The operation completed successfully on stderr

[dcjulian29]

I have a package that "works" in 0.9.8 and has started to be "unsuccessful" when installed on computers running the new choco 0.9.9. I've run the package on both Windows 8.1 and 10 and get the same:

[ERROR] -  The operation completed successfully.

and the package fails to install. This specific package changes some registry settings and I've verified that they are indeed changed. I've also updated the install script to output the $LastExitCode after each line in the script and don't see any non-zero exit codes...

Console Output: https://gist.github.com/dcjulian29/e38de448ce54af997137

Chocolatey Log: https://gist.github.com/dcjulian29/7b9deb1be194f4fe7ef6

[ferventcoder]

Running this by hand, what is the exit code?

reg.exe import C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mysettings-ntfs\tools\registry.reg /reg:64

Keep in mind that $lastexitcode may does not apply to posh commands - http://joshua.poehls.me/2012/powershell-script-module-boilerplate/ You need $?

[ferventcoder]

Out of curiousity, did it work in 0.9.8.33? That one was a bit better at detecting errors than its predecessors.

[dcjulian29]

Running from a command shell

 C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mysettings-ntfs\tools>reg.exe import registry.reg /reg:64
 The operation completed successfully.
 C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mysettings-ntfs\tools>echo %errorlevel%
 0

Running from a powershell:

 PS C:\Windows\system32> reg.exe import registry.reg /reg:64
 The operation completed successfully.
 PS C:\Windows\system32> $?
 True

Yes, it does work without issue on my systems that are still running 0.9.8.33...

[ferventcoder]

Any chance I can get the package in question (or one that has the same issues) for local testing?

[dcjulian29]

Yes, you can download it from https://www.myget.org/F/dcjulian29-chocolatey/api/v2/package/mysettings-ntfs/2014.5.17

[ferventcoder]

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22106446/system-io-ioexception-the-operation-completed-successfully-exception
• http://www.codedisqus.com/0xxVjPVVje/systemioioexception-the-operation-completed-successfully-exception.html
• https://rkeithhill.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/effective-powershell-item-16-dealing-with-errors/

[ferventcoder]

This is a tough one. Adding $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop" hasn't helped. Wrapping the whole thing in a try catch doesn't trap the error (even with the stop preference). I wonder if it is coming back from one of the commands. I'm going to systematically remove everything and step through each until I find the culprit. Hopefully that will help find the issue.

[ferventcoder]

Okay, so

reg.exe import C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\mysettings-ntfs\tools\registry.reg /reg:64

Exits with this status:

The operation completed successfully.

And an exit code of 0. Why that is getting fed to the error stream in what remains to be seen.

[ferventcoder]

• https://rcmtech.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/vbscript-and-reg_binary-registry-values/ | http://www.itninja.com/question/vbs-writing-in-hku-registry

At this reference note this:

      If InStr(1,oExec.StdErr.ReadAll,"operation completed successfully",vbTextCompare) Then
             ' Yes the success text IS sent out via StdErr and NOT StdOut
             WScript.Echo "Registry updated sucessfully"
             oFSO.DeleteFile sTempFile
      Else
             WScript.Echo "regWriteBinary: Registry import of " & sTempFile & " failed: " & oExec.StdErr.ReadAll
      End If

• http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/powergui/f/4833/t/19570669

I've found the problem. The main problem is in reg.exe utility.
Depending on the version reg.exe utility works differently. v5.1.x.x (that I have on my XPSP3) works correctly, but v5.2.x.x does not work as it is expected to work.

"reg import" command:

• when v5.1: returns "Operation completed successfully" to standard OUTPUT stream
• when v5.2: returns "Operation completed successfully" to standard ERROR stream

Moreover, it is probably a problem with PowerShell also :(
PowerShell treats these streams differently and process ERROR stream messages as errors. Which is correct imho. But for some reason the PowerShell console and PowerShell v2 ISE behavior is different in this case. (ISE shows the error just like the PowerGUI ScriptEditor does).

[ferventcoder]

This actually looks like an issue with reg.exe and not with new/old Chocolatey. Or rather the POSH version of choco was maybe forgiving on this.

I did flip over to 0.9.8.33 and it has no issues installing and it appears to return the message back as what looks like no error at all. I'm not quite sure what the correct path forward is.

[dcjulian29]

I believe the whole reason I switched to using the reg.exe tool was because sometimes PowerShell gets confused on the "bitness" of the registry if the PowerShell host is running the 32-bit shell on a 64-bit operating system when using the the PowerShell Registry Provider to change the registry...

I think I can work around this by calling out to the underlying .Net API to deal with the registry after determining if the system is 64-bit...

$key = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenBaseKey([Microsoft.Win32.RegistryHive]::LocalMachine, [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryView]::Registry64)

$subKey =  $key.OpenSubKey("SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management", $true)

$subKey.SetValue("DisablePagingExecutive", 1)

I believe the path forward is to not fault Choco for "doing the right thing" and to possibly submit a bug against the underlying tool being called from the script... Based on your research and discoveries, it doesn't appear to be a bug in chocolatey.

[ferventcoder]

Unfortunately this is not just local to reg.exe. Perhaps the right thing to do is workaround it. :/

[ferventcoder]

Fixed in 9936876 and will be released with 0.9.9.7.

[ferventcoder]

See #445 - the code for this is being reverted with #8 as now by default choco doesn't fail based on stderr being written to and we want both paths to be similar (choco's built-in powershell and system powershell).

[BrainSlugs83]

I have no idea what Choco is -- and I apologize for derailing -- but this bug report is the top google search result for reg stderr (was trying to figure out why a PowerShell script was failing) -- I thought I'd share this in case it helps others (it's a dirty hack, but it works):

function Import-Reg($path)
{
    # This is necessary because some versions of reg.exe return their
    # success messages on the error stream! :(

    $cmd = [String]::Concat('reg import "', $path, '" 2>&1');
    $output = & cmd.exe /c $cmd

    $output = [String]::Concat(($output | % { $_.ToString() })).Trim();

    if ($output -ilike "*success*")
    { 
        echo $output;
    }
    else
    {
        throw $output;
    }
}

And usage is pretty simple:

Import-Reg .\MyRegFile.reg;

Hope that's helpful for someone, somewhere. :)

[travis-dr]

Thank you @BrainSlugs83 that has come in helpful!