Qlik Sense Installation Error – CA_UpgradeNLB / PowerShell InitialSessionState Exception (1603)

[JorgeEsteso]

During the installation of Qlik Sense, the setup may fail during the CA_UpgradeNLB custom action with a PowerShell-related error.

The issue is not caused by Qlik Sense itself, but by antivirus software blocking PowerShell execution.

Error Description

The installation fails with the following message:

CAQuietExec:  
MSI (s) (5C:18) [21:13:05:034]: Executing op: CustomActionSchedule(Action=CA_UpgradeADS,ActionType=11265,Source=BinaryData,Target=**********,CustomActionData=**********)
MSI (s) (5C:8C) [21:13:05:039]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIB58A.tmp, Entrypoint: CAQuietExec
CAQuietExec:  Windows PowerShell terminated with the following error: 
CAQuietExec:   The type initializer for 'System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.InitialSessionState' threw an exception.
CAQuietExec:  Error 0xffff0000: Command line returned an error.
CAQuietExec:  Error 0xffff0000: QuietExec Failed
CAQuietExec:  Error 0xffff0000: Failed in ExecCommon method
CustomAction CA_UpgradeADS returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)
MSI (s) (5C:18) [21:13:06:472]: Note: 1: 2265 2:  3: -2147287035 
MSI (s) (5C:18) [21:13:06:473]: User policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0
MSI (s) (5C:18) [21:13:06:473]: Machine policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0
Action ended 21:13:06: InstallFinalize. Return value 3.

The failure occurs during the Network Load Balancer upgrade step of the installer that can be located on the ServerDispatcher.log.

Root Cause

The issue is caused by PowerShell execution being blocked or restricted, typically due to:

• Antivirus software
• PowerShell Execution Policy restrictions
• Constrained Language Mode
• Security policies or system restrictions

Resolution

To resolve the issue, follow the steps below:

• Open PowerShell as Administrator
• Check all PowerShell execution policies:

Get-ExecutionPolicy -List

• If required, temporarily change the execution policy to allow script execution:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

 or

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser

• Verify the current PowerShell language mode:

$ExecutionContext.SessionState.LanguageMode

It must return:

FullLanguage

If it returns ConstrainedLanguage, PowerShell is being restricted by security settings or Group Policy.

• Confirm that PowerShell can initialize correctly:

powershell.exe -NoProfile -Command "Write-Host OK"

• Check whether there are any pending Windows Updates and complete them before retrying the installation.
• Temporarily disable antivirus protection, as it may block PowerShell script execution during the MSI installation process.
  In our case, the issue was caused by Panda Antivirus.
• Run the Qlik Sense installer using Run as Administrator
• Relaunch the installation

After applying these checks and temporarily disabling the Antivirus, the installation completed successfully and the previous rollback/performance issue did not reoccur.

Hope it helps!

[hugo_andrade]

Nice one Jorge!