Proud Programmers Blog :: 8.5.3 installation - What to do if you encounter "Unexpected results have occurred during the provisioning operation"

Tags: Lotus Notes

Update 24.JAN.2012: Impressed by IBM! IBM contacted me to receive the log files.

Yesterday I wanted to upgrade my Notes installation. Being a developer, I started the notes_designer_admin853_w32en.exe on my Windows 7 x64 Enterprise, and clicked away. At some point in the installation, I got this;

A picture named M2

What?!? Getting "Unexpected results have occurred during the provisioning operation" on "Verifying: "com.ibm.notes.roaming.provider.feature_1.5.3.20110916-0921" ?!? Then the installer did this....

A picture named M2

Needless to say, no Notes were present after this. Neither the old 8.5.2 nor the new 8.5.3. By the way; Wonder what we actually mean with "Rolling back"? An end-user might think that the old version should be in place then, he he!

Attempt 1 - Ahh, remove the old installation, and try again

The old 8.5.2 installation was removed by the 8.5.3 installer. Since an installer nowadays almost never remove all data, I also checked the remains with the Revo Uninstaller Pro.
That cleaned the last parts from the Windows Registry, and I copied the old data directory myself to have a backup.

After the reboot, I tried the same installer, and boom - the same result!

Attempt 2 - Ahh, I didn't start the setup.exe via Run as Administrator.

Next attempt, Run setup via Run as Administrator;

A picture named M3

Boom! Same result! Exact same message!

Attempt 3 - Far fetched idea - I kill the installer when the message comes - and hope that most parts have been installed anyway.

I know, I know, really far fetched! But, since the installer stop on this point;

A picture named M4

... it looks like the installer is almost complete, doesn't it?

I can tell you now, that didn't work either! I got to the splash screen of Notes, but not further. And having learned what I know now, the verification-stage is before the installation-stage and finally the enabling-stage.. So the installer was far from finished, even if it looked like that .... By the way; an end-user might think stuff is finished, when the progress bar is almost at 100% - how foolish and noob that it, he he. An experienced user knows that you will see many progress bars reaching 100% before you are finished! Note to IBM: Why not have two progress bars, one for the current feature like we have now, and one for the complete process? The last progress bar, the complete progress bar, is normally what end-users are looking for anyway.

Attempt 4 - Rising frustration - searching franticly for posts on the net regarding Verification errors. Hey! We've got unique error codes!!!

Discovered something which I haven't seen before at all - The error logs now contain error codes!

A picture named M5

Needles to say, there aren't much on the net yet containing these error messages, but finally IBM have heard the request for unique error messages. I love it!

Found some other posts stating that you could specify the parameter UPDATESITELIST to the setup.exe, like this;

setup.exe /v"UPDATESITELIST=C:\Notes851\updateSite.zip"

Yep, note that this obviously worked in 8.5.1. Now it doesn't work anymore. The installer stopped at the exact same place, and rolled back like before. The unique error code was by the way CWPPR0107W: The update site list override bla bla is ignored ... Funny enough the installer didn't tell me that other in the error-log-0.xml - after the installer stopped at the exact same place and rolled back (again).

Also, pretty hard to find a consistent page showing all the setup.exe command line parameters. You probably have to dig really deep into the setup customization topics! I was hoping to find something like "turn off verification of features" ...

Attempt 5 - Check if I have remains of other applications - blocking Notes installer somehow.

Being a developer myself, I had several Notes-related tools installed, List Fields, Notes Menu Launcher, Notes Import Export Library, Import Image 2 Lotus Notes, IntelliView and NotesHound. Additionally I also had SwiftFile 4.0 which I had totally forgotten. All of these tools were removed, and system rebooted. New install, same error and same rollback....

Attempt 6 - Reading about the new NICE (Lotus Notes Install Cleanup Executable) tool - want to try!

That looked interesting!! Head over here to ready more. Very briefly NICE will uninstall Notes thoroughly. However, after the rollback, you don't have Notes installed anymore and NICE doesn't find a thing. I therefore retried attempt 3, and killed the installer when the error arrived. Now NICE found 8.5.3 and allowed me to remove it;

A picture named M6

But, the reinstall after that yielded the same result. Not fun!

Attempt 7 - Use the Lotus Notes 8.5.3.msi instead of the setup.exe

Ha ha, what do you not try when things go really bad?

Been there, done that; didn't work!

