{CLOSED} Solution Instead of Error (SIE) for Product Installation

[tans_adsk]

We want to help customers resolve product installation errors, so we are exploring providing users with a solution instead of just an error message.

How SIE works: SIE will kick in at an installation failure. It will do an error analysis and search to see if the error is mapped to a solution article in the Autodesk Knowledge Network (AKN https://knowledge.autodesk.com/). If so, the AKN link will be provided, otherwise, we will do a search in AKN and return a suggested article list. 

UI mockup example: 

Feedback Questions: 

1. Do you hit installation failure often when installing an Autodesk product? (1- Strong Yes, 2- Yes, 3- Neutral, 4- No, 5- Strong No) 
2. Was it easy for you to resolve the failure in your last error experience? (1- Strong Yes, 2- Yes, 3- Neutral, 4- No, 5- Strong No) 
3. Do you refer to Autodesk AKN(https://knowledge.autodesk.com) to resolve an installation error? (1- Strong Yes, 2- Yes, 3- Neutral, 4- No, 5- Strong No) 
4. How likely you will follow a solution we provided at an error to resolve the issue? (1- Strong Yes, 2- Yes, 3- Neutral, 4- No, 5- Strong No) 
5. Would you share logs with Autodesk for your install failure? 

[Anonymous]

The most troublesome issues with installation are usually unexpected reboots, or unexpected hanging when silently deploying via SCCM/PDQ/other remote deployment software

If Revit or some app needs to be closed before installation can take place, the silent installer should fail, and not wait indefinitely

If a reboot is needed before the app can be installed, the silent installer should fail, and not just reboot the computer without warning

The /norestart switches rarely work, as usually the installer process has some prerequisite which Autodesk forgets to set a norestart switch

[tans_adsk]

Thanks for sharing PaulNOOA. Agree with you that there should be no unexpected reboot and installation shouldn't wait indefinitely. The expected behavior for those two scenarios is that silent install will fail and log the info (app needs to be closed/system reboot required) in log file.

Which version of the product are you installing? We can check if there is a bug in older product install or in a certain scenario. 

[GabrielW_ValiantTMS]

One pesky error that I encountered recently during installs from the web were errors due to Visual C++ problems, which only went away after I reinstalled all VC++ on the PCs.

The error logs were not enough, and when launching the program after installed from Browser Download method, I would still get a long error prompt that made no sense.

The solutions were as follows:

- Vault Professional 2020 error on launch/startup "Connectivity.request.runtime.util.requestruntimeexception (....... long error prompt): reinstall both x86 and x64 versions of the multi-installer Visual C++ 2015, 2017 and 2019 redistributables (NOT THE ARM64 one).
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433...

- Autodesk Vault Professional (Client) failed: reinstall both x86 and x64 versions of the multi-installer Visual C++ 2015, 2017 and 2019 redistributables (NOT THE ARM64 one).
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433...


This all lead me to develop my own FAQ book over 5 years, and it is now almost a dictionary to the Autodesk "language"  (Inventor, Vault, ACAD, and few other apps) that users suffer to learn. I can now CTRL+F through most day-to-day errors but still find some I am required to google search for. I think there should be an option for users to simply click and throw a search on Autodesk forums, so they develop the habit of looking for answers here instead of with someone else. For Autodesk programs I find that knowing where to search for workarounds and fixes is an essential part of the proficiency.

[tans_adsk]

Thanks for sharing GabrielW_ValiantTMS. Your FQA book is cool! The error to solution mapping we will maintain for SIE is like a FQA manual book too. Our goal is for every error either we will provide an AKN article for the problem user encounters, or we will bring users to a searched result. And we will be continuously adding more mappings in SIE so that more known issues will be covered.