Issues installing PIA for Windows 10 - reinstall error, 'pia_tray_files' missing or unreadable

belvezet

I was able to install the software 2 weeks ago and it was running fine. The PIA app disappeared from the tray. I tried to reinstall it and am Inow getting this error:

"failed to load extension from: C:\Program\Files\pia_manager\pia_tray_files. Manifest file is missing or unreadable
I also went into McAfee and added a number of PIA-related files as exception after reading that this might be the issue, but I'm still getting the same error message. Thanks. 

PIAAustin

Hey @belvezet, 

Thanks for reaching out today! 

Unfortunately, this is a known issue that our developers are working to correct in the next version of PIA. 

Right now our only two workarounds are to: 

1) Use OpenVPN or 
2) Use an older version of PIA 

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. 

Nerdy

Has this been fixed yet? I am having the same issue, downloaded version 75 (ie 3 updates later compared to this post) and it doesn't work. Which version should I download to be able to reinstall PIA on my desktop? Thank you!

ambient

Did you find a version that works? I don't want to keep installing/removing/rebooting until I get a version that works.

ambient

Well, to answer my question v71 is the last one that works. 4 updates without a fix is pretty poor.

llytexcrocke

I'm also encountering this problem. Can we please get a status update on this? It's been months since this was initially reported.

Max-P

Still have no idea why this is happening. For all intents, it's an antivirus issue. The files are there, but something on the affected systems prevents the app from reading those files or this directory and this is what causes the issue.

I have installed McAfee as well as a whole bunch of other antivirus suites but I have yet to be able to reproduce it. My understanding so far is that the antivirus heuristics kicks in as this is not something that you normally do on your computer and it ends up blocking it, and the current exceptions aren't enough to cover this one. We probably need to whitelist Ruby, but right now it extracts into a random location so it cannot be whitelisted. Until we can figure out exactly what deletes the files/prevents access to them, it's unfortunately near impossible to have a proper solution.

It looks completely random. We have plenty of users on the affected antivirus suites that have zero issues with our app, while for some it seems impossible to get it to run. I have even sent a ZIP of a semi portable version of the app to some customers, and they still weren't able to get it to run despite everything clearly being there.

In the meantime, using OpenVPN is our only workaround.

Cahlcharly

I pay for PIA though. still not working. Lame.

Max-P

Hi @Cahlcharly, maybe we can help you with that? Do you have that same issue, and have you tried the OpenVPN workaround?

will2360

I think it may be a windows update that is breaking PIA. I run PIA on a Hyper-V virtual machine that I take daily backups of. When I booted the vm today, PIA was broken and gave the "Manifest file is missing.." error. I rolled back the VM to 12/27 and PIA was working again. The only thing I know of that happened is windows feature update version 1709 install. I will try to reproduce the issue to confirm. I have no AV running on this machine other than windows defender.

will2360

I have PIA working again after doing this:

1.) roll back my vm to pre-Windows update 1709
2.) uninstall PIA v.72
3.) update PIA to v.75
4.) reinstall Windows Fall Creators update (1709)

Max-P

Hi @will2360, thanks for the information. This could prove quite valuable for me to properly identify the root cause of this issue!

1. Did you try fully reinstalling the PIA client after installing the 1709 update, or did you just immediately rollback without trying anything with the PIA app? (Basically, is uninstalling PIA before installing 1709 necessary for it to work?)
2. Do you know which Windows build you were on before the 1709 update? (So I can possibly install that exact one, slap v72 on it and upgrade it to 1709 and hopefully reproduce here)

If that's really what breaks it, that's certainly very interesting because even after nuking the entire folder from %PROGRAMFILES% and reinstalling doesn't seem to fix it. It's as if there's some registry keys/permissions being stuck on the folder that causes PIA to be unable to load its files...

will2360

I tried unsuccessfully to reproduce the issue. I rolled back to Windows 1703 and PIA v.72, then updated to 1709 but this time I didn't have any issue with PIA after the update. I've updated to v.75 and still working fine.

I was on this version when I had the error:

Windows 10 Pro

Version 1703

OS Build: 15063.786

Max-P

will2360 said:

I tried unsuccessfully to reproduce the issue. I rolled back to Windows 1703 and PIA v.72, then updated to 1709 but this time I didn't have any issue with PIA after the update. I've updated to v.75 and still working fine.