Strange side result by the way. Switching between the two, somehow the list of featured got mangled;
A picture named M7

versus ... the more full list I was getting used to;

A picture named M8

Trying to install the first one, with the smaller list, didn't succeed at all;

A picture named M9

So, back to scratch, reboot and wait

Attempt 8 - New idea - what if I just installed the Notes client?

I hope you can see how desperate I am getting by now

This time I tried the lotus_notes853_win_en.exe instead of the all-client installer notes_designer_admin853_w32en.exe.

Guess what, that installed perfectly!!! Obviously (besides containing Designer and Administrator clients), there must be something about the com.ibm.notes.roaming.provider.feature.

Attempt 9 - Copy "roaming"-related files from the client-only updateSite.zip to the all-client updateSite.zip

Yes, getting really frantic now .... By looking at the content of the updateSite.zip belonging to the client-only install, I found these files in the features-folder like this;

A picture named M10

And in the plugins-folder I found these files:

A picture named M11

Comparing these files with the ones in the all-client updateSite.zip didn't reveal any direct differences in file sizes. Only the timestamp was different.

What the heck, I didn't have Notes installed anyway, and I had nothing to loose....

Files were copied via drag and drop using WinRAR so, the process was simple enough.

Installer restarted, and TADA - now it installed without any hickups!!!!
Conclusion:

To me it seems like something didn't work out properly with the all-client updateSite.zip. By simply copying the roaming-related files from the client's updateSite.zip, things automagically installed.

Needless to say, If it hadn't been for me being a (frantic) fan of Lotus Notes, I might have given up just a tad earlier .... This only took me about 20 hours to figure out - Hope you enjoyed the reading!

Comments

1 - Thanks a lot, I had the same issue with the installation. I didn't try your solution yet but will over the weekend. That will be a real time saver!

Thanks for sharing ;)

Posted by Benoit Dubuc At 17:35:14 On 07.10.2011 | - Website - |

2 - Similar issue:
Started with admin/designer 8.5.2 fp2. Installed 8.5.3 admin/designer. Install hung after about 30 mins. I left it going over night and it was still hung at the same place in the morning. I killed the process.
Notes was not in control panel program page and not in registry. When I tried to run the admin/designer installer again it told me there was no valid platform.
I ran the notes 8.5.3 installer and it installed perfectly. Uninstalled Notes and then was able to install the 8.5.3 admin/designer without issue.

Posted by Len Berg At 17:50:41 On 07.10.2011 | - Website - |

3 - Thanks for your really patient work.
Great help. Emoticon

Posted by Gerhard Ritter At 18:14:29 On 07.10.2011 | - Website - |

4 - I have installed Notes/Designer/Admin 8.5.3 on 4 different machines and had no problems.

Posted by Hubert Wagner At 20:38:01 On 07.10.2011 | - Website - |

5 - Hubert; Of course most installations goes without problem, otherwise there would have been a riot! I wrote the post with the title "...What to do *IF* you encounter...", and ment as an aid for someone else experiencing the same symptoms, searching on the net. Deep down I believe that there is *something* with Windows 7 x64 bit and Notes, perhaps only on few machines. Perhaps posts like mine can narrow down the search for others?

Posted by Robert Ibsen Voith At 01:13:02 On 08.10.2011 | - Website - |

6 - Robert,
Very interesting saga! I have exactly the same error message but first got it when upgrading to 8.5.2 after 6.5.1 suddenly stopped working. Then I tried 8.5.3 which returned identical messages to those you post, so I will try out your solution.
I also wonder why a stable-for-3-years installation of an old client (6.5.1) suddenly stopped working - gettting splash screen only then crashing out. An uncaring Windows update seems the most likely answer but I guess I'll never find out!
Thanks for all your hard work,
David C

Posted by David Cunningham At 23:25:21 On 08.10.2011 | - Website - |

7 - I had a similar issue with the install. Not sure if it was the same feature/plugin but the provisioning failed just the same. I did manage to get the client installed by removing the workspace directory in the data directory. After that the installed completed flawlessly.

Posted by Travis McCracken At 15:24:06 On 11.10.2011 | - Website - |

8 - I had the same problem with the same installer exe. I had Notes 8.5.2 installed in a "non-standard" directory. When I changed the install to go to the old directories it worked fine. It can tell there is an existing install but has a problem installing the new version someplace else. Used to be able to install two or more version on the same machine, no more.

