Wizard won't finish

21

We wonder that too.

I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s sad, actually.

Eventually, if you keep trying again and again, the wizard works.

Martin and I aren’t the only people to experience this issue. There have been dozens over the past 3 years. Searching the forums, you can see the old posts.

However. After you successfully install ERPNext from scratch and get it working, how often does a normal person repeat the process again? Probably not often. Because once it’s running, you want to use it. That was the whole point of installing in the first place.

So the people seeing this problem are mostly first-time users (or consultants who install ERPNext for a living).

But the bug is intermittent. It doesn’t always happen.

And those are the worst bugs to resolve.

22

Just for the records, we ALWAYS have this problem. In this version and in the previous ones.

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23

For me this is reproducible 100% of times, and unlike Brian, a loooong wait doesn’t solve it.

Simply spin up the downloadable VM with a brand new ERPNext and start the Wizard - then choose as Country “South Africa” and GMT+2 (Pretoria/Harare) as the timezone. The wizard swill never finish.

2 Notes:
1 - I’m still using v11, did not move to 12 yet, perhaps it works better?
2 - If I choose “Botswana” in stead of South Africa, it works, which makes me think a previous mention of the culprit possibly being in the timezone/UoM or some localization settings might be on to something.

Currently, every Demo I do for a prospective ERPNext company I have to do this trickery of first picking Botswana, finishing the Wizard, then rectifying all the Botswana settings back to S.A. settings in setup, explaining to the client that it’s a temporary wizard deficiency only and won’t affect the actual system use.

It’s highly irritating though, I wish it wouldn’t.

Cheers,
Ryan

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24

A broken Wizzard sucks. So nobody want to start with a broken Software from the beginning.

25

It seems it works for the developers, but not for newcomers.

Until the developers reach out to someone who is blocked by the broken Wizard, get permission to look into their server and figure out the cause, nothing will change.

If it was my product that’s what I would do.

If asked I would be pleased to have them look around my disposable virtual machine.

It depends on someone giving a shit, doesn’t it?

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26

If you install on google cloud, there is no problem.

If you install on local computer, especially using virtualbox, I always encounter this.
All I do is retry, or open the site at the browser and repeat the setup process. It eventually goes through. If you are on develop mode, you will see the logs on the console that the setup somehow reaches a new stopping point as you retry. (On production mode, you can also see this in the logs.) This has something to do with how powerful the computer you are using, I think.

27

@MartinHBramwell can i try a fresh install on your disposable VM? I did a fresh install a few hours ago to test v12.5.2 and it went without a hitch.

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28

I am travelling right now and not really in a position to work with you on that.

I’ll let you know.

29

I should add :

@flexy2ky, @rmehta

If an ERPNext development team member contacts me and says, “This is a really bad thing for everyone and can’t continue. I’m determined to fix it once and for all. Let’s look at it together”, then I’ll make the time.

I wish I had higher hopes.

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30

I can confirm, I have seen this multiple times. Even on a fresh install on a mac. Something to do with NodeJS conflict (I am not a developer, but was told so).

I have seen this on my server too. But when I refresh the browser, it takes me to the desk just ok. I use my server for testing concepts etc. I dont know what the solution is, but to scream doesn’t help.

Solve it if you are capable and post it. Else, pay someone to find the issue and share with the community.

The highest hope you can have is from oneself / yourself. Not someone who you pay nothing and owes you nothing. That hope should be : That one day you will contribute to about 10% of the of the total code that already is in ERPNext. Or 10% of anything like docs.

Ask not what the community can do for you. Ask what you can do for your community.

31

@Not_a_countant. I do understand where you’re coming from. In many ways, I strongly agree with you. You’re speaking about taking initiative. Ownership. Becoming a contributor. Building a community.

However. The first step of any software is Installation. The ERPNext installation is awful. Once you make it past installation, you may encounter this Wizard bug. A bug that’s widely known in the community, and has existed for 3+ years.

What would be the first-impression of a newcomer about ERPNext and its community? A community that praises software that doesn’t even install cleanly. What does that say about the quality of the software? The quality of people in the community? A community that now expects newcomers to solve their 3+ year old Installation Wizard bugs?

I expect the newcomer might run. Quickly. And go find another product. Does it matter if ERPNext is the “#1 open source ERP”, if you cannot successfully install it?

How can we suggest newcomers pay to solve our lingering Installation bugs? Why should they invest money in a product they cannot even see, or try out? This isn’t Kickstarter. It’s supposedly an existing, stable product.

Very likely, newcomers will conclude that if ERPNext fails on installation, the rest of the software is probably of similar poor quality. They’ll walk away, never come back. And if anyone asks about ERPNext, they’ll share the story of how its Installation Wizard locks up.

