Error message when upgrading NVDA

[CyrilleB79]

Steps to reproduce:

I am working on a computer with an account that does not have admin privileges (at work). When starting NVDA 2017.3, I am informed that a new version is available. I choose to upgrade. At the beginning of NVDA 2017.4 installation, I am asked by Windows UAC to enter login and password of an account having admin privileges. I enter the requested information to continue. During installation, NVDA restarts and the following dialog box appears: Title: nvdaHelperRemote (outprocMgrThreadFunc) Message: Error registering focus winEvent hook Button: OK Each time I restart NVDA, this message box appears, even if I restart with add-ons disabled. I need to install NVDA from downloaded installer (without uninstalling before) to make this issue disappear.

Attached: Log.txt -> NVDA log when I restart NVDA with add-ons disabled.

Expected behavior:

No error message should appear.

Actual behavior:

Error message.

System configuration:

NVDA version: 2017.4

NVDA Installed or portable: installed

Other information: user account ("mylogin") has not admin rights. Need to use another account ("myloginwithadminrights") to upgrade NVDA or install any application.

Windows version: Windows 10 Version 10.0.14393 Numéro 14393

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue: N/A

Other questions:

Does the issue still occur after restarting your PC? Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? Yes, the issue was already present for previous upgrades (at least 2017.1, 2017.2 and 2017.3)

Note: This issue is also present on a windows 7 computer having the same configuration, i.e. account without admin privileges. This issue is not present on my home computer (running Windows 7) where I perform upgrade from the main account that have admin privilege. Log.zip

[CyrilleB79]

Sorry, it seems that I mixed 2 issue descriptions. On the contrary to what I described, tje issue does not disappear when I re-install NVDA 2017.4 on the already installed 2017.4 coming from upgrade. Thus maybe this issue is not exactly the same as the one seen on NVDA 2017.1/2/3 on Windows 7.

[CyrilleB79]

Finally, I have restarted my computer after the NVDA 2017.4 installation from installer. The issue has now disappeared. Thus, we may consider that the issue occurs only during upgrade process.

[Brian1Gaff]

Yes much as I was getting as well. Something strange happens in windows sometimes is about all I can say. Incidentally during this did you find a log in the main program folder called nvda.exe.log? Brian

[CyrilleB79]

Re-opening this issue because it has never disappeared and it is still present on last alpha (portable). This issue seems to appear just after NVDA update (so low impact).

Updated description:

• Upgrade NVDA portable to a newer version
• When NVDA restarts, the following error message box is displayed: Title bar: nvdaHelperRemote (outprocMgrThreadFunc) Message: Error registering focus winEvent hook

The issue appears each time I start or restart this portable NVDA version until I restart my PC. The issue does not appear if I start my installed NVDA 2019.2.1 version.

Here is the log when NVDA alpha portable starts: nvda.log

[Qchristensen]

I just had another user report this after updating NVDA, and they also confirmed the issue disappeared when the PC was restarted.

@CyrilleB79 can you confirm that even though this error appears after updating NVDA (does it happen every time?) it disappears after restarting the PC?

We recommend rebooting the PC after updating NVDA (or any software) - not only for this error, but to ensure everything gets reset and initialised properly. I believe the likely cause here (as in other cases of weird things after updating and before restarting the PC) is Windows not completely releasing / reloading things (similar to how the old icon stays in the notification area if NVDA or another program is force closed or crashes).

Assuming that being the case, I'm not sure if there's anything we can do within NVDA to completely overcome this, so I'm inclined to close (I'll leave it open just now for any other comments).

[CyrilleB79]

This issue is not 100% reproducible but it occurs frequently on my work's computer. However, in any case, I confirm that the error message does not show up at NVDA startup if I have rebooted the computer after NVDA upgrade.

I cannot try to re-install on my work's computer for now to test. And I cannot reproduce on home's computer.

I remember at the time I have opened this issue that I was wondering if the installation had gone correctly until end or not. I do not recall if the dialog confirming the installation success was already present at the time I opened this issue. And if yes, I do not remember if the error message appears after the installation success dialog.

If we can confirm that the error message appears after the success dialog, I would recommend to close this issue. Up to you NVAccess folks.

[LeonarddeR]

I think we really need to consider rewording the focus win event hook error message to point out that a restart is advised. I recall I suggested this earlier, just don't know where.