Posted by Greg At 19:00:17 On 12.10.2011 | - Website - |

9 - I have tried this solution with 8.5.3 and it doesn't work for me, sadly Emoticon

I can install 8.5.0 but not 8.5.2 or 8.5.3 - same infuriating "Unexpected results have occurred during the provisioning operation" - this is seriously affecting my productivity, anyone got any ideas??!!
ADC

Posted by David Cunningham At 11:08:20 On 15.10.2011 | - Website - |

10 - Same error here.
Slightly different story though.
Win 7/64
Upgraded from 8.5.2. At first, went flawlessly, but after a day or two, Notes started to act up, like refusing to show the desktop etc.
After the usual client rescue steps (discard cache, desktop.dsk, bookmarks.nsf, minimal notes.ini etc.) I opted for a re-install.
That's when I got this endless error. **On reinstalling a software that was already there**

My various attemps were roughly similar to yours, with same frustrating reccuring error.

I tried your tip of installing the Notes Client only. Less luck than you. Even the "client only" install died at the same mark.

Now reinstalling good old 8.5.2
IBM, I'm disapoint Emoticon

Posted by Éric Viala At 21:57:17 On 20.10.2011 | - Website - |

11 - Thanks for the explanations, we are a country distributor of a product and I don't have the account for the IBM download section. The KG send us the notes_designer_admin853.. file and for most of my users there's no problem but I have now 2 users with this exact same problem.

I also tried to install (getting the error), try a repair and after it copy a "Lotus\Notes\framework\shared\eclipse" directory from a working machine and it doesn't work too.

Is it possible for you to publish a zip file with the good .jar and .gz files to put in the feature and plugins directorories?

Thanks,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin At 21:51:13 On 02.11.2011 | - Website - |

12 - Hi! Could you please find the data\workspace\logs directory from the machine you are having problems? If you zip up all the xml files in that directory and mail them to me (zamfir@us.ibm.com) I can take a look at them and try to determine the exact nature of the problem you are having.

Posted by Jeff Mitchell At 18:50:26 On 16.01.2012 | - Website - |

13 - I've just spent over 3h going thru the same pain!

Had a working 8.5.3 (upgraded from 8.5.2) but had problems with the new Source Control feature. For instance the "Team Development" selection (Right click and application in Designer), wouldn't appear.

Did a uninstall/reinstall and ended up where you where. After another couple problems during install (in relation to Connections).

I solved it by clearing out the Notes.ini (well, just about) and do a fresh setup. This time WITHOUT connecting to a server, just uncheck that option in the beginning.

After that just set up your connection as you normally would.

Worked for me anyway!

/J

Posted by Joacim Boive At 00:45:57 On 28.01.2012 | - Website - |

14 - Great job....! I have been plagued by these error messages myself. Emoticon

Posted by Jose Rodriguez At 23:19:47 On 27.04.2012 | - Website - |

15 - I also did some steps same as you. But later decided to unpack the exe again and install. that worked. maybe you guys can try that.

Posted by Prasanth At 19:02:55 On 29.05.2012 | - Website - |

16 - I had the same problem. I created new user account and installed successfully

Posted by Moorthi Daniel At 14:47:11 On 08.06.2012 | - Website - |

17 - Thanks for posting this Robert. I went through a lot of the processes and pain you did, even trying the updatesites.zip modification - but without success. I was upgrading a stable 8.5.2FP3 install to 8.5.3 via Smart Upgrade when the problem occurred and nothing I tried worked, not even a reinstall of 8.5.2 from the locally extracted install files being run as the local admin.
In the end the fix that worked for me was posted by Chis Whisonant in the forums: run cmd as local admin and use the following command line:
setup.exe /v"RCPDATA=c:/temp/notes/install"
I hope this helps someone else who encounters this most frustrating situation.

Posted by Mike Burford At 05:19:34 On 18.06.2012 | - Website - |

18 - I had the same issue.
I didn't try your way. I have a little different procedure to get rid out of this issue:
1. Uninstall client using nice tool.
2. Remove everything from registry related to Lotus. Press Edit->Find->type "lotus", click find. Some of keys are unable to delete.
3. Restart machine.
4. Install LN again.
5. In 95% of cases lotus will install successfully.

I've noticed that in the rest of cases (5%) we needed to uninstall Symantec Endpoint Protection.
Was any Symantec software installed during your test?

