Installation error - Error reading setup initialization file

[Owen]

I have just purchased the upgrade to iMatch 5.5 from iMatch 5

After downloading the 5.6.22 setup file and running it I receive the error message "Error reading setup initialization file"
The error message occurs immediately after double clicking the setup file.

I have tried the following:
Delete and download again  (using different browsers and different target drives)
Run as Administrator
Restart Windows

The consistent outcome is the error message.

I am running W10 Pro and have run iMatch 5 for 18 months without problems

Help will be appreciated.

Owen

[Mario]

The downloaded file is incomplete or corrupted. It seems that (very) few users have problems downloading from the new server farm. The download code is the same as on the old server, there should be no difference at all. Just a different hosting company (Europe's biggest hosting company, very high-quality and massive bandwidth to all places on earth).

I had one report last week from a Canadian user who could not download the file at his home PC. We tried for a day o fix it, no results.
The next day he downloaded the file on his Office PC in less than two minutes.

In a recent community thread a few users reported that the downloaded file is incomplete (you can tell from the missing digital certificate in Windows Explorer and InstallShield will report errors during installation as in your case).

Clearing the cache of the browser (Shift+Del usually), clear the TEMP folder on your system, delete the already downloaded file, temporarily disabling download accelerators, security software, cookie blockers, virus checkers etc. usually helps.

Questions:

Does the download take unusually long? The server limits the download speed to approx. 4 MB/second so the download should take about 2 minutes or so. How large is the file you have downloaded? It should be a bit over 90 MB.

[Owen]

Mario,

responses below.

Clearing the cache of the browser (Shift+Del usually), clear the TEMP folder on your system, delete the already downloaded file, temporarily disabling download accelerators, security software, cookie blockers, virus checkers etc. usually helps.

I have done all that you ask and still no success. 
I have tried MS Edge and Google Chrome.
I have uninstalled Bitdefender and disabled Defender.
I do not use download accelerators.
I do not block cookies.

Does the download take unusually long?
On a good day my network provides ~2Mbps so everything takes a long time.

How large is the file you have downloaded? It should be a bit over 90 MB.
first attempt ~58MB
second attempt ~ 40MB
third, fourth fifth etc   progressively smaller.


This is very frustrating as this is the second time I have had trouble updating iMatch.
Since the last time I have upgraded Computer, Operating System and Broadband connection.



Owen

[Mario]

This sounds like some sort of timeout??
2 MB/sec is not really fast. For a 100 MB file it should take about, say, 2 to 3 minutes to download. The server delivers 4/MB per second max. per download to control bandwidth and service quality.

Does the download abort always after the same amount of time? Or does it vary?
I've already checked the script (which is the same that worked for the past 5 years) and I've contacted the hosting company for additional suggestions.

If this is some sort of timeout, it could be the browser, firewall, router, something in-between or even the photools.com server farm. As far as I can tell, all timeouts are set to 10 minutes, which is the maximum. And this only grabs scripts which are no longer running, not the download script which still moves data over the network and thus is considered "working".

The download script has been especially written to deliver a continues stream of data at 4 Megabytes per second max. until the download is complete.

Please contact me via my support email (https://www.photools.com/support/) and I will provide another download link for you and for this time.

[Owen]

Mario,


Does the download abort always after the same amount of time? Or does it vary?
No it seems to vary both in the length of time it takes and the reported download speed



As far as I can tell, all timeouts are set to 10 minutes
Always much less than 10 minutes - seems to be between 3 and 5 minutes (I have not timed this)


it could be the browser, firewall, router, something in-between or even the photools.com server farm
Two different browsers
two different broadband services.  One terrestrial and one 4G mobile (nothing in common with each other)
Only one computer though.

Hope this helps

Owen

[Owen]

Mario,

OK, so now I have timed the download.

The download always ends at exactly 2:00 minutes.
The size of the downloaded file varies with line speed as you would expect.

Something to think about maybe:
I purchased v5.5 today.
I was allocated a new license key which I was using without success to download the new version.

I decided to try to use the old license - success! 
Much faster download, complete file in less than 2 minutes.
Checksum OK
Install OK
Upgrade OK
iMatch 5.5 working 


Just to try to eliminate pure coincidence as the reason for my success,
I logged out of the portal and logged back in with the new license key.

Result:  Slow download, ended after 2:00 minutes, incomplete file.  Failure.


At any rate, I am up and running again.
Thanks for your help.

Good luck working out the cause of the trouble.

regards,
Owen

[Mario]

Eh?

Just to make sure I understand the problem and your solution...

Since you have both a license for IMatch 5.4 and older and IMatch 5.5 you get access to your downloads independent from the actual license key you use for log-in. So that's OK, it's just a convenience feature I've built in.

But the underlying machinery is always the same. The code that streams the licensed version into your browser is always the same. Whether you download an old 3.6 version of IMatch or the current 5.6 release. There should be no difference in download speed at all. I just checked, to make sure.

I'm really happy to hear that you managed to download the file OK. But I wonder if you can reproduce your results. A 2 minute timeout sounds like some sort of security switch triggered somewhere. Maybe my hosting company can shed some light on this (probably it's again "If you want 3 minutes before we pull the plug, pay more money", that would not surprise me).

I could reproduce a broken download once by throttling my network bandwidth to an old and shaky ~ 700 KB/s DSL connection speed. But then, there are limits.

[Owen]

As I said before, I did run a one off test and it failed again on the 5.6.22 license.
It didn't make sense to me either so i have now run a few tests with very different results this time.


3 downloads using 5.4 license key
1.  Download successful in 1:00 minute
2.  Download  successful in 1:24
3.  Download  successful in 1:16

3 downloads using 5.6.22 license key
1.  Download  successful in 1:06
2.  Download  successful in 1:06
3.  Download  successful in 1:12

So, sorry I am no help to you.


I can however confirm that at least 4 of my earlier attempts failed at 2:00 minutes (measured by stopwatch) so there may still be something in this for you to look at.

regards,
Owen

[Mario]

I can see in the log files that your last download attempts took between 67 and 90 seconds. All were logged as successfully completed.
Since you are from Australia I don't want to rule out some sort of hiccup or a temporarily dropout - that happens sometimes with the Australian backbone. Quite far away from Germany you are 

I still wait for a reply from my hosting company so maybe the two minutes is something they need to look into. Or probably I need yet another faster server or something. I've migrated everything from the old server to the new server over the past two or three weeks, and this was no fun at all. In general everything seems to run nice and smoothly, faster than before, with better load balancing and easier backups. The failed downloads for very few users seem to be the last open issue...