an AIR API for this, but I could have missed it.
-Alex
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Nicholas Kwiatkowski <ni...@spoon.as>.
My only worry about putting the XML file on DIST is that it does break the
realm of trust (some nefarious mirror could modify this file to download a
modified version of the SDK). I'm assuming that we hard-coded the CRC
checks to go back to apache.org to validate the downloads, which still
means there could be errors.
As far as permission goes, there is a Windows API to escalate the privilege
of the running program to Admin. We could do a write test to the directory
chosen (just touch a file and delete it) right as the user selects it, and
if it fails, we could call that API. It would require an ANE, but I think
I have one already that does that, if people want me to bring it in.
-Nick
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
> > installer, probably because I have admin rights.
> I assume we can read the permissions on the directory chosen and warn the
> user if it's not writable and ask them to select another?
>
> > I wonder if the total time to
> > get the file off the mirror would be better than getting it from
> flex.a.o for folks far away from the US.
> There would be an improvement - eg Australia -> USA incurs a 500ms odd
> delay before it starts to transfer anything. And > 50% of the installs are
> non USA.
>
> > At minimum, I think we want to try to add a param to the tracking URL
> > about what stage the installer was at when it failed?
> would tell us if there one major issue or several at least.
>
> > Anything else we should add to the installer?
> I raised a few minor issues in JIRA the other week.
>
> I think a nice addition would be something that encourages people to
> contact us when there is an error so we can help.
>
> Thanks,
> Justin
>
>
>
Re: Ideas for Installer 3.0.1 (was Re: [DRAFT] Installer 3.0 Announcement)
Posted by Justin Mclean <ju...@classsoftware.com>.
Hi,
> For me, I don't have to do anything special on Windows to run the
> installer, probably because I have admin rights.
I assume we can read the permissions on the directory chosen and warn the user if it's not writable and ask them to select another?
> I wonder if the total time to
> get the file off the mirror would be better than getting it from flex.a.o for folks far away from the US.
There would be an improvement - eg Australia -> USA incurs a 500ms odd delay before it starts to transfer anything. And > 50% of the installs are non USA.
> At minimum, I think we want to try to add a param to the tracking URL
> about what stage the installer was at when it failed?
would tell us if there one major issue or several at least.
> Anything else we should add to the installer?
I raised a few minor issues in JIRA the other week.
I think a nice addition would be something that encourages people to contact us when there is an error so we can help.
Thanks,
Justin