Now, if you’re already part of the community, using the software, and you want a feature added? A new report, or a new module, or a new integration? Sure. Definitely build it yourself. Or fund someone else’s development effort. Fund a pool to go hunt down bugs too, if you like.

But I feel the new people trying to install ERPNext owe the community nothing.

In addition, I feel the community/maintainers should either:

  1. Deliver a product that installs cleanly.
  2. Or if they cannot, then officially announce that ERPNext is a Beta tool, not ready for release, until its fixed. Stop advertising it as a substitute for SAP, Dynamics, Oracle, or whatever. Those packages actually install consistently. They also don’t expect their users to learn Bash and Python to debug installation issues.
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32

I have encountered the wizard hang several times over the last few years. Combine the broken wizard with the broken setup script, and the new user setup experience becomes unpleasant to put it mildly.

33

The first step in open source is that one needs to understand that he/she has ZERO entitlement to anything INCLUDING a CLEAN setup. For that you pay. The software is AS IS. There are a lot of people who will claim entitlement without writing a single piece of code.

I don’t think anyone can give ultimatum as to what to say or not to say (or claim). They have written a million line of code so I suppose they have more entitlement than someone who can’t meander by himself to get past the wizard and manage to finish an installation. Or be accepting of the downsides of FOSS.

Maybe it is possible that you are lacking knowledge to fix some basic things. One needs to remember that your universe of knowledge on how to run ERP systems specially this one is a subset of what a real expert can figure out by himself.

Therefore it is better to be humble about it. Or open your wallet and get an expert.

35

It’s real simple.

I don’t have any idea why, but my first experience with the easy installer and the Wizard last December was flawless. I was set up and running very quickly and had no doubt ERPNext was what we needed. I saw many complaints about installation and Wizard in this forum, and went, “Hah! Nubes! Can’t even follow basic instructions. Duh!”

I spent about 8 weeks experimenting with the components we expected to use first, finding a few rough edges but was satisfied. I told my partners I was coming and booked a flight and accomodations for 5 weeks so we could work together to set up everything up with real data.

Meanwhile, I had also found a number of screwups that were best fixed by reinstalling … and BOOM … I proceeded to hit every single bug I had seen others complain about. Nevertheless I ran them down as best I could and invested my time and effort to help others hitting the same things. End result … I am now with my partners, seriously ill-prepared for what I had planned to do and looking like an idiot.

So here’s the point:

Were it not for my inexplicable good luck in the beginning I’d be gone! You would never have known that a seriously interested, very collaborative and highly experienced developer had fucked off to a better project as fast as he could run. More important – you have no idea how many others like me have done the same!

And to underline the point – despite having dumped Odoo in disgust at their betrayal of developers 4 years ago I am still getting likes and thank yous and I believe I am still in the top 20% of contributors to the forum!

If, over the years, several dozen people like me have slipped away into the night because of stupid, stupid unnecessary onboarding problems, then ERPNext has suffered, this forum has suffered, everyone who has hitched their wagon to it has suffered and therefore you have suffered.

So for me condescending remarks like …

… are just really insulting.

36
  1. Advise people that the installer is unreliable and they may have much better results with the several pre-built virtual machine images, with the official Docker image, with the unofficial Docker image by @pipech or with Bitnami.

(Disclaimer - I have only tried the Bitnami image)

Meanwhile, I fully agree with the rest of what you said @brian_pond .

37

The good thing is, facts don’t care about feelings.
But feelings care about facts. And facts dont change.

Can happen. Just because you scored a home run the first time, doesn’t mean you will hit a homerun every-time. Disappointments are a fact of life. And facts don’t care about feelings.

Welcome to the school of life.

Maybe people know already… :slight_smile: Its news to you! It’s not news to me. I have seen it. My engineer overcomes it. I pay him.

And I go with the cloud for all production related. My customers pay for it.

Yes, anyone will advise, if you pay for it. You are not entitled to free advise. Even though you may feel that you somehow are.
And facts don’t care about feelings. :slight_smile:

38

Possible that it is true. Many people are turned off by hard things. Especially if you have to pay for something, where you consider yourself an “expert” at.

Humbling eh? Open source did teach a thing or two to me.

You will adjust too. :slight_smile:

39

Oh my God! You have so completely missed my point (and Brian’s I think), I can only think that there’s a fundamental issue here that has never even shown up on your radar … hence the condescending and insulting tone you are taking with me.

Just a little detail while you continue to jeer at my inexperience … I created South America’s first fully Open Source government to business service in 1999 on a contract with the Interamerican Development Bank. I have used no commercial software in all the time since then.

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40

Ok, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Please start a fresh topic on the Setup Wizard if you are still finding problems.

BKM

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