dangerous data loss bug in 8.3.17 (and probably earlier) windows installer

[ff_mfg]

I had v7 client installed, decided to try v8.
Removed v7, installed v8 (fah-client_8.3.17_AMD64.exe). It didn't work because of gpus.txt retrieval bug (DNS lookup error; I only found this mentioned for MacOSX, while I'm on Windows 10, which is weird, but that's a different issue).

Later today I found some files missing. I have a number of disks in this PC, and all of the files in the root of D: were gone. Not folders, only files.
I'm pretty sure it's because I used a custom path for FAH data: d:\appdata\fahclient-8

What is weird is that usually I find bugs like this in uninstallers, when application is installed not at default path, sometimes uninstaller would remove things it shouldn't. But this time, it happens on installation. I've rechecked. If I create a test file in the root of D:\, uninstall and reinstall FAH 8.3.17 (with aforementioned data path), test file is removed in the installation process. I've tried to find the installation log file, but either it's not written in a file or I couldn't find it. Actual text on screen of installation file operations gets replaced with an installation finished screen immediately (unlike for uninstallation, where you can see what was actually deleted).

I hope data loss bug would receive proper attention.

[calxalot]

The v7 Windows uninstaller definitely has a potential data loss bug if you also delete client data and had used a custom data directory.

The v8 installer will selectively remove bits of v7 and move data to the new data directory.

There is no need to uninstall v7 before installing v8 on any platform.

Work is not inherited by v8, so you should finish and pause in v7 before upgrading.

[calxalot]

I have emailed a developer to look at this thread.

Update: he is looking into it.

[calxalot]

What was the name of the test file?
Was it moved to d:\appdata\fahclient-8 ?

[ff_mfg]

What was the name of the test file?
Was it moved to d:\appdata\fahclient-8 ?

Test file name is irrelevant, ALL files in D:\ are deleted. Folders seem intact. This is reproducible (at least for me).

After installation, D:\AppData\FAHClient-8 is empty, after 1st run contains only:
client.db
log.txt
So no, nothing gets moved there.

Some more details that could be helpful:
1. Folder FAHClient-8 I create myself, installer is just pointed at it.
2. I have other files and folders in D:\AppData, those are intact, just the root files get deleted.

[UniversalUnfolding]

Can confirm the data loss.
I installed FAH Client v8.3.17 from https://download.foldingathome.org/rele ... latest.exe (which is supposedly the same as fah-client_8.3.17_AMD64.exe), leaving the installation paths unchanged, that is, C:\Program Files\FAHClient\ and C:\ProgramData\FAHClient\.
Then I launched FAH Client from the Web Control page (https://v8-3.foldingathome.org/). At first, there were no projects displayed, so I had to force quit the Client and restart it.
After that, status changed to Downloading work, and an animated progress bar appeared. It reached 100% and started downloading again. I'm not familiar with how the thing works, maybe it required several parts for a working unit to be processed, but it seemed to get stuck in an infinite downloading cycle.
I had 15 GB free on drive C:\, so I decided to check up how much space left. Surprisingly I found out that there were 65 GB free, and.. all the files in the root directory had disappeared! Only folders remained: Program Files, Users, Windows and some more. I urgently stopped every program that could overwrite the deleted data and tried to recover anything possible. But alas nothing worked out. I used 3 recovery utilities only to make sure the files were irreversibly corrupted.
Not a very pleasant experience to get while peacefully folding at home.

[calxalot]

What were the directory paths you had for v7?

[calxalot]

A rebuilt 8.3.17 has been put up with a revised Windows installer.
More changes might be coming, but it should be much safer now.
I recommend against custom paths that don't end with a subdirectory for just fah.
The v7 uninstaller is very unsafe with custom paths.

[UniversalUnfolding]

What were the directory paths you had for v7?

This was the first clean installation of FAH v8.3.17, no other versions have ever been installed.

[calxalot]

V8.3.18 is up with a further revised windows installer.

The old installer apparently could delete loose files at root of drive for non-upgrade installs.

I think it wasn’t noticed before because no testers had such files.

Thank you for the bug report.