Lucian Tomuta's Forum Nokia Blog

The ultimate* software installer debug guide

ltomuta — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:17:29 +0300

There are many things that can go wrong with a SIS installation package and unfortunately the software installer component provides no logging mechanism for developers to be able to precisely pinpoint the point of failure. Even the errors returned by the installer engine are filtered out so that the UI layer gets the minimal set of rather generic error messages to display for the user. But while “Unable to install” tells all the user needs to know about the fact that the application will not show up in his/her Applications menu, that message offers no hint as to what exactly the application developer should be fixing in order to have a successful install.

Over time developers have created a comprehensive list of error messages and possible resolutions for the problem. In this blog post I will provide an up-to-date and hopefully complete list of errors as well as a nice little hack that will allow a bit more detailed resolution of the root cause of the error.

The hack, available on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 and later Symbian based devices, consists in creating one “flag” file, c:\temp\swierrors.txt. If this file exists the software installer’s UI will augment the error message with the actual error code which triggered the error message currently displayed. See below screen captures showing the same install time error without and then with the flag file created.

Here are the error messages and the extra bit of information that can be squeezed out of them:

"Update error"
                 4 Cannot overwrite file
                43 An upgrade failed because the package being installed is not a valid upgrade of the package on the device.
                45 The package contains an invalid eclipsing file which is already in the device other than ROM.
"Cannot install! This component is built-in!"
                5 The file is already in ROM and cannot be eclipsed
"File is corrupted!"
                17 File to install is not a recognized SISX file.
                14 A file needed to proceed cannot be found.
                13 A filename given inside the SISX package is not valid.
                9 SISX file corrupt, checksums stored in file do not match computed value.
"Unable to install. Disk not present."
                10 A removable media drive had no media while trying to access it.
"Cannot read file!"
                11 We cannot read a file which is needed for us to proceed.
"Cannot delete file!"
                12 We are forbidden to delete a certain file.
"Unable to install. Insufficient memory."
                19 There is not enough free memory for installer's UI components (e.g. drive selection dialog) to be constructed and displayed.
                15 There was insufficient space left on the drive to perform an operation.
"Cannot grant capabilities requested by the application"
                16 The applications requires system capability it is not signed for.
"Certificate check failed. Contact application supplier."
                20 Cannot find the certificate.
                21 An error has occurred during signature validation.
                22 There is no signature to verify.
                23 The signature could not be validated.
                24 The certificate is not trusted for code signing usage.
                25 Cannot find the certificate policies.
                26 A signature resolving to one of the mandatory certificate cannot be found.
"Only signed applications can be installed. Check your Installation settings in Application Manager."
                42 The signature validates correctly, but chains back to a self-signed root
"Certificate expired"
                36 Certificate expired"
Certificate validity dates do not match with the phone's date. Check your date settings."
                37 Certificate validity dates do not match with the phone's date
"Online certificate check could not be conducted. Check your settings."
                30 The OCSP server reply is invalid.
                27 The OCSP server URL provided is invalid.
                29 It was not possible to validate the OCSP server response signature.
"Online certificate check failed."
                28 It is not possible to obtain the certificate status.
                31 The certificate status information is invalid.
                32 The certificate status is unknown.
                35 The certificate status is unknown, but this is expected for self-signed.
"Certificate revoked"
                33 The certificate has been revoked.
"Cannot install. Access denied."
                34 Attempt to perform illegal operation
"Unable to install. Install the base package first."
                18 A base package was missing when installing an augmentation or a partial upgrade
"Cannot uninstall partial upgrades"
                41 Partial update package cannot be uninstalled.
"Cannot install a protected application from untrusted supplier"
                36 The package contains a file with a protected SID which is not signed for.
                40 The package contains a file with a protected VID which is not signed for.
                44 The package uid is protected but not signed for.
"Unable to install. Constrained by the certificate."
                38 Constraints imposed by a developer mode certificate have been exceeded.
"Unable to install" or "Uninstallation failed"
                6 Missing a dependency.
                7 A dependency exists on a specific version of an application which is different from the one installed.
                8 A dependency requires a version of an application which is greater than the one installed.
                3 Anything and everything else.

Of course, obeying Murphy’s law, most of the error messages we’re likely to see will be still "Unable to install (3)" so don’t forget to consult and update the developer contributed list of common PKG scripting mistakes.

Update: The attached sis file can be used to easily create (and remove) the flag file on/from your device. My only request would be not to deploy such hack (be it this or the errrd one) with your application. It might make some limited sense on beta deployments but there's no need to "improve" end-user's experience with it.

*Read "ultimate" as the best we have so far. Hopefuly at some point the installer will have a logging feature (currently enabled in debug builds only) which would let us read directly and exactly what the problem was and where.

Nokia N97 SDK v1.0 released

ltomuta — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:00:00 +0300

Those engaged in developing applications for Nokia N97 will be interested to know that the final version of the Nokia N97 SDK has been released today.

The new SDK version provides:

Improved support of home screen features.
Updated SDK documentation.
Support for the Chinese version of the full keyboard.
Updated example applications.
Updated default emulator theme.
Fixes for all other important bugs.

Read more about features and known issues in SDK's release notes.