Yep, that is pretty much what I keep running into everytime I try to reproduce that one Thanks for your help anyway! I'll take that information and try to work from there if I can find anything.

Radi

Gee, it's nice to be able to go back and use a version of ESET from July of 2016 and have it work. I wonder when the current version will work properly?  You know, the one that we all PAID FOR WITH THE MONEY THAT WE WORKED FOR!!!  come one guys, do your job. Fix it.

Max-P

@Radi If you had read the thread and in particular my last couple replies, you'd realize we're working on it, that we still have no idea how it happens and that redoing exactly the same steps doesn't even reproduce the issue consistently. The files are there but for some reason Windows pretends it's not.

If your magic crystal ball knows what the problem is please share with us because mine's clearly broken.

p6164270

Don't know if this helps but I can confirm that as will2360 has stated, the upgrade to Windows 10 version 1709 seems to be the thing that is killing v75 of the installer.  I don't run anti virus software and have made a clean install of version 1709 and then did the upgrade to PIA v75 and it is broken with the tray files error.

p6164270

Oh - forgot to mention that I can't even uninstall (or force quit the process for) the pia manager as there is a message regarding the missing or unreadable manifest file for the pia_tray_files. I guess I will need to nuke the whole folder.

p6164270

@Max-P ;  I think I have sorted something out with this issue.  The folder the installer is looking for is called pia_tray_files but that folder seems to be called pia_tray_bin.  I renamed pia_tray_bin to pia_tray_files and then tried stopping the pia_manager process - success - no error.  Ran pia-v75-installer-win and again - success - no error.  Could this issue be as simple as a miss named folder?

Max-P

@p6164270 It's actually a bit more complex than this. There are two folders, pia_tray_bin and pia_tray_files. The first one is the nwjs executable to run the GUI while the other is what contains the actual app that handles the GUI. So both needs to be present for this to work - and for some reason one of them just... disappears?

p6164270

@Max-P Thanks for the update... Don't know if this helps at all, but for what its worth - when I tried to do the initial upgrade, the upgrader seemed to successfully stop the required processes but then shut down partway through the extraction of files.  At that point the pia manager process either restarts (or maybe it didn't shut down successfully previously) and then the dreaded manifest error. Is it possible then, that the extraction of files "crashes" before the tray_files folder has been written???

Anyways - Have an awesome day

Max-P

@p6164270 Hmmm, that's an interesting suggestion. Thanks for the suggestion, that's an interesting path to explore. I'm not sure it would be it as people seems to be reporting that the installation breaks itself after updating Windows, not the application itself. I have also sent a whole fully working PIA installation a a zip file to some people in support tickets and that didn't work either while all the files are quite clearly all there.  v76/v77 comes with an entirely new installer however, so we should know for sure if this is the case once it is released again! Since it uses a real installer which I assume registers its files properly, I'm inclined to think Windows and antivirus will be less likely to think it's wrong and get rid of it mistakenly.

One thing that might be worth trying, is deleting the "Private Internet Access" folder in %LOCALAPPDATA%. I kinda doubt it will do much but juuust in case there's some cache weirdness.

Still open to any new clues anyone could find  

p8513692

PIAAustin said:

Hey @belvezet, 

Thanks for reaching out today! 

Unfortunately, this is a known issue that our developers are working to correct in the next version of PIA. 

Right now our only two workarounds are to: 

1) Use OpenVPN or 
2) Use an older version of PIA 

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. 

Neither option is working for me - this is very disappointing I've purchased your product and it is not working on windows machine !

Max-P

@p8513692 Could you please try the beta version as explained in this thread? https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/30113/announcing-the-new-beta-program-for-the-desktop-application#latest

I'm not sure whether the issue is fixed in the v76 beta, but it does feature a completely new installer which has a good chance of doing a better job at installing the files so it's worth trying.

p8513692

Max-P said:

@p8513692 Could you please try the beta version as explained in this thread? https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/30113/announcing-the-new-beta-program-for-the-desktop-application#latest

I'm not sure whether the issue is fixed in the v76 beta, but it does feature a completely new installer which has a good chance of doing a better job at installing the files so it's worth trying.

I have cancelled my account now. I paid a yearly subscription yesterday which I do not expect to be charged for.