New PI Installation fails to start due to Fatal Error

[dnault42]

I just completely uninstalled my existing version of PI and tried installing 01.08.04.1171-20150804.  It installs fine, but when trying to start PI I get this:


I get nothing after that, nothing I do will get it to launch.  I've tried to download the file installer several times because the checksum does not match what is listed on your site (you shows fa48f29e6cbd3f2de23cc70f840c94870017efc2, but I get 65365c7341f01ff346a14f9eb25ea9a5).  I do get the same checksum consistently though.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
David

[dnault42]

Sorry, additional information would probably be useful.  I'm running Windows 8.1, Intel Core i7-5930L @ 3.5GHz, 32GB of DDR4.  I had been running 01.08.04.1170 without any issues like this.

Regards,
David

[dnault42]

Anyone else see this or have any suggestions on how I can get past it?

Regards,
David

[msmythers]

David

Have you tried downloading the installer on a different computer to see if you get a different checksum?


Mike

[Alejandro Tombolini]

Hi David, it seems an installation problem. First try Ctrl+Click and if it does not work, the safety would be to download it again, it should work...

FAQ 3.4 may also help:
Reboot your machine before installing a new version of PixInsight. Also check your computer thoroughly for viruses, Trojans, spyware and other malwares with a good, up-to-date virus protection software. This should not happen on a clean Windows installation.


Saludos, Alejandro.

[cdesselles]

Upgrade to Windows 10.  There are no issues I've found with it and Pixinsight. (Or Win 7 Pro either for that matter. Win 8.1 on the other hand....)

[dnault42]

Thank you for all the suggestions.  I really appreciate it.  So far, I've tried:
- Downloading the installer on different computers (and through different networks - at work).  I get the same checksum in all cases with the same problem after installation.
- I'm 99% certain my computer is free of all viruses, trojans, etc.  I do not keep it connected to my network and when it is connected it is for the purpose of downloading specific astronomy programs, like PixInsight or for updating Windows.  I also have it loaded with ESET just in case.
- I've had problems with installations before, so my default behavior is to reboot whenever uninstalling or installing any software if I encounter problems.  In this case, I uninstalled the previous version, rebooted, installed the new version, rebooted and then tried to launch PI at which point it fails.  There is nothing on this installation of Windows except for a few astronomy programs and MS Office.

Alejandro, I'm not sure what you want me to Ctrl+Click on.  The installer, the download link, the PI executable?

I don't moving to the latest level for software packages, but I usually give it several months before moving to a new Windows version so that many of the gross bugs have been fixed.  I'm not quite prepared to make the leap to Windows 10 just yet.

Regards,
David

[Alejandro Tombolini]

Hi David, Ctrl+Click over the executable icon. It launches PixInsight in uninstall mode.

Holding down the CTRL key while you click the start icon of the application a dialog warning about removing all settings will appear. It may be useful with unexpected problems with recent updates of the core application.

Saludos, Alejandro.

[Juan Conejero]

You have identified the problem:

... the checksum does not match what is listed on your site ...

And a probable cause:

I also have it loaded with ESET just in case.

I would try disabling your antivirus while the file is being downloaded. Anyway, we have seen lots of weird problems caused by antivirus applications, firewall applications and malwares on Windows, including 'creative' combinations of all of them.

[dnault42]

Thanks Juan.  I'll try downloading it without ESET active.  I have tried downloading it on multiple machines, but I believe all of them have some form of antivirus running.

Regards,
David

[dnault42]

I feel somewhat silly now.  The checksum I was running was md5, not sha1.  After correcting that I found that all the downloads have been correct.

Just in case, I disabled the antivirus while downloading, uninstalling and installing the new version.  I still get the same problem though.  Ctrl+Click did not change anything, nor did using the -uninstall command line option or the 'Reset PixInsight Settings' shortcut.  I still get the same Fatal Error.  It happens immediately.  I don't see a splash screen or anything else.

Regards,
David

[msmythers]

David

Are you doing the installation as the administrator and starting PI as the administrator? Just taking a guess.


Mike

[dnault42]

Hey Mike,

I've tried both installing and running as the administrator as well as through my normal account.  No love there either.

Regards,
David

[Juan Conejero]

Hi David,

I'm sorry to say that I have no idea of what can be causing this. I cannot reproduce this problem on any machine and/or operating system. Can you try on a different machine?

[dnault42]

I do have one other machine I can try this on, which I will do when I get home from work.  However that isn't ultimately very useful as the machine it is failing on is the one I use for my astrophotography processing.  Is there anything I can do to help debug this further?  Any log files that might be generated or any files that might persist after uninstalling the previous version that I could manually remove (maybe in my user directory)?  Maybe I'm missing a system or C runtime update?  I think I've done this before, but don't remember how: run Visual Studio debugger on the executable.

Regards,
David