CustomAction is not invoked at all

[mihaidimoiu]

Hello!

I'm trying to build an installer using Wix v5.0.2, integrated in Visual Studio v17.13.0.

The installer works fine, it copies the .exe, .conf in the correct path in C:\Program Files<Manufacturer>/.

I need to modify the .conf file and I thought to do it via Custom Actions in C# project.

So far so good, I have created the project, built it, it spit out .dll and .CA.dll, the main project compiles.

But my Custom Action is not invoked at all. It needs also to be invoked with elevated privileges since I am modifying something from C: (here in example i just try to write a file for the sake of example).

Here is a snippet of my Package.wsx:

<InstallExecuteSequence>
	<Custom Action="DoSomethingCA" Before="InstallFinalize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>
<Feature Id="Main"
        <ComponentGroupRef Id="Components" />
</Feature>

Now in CustomAction.wsx I have this:

<Wix xmlns="http://wixtoolset.org/schemas/v4/wxs">
<Fragment>
	<Binary Id="MyCA" SourceFile="..\install-custom-actions\bin\Debug\net472\install-custom-actions.CA.dll" />
	<CustomAction Id="DoSomethingCA" BinaryRef="MyCA" Impersonate="no" DllEntry="MyAction" Return="check" />
</Fragment>
</Wix>

And the final thing is this .cs file:

namespace install_custom_actions{
	public class CustomActions {
		public static ActionResult MyAction(Session session) {
			// Debugger.Launch() // This should prompt something but it does NOT
			File.WriteAllText(@"C:\a.txt", "123"); // Testing if I can write to C:
			session.Log("Begin MyAction"); // Testing logging
			return ActionResult.Success;
		}
	}
}

Running msi with this:
msiexec.exe /i install.msi /L*v install.log

What am I doing wrong here? Why is not invoked at all?

[bevanweiss]

Check your msi in Orca to ensure that everything in your authoring has made it into the msi in the manner you expect.
And then you need to get a log file, review the log file to make sure that it's doing the things that Orca suggests it should (i.e. the sequencing is right), and then point out where in the log it should (according to Orca) be writting into the session Log, but where it's not...

1. Check Orca
2. Obtain Log
3. Review Log yourself, and compare each step with Sequence from Orca
4. Provide your log, and indicate to us where your Custom Action log entry should have occurred, but showing that it did not..