NSIS uninstaller doesn't kill child processes

• Version: 19.54.0

• Target: Windows x64

NSIS uninstaller checks the app is still running and kills it by nsProcess::KillProcess before deleting the installed files. However, nsProcess::KillProcess seems neither emitting any window-alll-closed and quit events, nor kills child (and grand child) processes. Hence, child processes spawned by the app keep running and block files are deleted.

Using taskkill instead of nsProcess::KillProcess might solve this problem.

I found some related discussions:

• Kill a spawned process, on windows
• before-quit, will-quit and quit not triggered on windows 10
• Quit gracefully when Ctrl-C is pressed in console

[develar]

tree kill is not used now — now app is killed softly at first and it should be enough to terminate child process.

[consense]

Hi @develar , I am still seeing the problem of installer apparently being killed during autoupdate with 20.4.1.

Caveat: 2 years or so ago the installer didnt finish a running application on its own yet so I had added the following as custom NSIS include do do this from my end:

!macro customInit
    ; SHUT DOWN APP IF CURRENTLY RUNNING
    ${GetProcessInfo} 0 $0 $1 $2 $3 $4
    ${if} $3 != "${APP_EXECUTABLE_FILENAME}"
        ${nsProcess::FindProcess} "${APP_EXECUTABLE_FILENAME}" $R0
        ${If} $R0 == 0
            ;MessageBox MB_OK "App currently running - going to shutdown to install new version"
            ${nsProcess::CloseProcess} "${APP_EXECUTABLE_FILENAME}" $R0
            Sleep 5000
            ${nsProcess::KillProcess} "${APP_EXECUTABLE_FILENAME}" $R0
            Sleep 3000
        ${EndIf}
        ${nsProcess::Unload}
    ${endIf}
!macroend

this led to the error message

Plugin not found, cannot call ${nsProcess::FindProcess}
Error in macro customInit on macroline 4
Error in script "<stdin>" on line 131 -- aborting creation process
  • exited          command=makensis.exe code=1 pid=1040
  • async task error error=
                       Error: \tmp-electron-builder\nsis\nsis-3.0.1.13\Bin\makensis.exe exited with code 1
                           at ChildProcess.childProcess.once.code (C:\cygwin64\home\sshd\builds\code\screenawar

a few days ago (while having worked fine for close to 2 years). So I took it out and now see the installer closing the original running install and not installing the new version (no logs being produced). I.e.: not sure if it is a coincidence (me removing the custom nsis exit-running-app code while this ticket was coming up) or whether the fix 12 hours ago is maybe not complete yet.

Gladly let me know if there is any other info I could provide to shed some light on this.