Chocolately installs and then fails to find choco.exe but RC is 0

[UNiXMIT]

Checklist

• I confirm there are no unresolved issues reported on the Chocolatey Status page.
• I have verified this is the correct repository for opening this issue.
• I have verified no other issues exist related to my problem.
• I have verified this is not an issue for a specific package.
• I have verified this issue is not security related.
• I confirm I am using official, and not unofficial, or modified, Chocolatey products.

What You Are Seeing?

When the following task is run

- name: Install Chocolatey
  chocolatey.chocolatey.win_chocolatey:
    name: chocolatey
    state: present
  retries: 3
  delay: 5
  register: result
  until: result.rc == 0

I get this error even though the return code is 0

TASK [Install Chocolatey] ******************************************************
11:15:20 AM
[WARNING]: Chocolatey was missing from this system, so it was installed during
11:15:20 AM
this task run.
11:15:20 AM
fatal: [3.8.152.126]: FAILED! => changed=true 
11:15:20 AM
  attempts: 1
11:15:20 AM
  command: ''
11:15:20 AM
  msg: Failed to find choco.exe, make sure it is added to the PATH or the env var 'ChocolateyInstall' is set
11:15:20 AM
  rc: 0

Does the installer not set choco.exe on the PATH?

What is Expected?

I expect the install of choco via the ansible task to work and not to fail my whole play.

How Did You Get This To Happen?

Task to use:

- name: Install Chocolatey
  chocolatey.chocolatey.win_chocolatey:
    name: chocolatey
    state: present
  retries: 3
  delay: 5
  register: result
  until: result.rc == 0

System Details

RHEL 9.4

Installed Packages

Nothing yet as I am initially trying to install choco.

Output Log

TASK [Install Chocolatey] ******************************************************
11:15:20 AM
[WARNING]: Chocolatey was missing from this system, so it was installed during
11:15:20 AM
this task run.
11:15:20 AM
fatal: [3.8.152.126]: FAILED! => changed=true 
11:15:20 AM
  attempts: 1
11:15:20 AM
  command: ''
11:15:20 AM
  msg: Failed to find choco.exe, make sure it is added to the PATH or the env var 'ChocolateyInstall' is set
11:15:20 AM
  rc: 0

Additional Context

No response

[pauby]

win_chocolatey uses Chocolatey CLI to "manage packages". If it's not there, you can't expect it to install anything, including itself.

[UNiXMIT]

win_chocolatey uses Chocolatey CLI to "manage packages". If it's not there, you can't expect it to install anything, including itself.

I was following the advice of #40 which was closed with the solution I am trying. I'll use the powershell script instead.

[pauby]

I don't see that documented (I could be missing it). Apologies @un@UNiXMIT.

@vexx32 you left this comment which indicates this should work?

[UNiXMIT]

I changed it to run the powershell script at instance creation and that works OK anyway.

[pauby]

I can see one of the first things this does is call the Install-Chocolatey function which will install Chocolatey CLI.

I wonder if this is the PATH being set but not being pulled into subsequent tasks. I'll leave this for @vexx32 or @Windos to look at.

Again, apologies @UNiXMIT I was too quick off the bat to respond.

This looks to be related to #118

[vexx32]

@UNiXMIT hi! what is the client machine running? and just to make sure, what version of the collection are you currently using?

The only way this could happen that I can see right now is:

• Chocolatey's installer completes
• Chocolatey is not installed to a proper location at all or something deletes it immediately
• Then the task tries to verify that the installation worked and fails out

Because... even if it's not on PATH, as long as it's in the usual location, we will find it -- see here:

chocolatey-ansible/chocolatey/plugins/module_utils/Common.psm1

Lines 40 to 76 in 981a967

	function Get-ChocolateyCommand {
	<#
	.SYNOPSIS
	Retrieves a CommandInfo object for `choco.exe` if it is present on the system.
	.DESCRIPTION
	Returns either a CommandInfo object which contains the path the `choco.exe`
	or registers a task failure and exits if it cannot be found.
	#>
	[CmdletBinding()]
	param(
	# If provided, does not terminate the task run when choco.exe is not found.
	[Parameter()]
	[switch]
	$IgnoreMissing
	)
	$command = Get-Command -Name choco.exe -CommandType Application -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -TotalCount 1
	if (-not $command) {
	$installDir = if ($env:ChocolateyInstall) {
	$env:ChocolateyInstall
	}
	else {
	"$env:SYSTEMDRIVE\ProgramData\Chocolatey"
	}
	$command = Get-Command -Name "$installDir\bin\choco.exe" -CommandType Application -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
	if (-not ($command -or $IgnoreMissing)) {
	$message = "Failed to find Chocolatey installation, make sure choco.exe is in the PATH env value"
	Assert-TaskFailed -Message $message
	}
	}
	$command
	}

This is called from here, after running the installation script for choco:

chocolatey-ansible/chocolatey/plugins/module_utils/Packages.psm1

Lines 1189 to 1214 in 981a967

	if (-not $Module.CheckMode) {
	$scriptFile = New-Item -Path (Join-Path $Module.TmpDir -ChildPath 'chocolateyInstall.ps1') -ItemType File
	$installScript | Set-Content -Path $scriptFile
	# These commands will be sent over stdin for the PowerShell process, and will be read line by line,
	# so we must join them on \r\n line-feeds to have them read as separate commands.
	$commands = @(
	'$ProgressPreference = "SilentlyContinue"'
	'& "{0}"' -f $scriptFile
	) -join "`r`n"
	$result = Run-Command -Command "powershell.exe -" -Stdin $commands -Environment $environment
	if ($result.rc -ne 0) {
	$message = "Chocolatey bootstrap installation failed."
	Assert-TaskFailed -Message $message -CommandResult $result
	}
	if (-not $SkipWarning) {
	$Module.Warn("Chocolatey was missing from this system, so it was installed during this task run.")
	}
	}
	Set-TaskResultChanged
	# locate the newly installed choco.exe
	$chocoCommand = Get-ChocolateyCommand -IgnoreMissing

[vexx32]

Okay, did a little more digging as well... I think the conclusion in the other issue is that the .NET 4.8 install was attempted and possibly failed. That failure case could potentially result in our installation process not registering an error exit code due to how PowerShell handles a throw and the way we run things. That would plausibly result in this situation as well.

... There might be an argument to be made that the .NET 4.8 installation failing during the choco install should just ensure that an error exit code be set, rather than just throwing, and we should be careful to make sure the error is rethrown all the way to the top. That would be an issue to resolve in the chocolateyInstaller.psm1 that's part of choco's installation process itself. I.e., it should make careful use of $PSCmdlet.ThrowTerminatingError() instead of just throw, and it should use $host.SetShouldExit() with an exit code as well, so that we can detect from this collection that that installation actually failed.

In the meantime the best solution is likely to follow this pattern and ensure .NET 4.8 is installed and a reboot is performed before installing Chocolatey. We can handle that better in future, I think, but that's gonna take some additional careful scripting in the choco installer itself.