Posted by Waldemar Slowik At 11:32:43 On 26.07.2012 | - Website - |

19 - I see I get an honorable mention in comment 17... Emoticon

Too bad that didn't help my issue.

Anyway, after much fighting with this same issue on an XP 32-bit installation and trying most of what you tried before Googling and finding your post, I still had issues with getting 8.5.3 installed. 8.5.2 does install properly.

And for what it's worth for others who find this link, please check out this technote: { Link }

IBM admits an issue with the way the updatesite.zip is compressed and some Windows installs have an issue with that. An updated 8.5.3 installer can be obtained from IBM Support.

Posted by Chris Whisonant At 19:32:17 On 25.01.2013 | - Website - |

20 - Solution is quite sipmple upon locating root couse of above describeb annoying eror:
- Extract Notes installtion package
- Locate updateSite.zip and extract its contents to temporary folder
- Recompress temporary folder with contents from updateSite.zip with free tools like 7-zip to new updatesite.zip
- replace original updateSite.zip with newly created file

Itr works - for it took "just" 4 hours to stumble to this page and got all pieces together. Thx to all.

Regards,

Gregor

Posted by Gregor At 18:47:37 On 04.03.2013 | - Website - |

21 - I had the same problem and was able to fix it by simply unzipping updateSite.zip and zip it again (Windows Compressed Folder). Then it installed without any problems. On my environment it only happened with NON english clients.

Posted by Raoul Morik At 19:12:52 On 06.03.2013 | - Website - |

22 - Hi

I just had the same issue on two new identically build machines, where the same had not occurred on the previous 8 installs

Figured I'd restart after the rollback before trying again.

Actually discovered that somehow during the copy process, one or more of the files, previously expanded, had become corrupt.

Grabbed the Notes MSI for a fresh execution and the install went through with no errors

Posted by Mike At 17:05:21 On 02.07.2014 | - Website - |

23 - this happened on xp after removing notes 8.0.2 and deleting folders and rebooting.
Could not get notes 8.5.3 to install into default folders. . . seen other user comment on original folders. it originally was installed in c:\lotus\notes folder.
installed notes 8.5.3 to c:\lotus\notes folder ... worked like a charm , did nothing else.

Posted by joe smoe At 19:02:07 On 05.08.2014 | - Website - |

24 - I also had the same issue, but I could solve it by uninstalling or deactivating the anti-virus software (McAfee Internet Security)
Emoticon

Posted by Tanay Das At 11:01:36 On 06.08.2015 | - Website - |

25 - Thanks for posting this write-up. I had the same issue. When I read some of the other comments about anti-virus I disabled mine (McAfee Internet Security) during the installation and voila, it worked perfectly. Emoticon

Posted by Gary At 16:18:53 On 06.08.2015 | - Website - |

26 -

Thank you for your writing. I had the same issue but it still remain there.
the warning banners came up and the installation rolled back.

Posted by Aaron At 04:32:21 On 16.12.2015 | - Website - |

27 -

Thank you for making this available and to all who posted. Removed Preinstalled McAfee Internet Security, Disabling is not enough punishment for the head ache caused. Finally worked, can't remember the last time I was so happy to to see an Installation Complete window. Emoticon

Posted by Jon Oakley At 16:49:10 On 27.01.2016 | - Website - |

28 - Thank you for your help Emoticon

Same issue, tried everything without help, Finally works with disabling the McAfee Internet Securty Emoticon

Posted by Jin At 14:26:57 On 02.03.2016 | - Website - |

29 - same over here. I disable the McAfee and every thing worked after that.

Posted by mike At 05:00:50 On 03.03.2016 | - Website - |

30 - Thank you for your blog. I had to deploy Lotus to 40 Workstations and couldn't figure out the cause. This was very helpful.

Posted by Bernardo Roldan At 08:34:01 On 20.04.2016 | - Website - |

31 - Hello Robert,
I'm trying to install IBM Sametime Connect 9.0 and I keep getting the same error message "Unexpected results have occured during the provisioning operation. For additional info refer to the logs:...". I'm not into programming, I'm a mechanical engineer. The error message you got while installing Lotus Notes is similar, but I couldn't use the solution in my case. Can you help me with this? Thank you for your time and regards.

Posted by Mike Skywalker At 17:43:40 On 10.09.2017 | - Website - |