It is probably worth making clear a few points about this SDK:

Nokia N97 is and S60 5th Edition (Symbian^1) device and it is fully compatible that that platform release. Any application developed for S60 5th Edition devices using the S60 5th Edition (Symbian^1) SDK will be compatible with smartphone as well.
The Nokia N97 SDK is only provided as an alternative, mostly beneficial to those developing applications targeting N97's specific features, features not supported by the platform release and thus not supported by other devices based on it, as for example the home screen widgets.
While the APIs in the S60 5th Edition SDK are covered by platform's binary compatibility promise, all the additional device specific APIs provided by the Nokia N97 SDKs are provided "as is", without binary compatibility promise.

That's it. Enjoy the new release and don't forget to let us know what you think about it.

Good news on the Horizon

ltomuta — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:00:39 +0300

The Symbian Foundation announced a new application-publishing platform, called Horizon, which is intended to help developers, big and small, to publish their Symbian applications on the software market.

Under this scheme the Symbian Foundation will take care of certifying the application through Symbian Signed and will promote it to the partner application stores. All that for free while the author maintains full ownership of the application and will receive 100% of its store generated income. Among the stores likely to participate in this program is of course Nokia's Ovi Store.

To learn more about this platform visit Horizon’s main page and the Horizon FAQ as well.

If you are a software developer currently “releasing” unsigned applications you should definitely have a look at this offering.

Symbian Foundation promo videos

ltomuta — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:31 +0300

Want to learn more about the Symbian Foundation? See More Symbian Foundation beta invites

More Symbian Foundation beta invites

ltomuta — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:00:06 +0300

You may have seen in Mark's recent post an invitation to become a Symbian Foundation site beta ~~tester~~ user. Don't worry about missing the deadline and no, you don't have to become a Twitter user just to get an invitation, the invitations are here, one message away for you.

So, are you a software developer curious about the new Symbian Foundation web site? Want to be the first one posting a technical question on that forum? Want to be the first one who answers one? Want to see open sourced code? Let's do it then, let's get you in!

Who can get an invitation?
Any Symbian C++ developer active in the Forum Nokia developer community.

How many invitations are available?
There are enough for everyone. However, the distribution process is manual and time consuming so the most active contributors on the Forum Nokia Discussions Board & Wiki will have priority.

How can I apply?
To get the username and password that will give you access to the web site all you have to do is send me a private message through the Forum Nokia Discussions Board. Easy!

Update your links to SDL

ltomuta — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:18:07 +0300

Do you feel lucky? Lucky enough to ask Google to take you to the best search result for CCoeControl?

These days it does not work anymore but this has nothing to do with your luck. The old online version of the SDL are no longer available on the SDN servers so you should consider updating your bookmarks and web site links to point to SDL 9.4, the only version still available.

Change does come at a cost, unfortunately, and some Symbian.com resources you currently find usefull may be already on the "endangered species" list. Want to save it? Add a comment here to let your voice be heard ...

N.B. The old versions of the SDL are still available for download from the FTP server.

Facelift at SymbianSigned.com

ltomuta — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:00:03 +0300

A refreshed web site welcomes us at http://www.symbiansigned.com, with the site adopting Symbian Foundation's colors. The change is skin deep however so do not expect any [major] changes in the familiar processes.

What is important, although should not be a surprise for anyone by now, is that the ownership of the site is now at Symbian Foundation and that may have impact your access to the site if you haven't accepted the account transfer to the new legal entity.

The site has a message on the main page which explains how one can recover his old account:

If you missed the chance to consent for your account to be transferred you can follow these steps:

Select the option to confirm user account data to be transferred

Within 24 hours your account will be ~~propogated~~ (propagated) with the old user data

It is not clear to me what "option" should be selected and an attempt to "transfer" one such lost account has failed We will have to wait a bit more I guess for these things to be fully clarified. Hopefully not many developers are affected by the ownership change, which was after all advertised for months

If you wish to contact Symbian Signed regarding any related issues the location of the support forum remains (for now) the same.

Microsoft to buy Symbian

ltomuta — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:04:00 +0300

"Extra, Extra, Read all about it!"

The following piece of news caught my eye, I think it is funny enough to share it with you :)

On Sunday, Microsoft officials announced the company’s plans to acquire the remaining 50.1% of MSN Israel Ltd. from its partner, Internet Gold Ltd. ...

... About one week ago Microsoft talked about its intention to acquire a Portugal-based, mobile service-oriented company called MobiComp, for a yet-to-be-disclosed sum. Furthermore, the software giant wants to buy the remaining 52% of mobile software maker Symbian; in addition to this, it plans to work alongside several other electronics makers within the Symbian Foundation. The foundation’s purpose is to develop a unified software platform that will eventually become "the most widely used software platform on the planet".

The source of this information? Alexander Toldt of eFluxMedia (?!) Full story at ~~Microsoft Going After MSN Israel Ltd.~~

Update: They've removed the highlighed paragraph from the article. Too bad, it would have been fun to see this picked up by the main media groups.

Symbian preparing for a new start

ltomuta — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:30:16 +0300

The news is hot and one needs to really take some time, let it cool down and then analyze it from all angles. But here it goes, straight from Nokia's press release:

"Mobile leaders to unify the Symbian software platform and set the future of mobile free

London, UK - Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organizations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development. Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders.

To enable the Foundation, Nokia today announced plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation's first day of operations.

Contributions from Foundation members through open collaboration will be integrated to further enhance the platform. The Foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch. It will then work to establish the most complete mobile software offering available in open source. This will be made available over the next two years and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0.

The Foundation's platform will build on the leading open mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models, already shipped by multiple vendors and tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for Symbian OS-based devices. ..."

More info can be found in Nokia Press Releases and of course at the Symbian Foundation web site.