Fix intermittent installer Abort (exit 2) on salt-minion service re-registration#69579
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…egistration Silent installs intermittently failed with NSIS error level 2 -- a script-driven Abort, not the exit-path hang fixed previously. The only Section Abort reachable on the happy path is the salt-minion service registration: "ssm install salt-minion" (CreateService) returning non-zero. The cause is an SCM race against the prior uninstall. The uninstaller's SimpleSC::RemoveService only *marks* the service for deletion; the SCM does not remove the HKLM\...\Services\salt-minion key until every open handle closes, which happens asynchronously after the uninstaller has exited. When the next install's CreateService races that pending delete, Windows returns ERROR_SERVICE_MARKED_FOR_DELETE (1072) or ERROR_SERVICE_EXISTS (1073), ssm exits non-zero, and the Section aborts. This is why it only fails occasionally and recovers on the next run -- it is purely a timing window between back-to-back uninstall/install. Fix it at the point of failure: retry "ssm install" up to 5 times with a 2s pause instead of aborting on first failure. The condition is self-clearing once handles close, so the retry rides it out. This also covers real-world upgrades, where uninstall and reinstall are separate processes and nothing in the uninstaller can constrain a future installer invocation. As defense-in-depth, also wait (bounded, 10s) in un.Uninstall for the SCM to actually remove the service key -- placed after the salt-minion.exe and ssm.exe taskkills, since the key cannot clear until those handles are gone. This narrows the race window for the common case but is not sufficient alone; the install-side retry remains the authoritative guard.
dwoz
approved these changes
Jun 27, 2026
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What does this PR do?
Silent installs intermittently failed with NSIS error level 2 -- a script-driven Abort, not the exit-path hang fixed previously. The only Section Abort reachable on the happy path is the salt-minion service registration: "ssm install salt-minion" (CreateService) returning non-zero.
The cause is an SCM race against the prior uninstall. The uninstaller's SimpleSC::RemoveService only marks the service for deletion; the SCM does not remove the HKLM...\Services\salt-minion key until every open handle closes, which happens asynchronously after the uninstaller has exited. When the next install's CreateService races that pending delete, Windows returns ERROR_SERVICE_MARKED_FOR_DELETE (1072) or ERROR_SERVICE_EXISTS (1073), ssm exits non-zero, and the Section aborts. This is why it only fails occasionally and recovers on the next run -- it is purely a timing window between back-to-back uninstall/install.
Fix it at the point of failure: retry "ssm install" up to 5 times with a 2s pause instead of aborting on first failure. The condition is self-clearing once handles close, so the retry rides it out. This also covers real-world upgrades, where uninstall and reinstall are separate processes and nothing in the uninstaller can constrain a future installer invocation.
As defense-in-depth, also wait (bounded, 10s) in un.Uninstall for the SCM to actually remove the service key -- placed after the salt-minion.exe and ssm.exe taskkills, since the key cannot clear until those handles are gone. This narrows the race window for the common case but is not sufficient alone; the install-side retry remains the authoritative guard.
Merge requirements satisfied?
[NOTICE] Bug fixes or features added to Salt require tests.
Commits signed with GPG?
Yes