Access violation on Windows with 24.11.0

[larsoner]

Checklist

• I added a descriptive title
• I searched open reports and couldn't find a duplicate

What happened?

Access violation on windows when installing an installer built with constructor. See for example this failing run on commit mne-tools/mne-installers@25de2b5 from mne-tools/mne-installers#312:

Run .\%MNE_INSTALLER_NAME% /S /InstallationType=JustMe /AddToPath=1
Welcome to MNE-Python 1.8.0_0

By continuing this installation you are accepting this license agreement:
C:\Users\runneradmin\mne-python\1.8.0_0\license.rtf
Please run the installer in GUI mode to read the details.

MNE-Python will now be installed into this location:
C:\Users\runneradmin\mne-python\1.8.0_0

Unpacking payload...
Setting up the package cache...
Setting up the base environment...
Installing packages for base, creating shortcuts if necessary...
Error: Process completed with exit code -1073741819.

Compared to this CI run on mne-tools/mne-installers@b49580c where we pin !=24.11.0 in our env when building the installer:

...
Installing packages for base, creating shortcuts if necessary...
Initializing conda directories...
Running post install...
Clearing package cache...
Adding to PATH...
Setting installation directory permissions...

Some other packages were updated in there but I very much doubt that made the difference. Will open a PR to mne-installers shortly to confirm. EDIT: Confirmed in mne-tools/mne-installers#313 (comment)

In the meantime, the problematic installer can be downloaded on the CI artifacts page, e.g. here.

Additional Context

No response

[jaimergp]

Can you set CONDA_QUIET=0 and CONDA_VERBOSITY=3, re-run the bad installer and paste the logs here? Let's see if something comes up. Thanks!

[larsoner]

Tested in mne-tools/mne-installers@4b7647c and got what appears to be the same thing oddly enough:

Run .\%MNE_INSTALLER_NAME% /S /InstallationType=JustMe /AddToPath=1
  .\%MNE_INSTALLER_NAME% /S /InstallationType=JustMe /AddToPath=1
  shell: C:\Windows\system32\cmd.EXE /D /E:ON /V:OFF /S /C "CALL "{0}""
  env:
    MNE_INSTALLER_VERSION: 1.8.0_0
    MNE_INSTALLER_NAME: MNE-Python-1.8.0_0-Windows.exe
    MNE_INSTALLER_ARTIFACT_ID: MNE-Python-Windows-x86_64
    MNE_INSTALL_PREFIX: /c/Users/runneradmin/mne-python/1.8.0_0
    RECIPE_DIR: /d/a/mne-installers/mne-installers/tools/../recipes/mne-python
    MNE_ACTIVATE: /c/Users/runneradmin/mne-python/1.8.0_0/Scripts/activate
    NSIS_SCRIPTS_RAISE_ERRORS: 1
    MNE_MACHINE: Windows
    MACOS_ARCH: 
    ARTIFACT_RETENTION_DAYS: 5
    CONDA_QUIET: 0
    CONDA_VERBOSITY: 3

Welcome to MNE-Python 1.8.0_0

By continuing this installation you are accepting this license agreement:
C:\Users\runneradmin\mne-python\1.8.0_0\license.rtf
Please run the installer in GUI mode to read the details.

MNE-Python will now be installed into this location:
C:\Users\runneradmin\mne-python\1.8.0_0

Unpacking payload...
Setting up the package cache...
Setting up the base environment...
Installing packages for base, creating shortcuts if necessary...
Error: Process completed with exit code -1073741819.

[marcoesters]

I used the graphical installer without adding to path and I'm getting the "Failed to link extracted packages" error. Interestingly, if you ignore it, the installation seems to be quite functional: you can activate it and it even gives me a list of packages; it's registered in the environments.txt file, etc.

Maybe finding the broken package(s) in that environment can give us a hint.

[larsoner]

Any chance it's conda/constructor#908 ?

Otherwise I can start a long bisect to figure it out...

[marcoesters]

Another thing I tried was to use conda-standalone from your installer to create an environment based on your specs and it worked. However, those packages were downloaded from conda-forge instead of using a local package cache, so it's not 100% what constructor is doing.

[marcoesters]

Any chance it's conda/constructor#908 ?

Otherwise I can start a long bisect to figure it out...

That should have been solved by the newest constructor though.