212363 - [win9x/winNT] OLEAUT32.dll error on startup

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: XPConnect, defect)

Description

[William Bardwell]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.79 [en] (WinNT; U)
Build Identifier: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.4/mozilla-win32-1.4-stub-installer.exe

I get an error on Mozilla startup in a window labeled:
OleMainThreadWndName: Mozilla.exe - Ordinal Not Found
The ordinal 77 could not be located in the dynamic link library OLEAUT32.dll

Which I assume means that I am missing some sort of updated DLL...
(Running on WinNT 4.0 SP6, w/ IE 5.5)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. install Mozilla 1.4 with Talkback network installer
2.Run Mozilla (or let installer try to run it)
3.

Comment 1

[davidkolar]

I cannot confirm this for Windows NT 4, but see bug 197692, which showed the
exact same error message with a Windows 98/Firebird combination. See if the URL
from comment 30 of that bug will also work for Windows NT.

Comment 2

[William Bardwell]

I installed SP6a and that seemed to fix the bug.

Comment 3

[timeless]

that's not a fix, and bug 236399 comment 6 indicates this still happens in 1.6
on nt3.51...

Comment 4

[timeless]

could someone use http://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/dependency-walker.html and
find out which library is linking against oleaut32?

Comment 5

[Michael Voase]

    I would just like to confirm a sighting of this bug, in both Mozilla 
firebird and firefox on this Windows 98 PC.
Error message is a dialog (Titile) Error Starting Program (body) The 
Firefox.Exe file is linked to missing export OLEAUT32.DLL:77.
A second Dialog message appears behind the first one as follows:
(title) C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe (body) A device 
attached to the system is not functioning (ok button).

Inspection by depends.exe reveals that OLEAUT32.DLL does exist on this 
system, but does not export this function. The functions immediately 
either side of this function are:
Ordinal 76: VarR4FromBool, Entry point 0x000303A3
Ordinal 78: VarR8FromUI1, Entry point 0x00030535

Furthermore, It has been noted through further inspection of IE on this system
(6.0) that it did not link to function 77.

Comment 6

[OstGote!]

I have two NT boxes here, one with NT4 SP3 and one with NT4 SP6a (+ IE6 SP1).
With NT4sp3 I got the error, not with the other machine (even before SP6a).
Mozilla trunk build 2004042909.

file versions of oleaut32.dll:
NT4 SP3: 2.20.4118 -> error
NT4 SP5 (I guess and IE 5.0 and other software): 2.40.4277 -> works
NT4 SP6a (and IE 6.0 SP1): 2.40.4518 -> works

Comment 3 is no issue because Mozilla don't support NT 3.51 anymore, see
http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/sysreq.html and
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.7rc1/installation.html#win_requirements.

IMO it should be added a note to the release notes/system requirements, that we
recommend to use NT4.0 SP6a and for Windows 9x users to check the versions of
the file and link to updates for it (like
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290887). Files with a
version < 2.30.x are too old and lead to this error.

I think we don't see much bug reports about this error because nowadays most of
the Mozilla installations on Win9x or WinNT4 are not on the "gold" versions
without the latest SP and/or updates. Oleaut32.dll is part of the OLE-AUT
fileset that complements Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) and Visual Basic
run-time. Most of the VB6 based apps (or the DCOM95/98 update for Win9x) update
it. A lot of share-/freeware is VB based.

IMO this bug could be resolved as dupe of bug 197692 or as INVALID (outdated
system file, but then we need a hint in the release notes).

Comment 7

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Comment 3 is no issue because Mozilla don't support NT 3.51 anymore, see
> http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/sysreq.html and

but it would be good to change that and support NT 3.51 again.

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #5)
>Error message is a dialog (Titile) Error Starting Program (body) The 
>Firefox.Exe file is linked to missing export OLEAUT32.DLL:77.
This is SafeArrayGetVarType introduced by bug 173146 here:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/js/src/xpconnect/src/XPCDispConvert.cpp#400

Comment 9

[timeless]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/automat/htm/chap7_4a91.asp
SafeArrayGetVartype
Requirements

  Windows NT/2000: Requires Windows NT 3.1 or later.
  Windows 95/98: Requires Windows 95 or later.
  Header: Declared in oleauto.h.
  Library: Use oleaut32.lib.

What's the version of your oleaut32.dll?

Comment 10

[Anthon Pang]

In the short-term, how about pointing users to patches which will update their
version of OLEAUT32.DLL.  For example, "http://www.macros.com/oleaut.htm"
contains a number links.

Can the version of OLEAUT32.DLL be checked during installation?

On Win95, DCOM95 1.3 updates OLEAUT32.DLL to version "2.40.4275".
On Win98, DCOM98 1.3 updates OLEAUT32.DLL to version "2.40.4275.1".
On WinNT sp6a, OLEAUT32.DLL is at version "2.40.4277".

Comment 11

[Benjamin Smedberg]

*** Bug 255284 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Benjamin Smedberg]

*** Bug 255462 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Benjamin Smedberg]

*** Bug 232060 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Benjamin Smedberg]

*** Bug 258502 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[OstGote!]

*** Bug 269455 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[OstGote!]

*** Bug 269377 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Bernard Alleysson]

Come on, SafeArrayGetVarType is just some basic getter helper function for the
SAFEARRAY Data Type !

SafeArrayGetVarType() could be avoided and just replaced by a few lines of code,
thus fixing this bug (assuming SafeArrayGetVarType is the only oleaut32.dll import)

See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/automat/htm/chap7_4a91.asp
especially the comments section

Comment 18

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

SafeArrayGetElement sounds like it's another oleaut32 import

Comment 19

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

strange, xpconnect does not link to oleaut32.lib...

Comment 20

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> SafeArrayGetElement sounds like it's another oleaut32 import
My Windows 95 "B" CD's oleaut32.dll does have SafeArrayGetElement

Comment 21

[David Bradley]

Microsoft uses header magic to get some libraries (#pragmas). Not sure if 
that's the case here, may have gotten it from through another library.

The two functions were used in the IDispatch bridge in XPConnect for handling 
COM arrays.

I wouldn't be opposed to creating our own internal functions that go against 
the SAFEARRAY structures. From the dupes this apparently isn't too obscure a 
problem.

Comment 22

[Bernard Alleysson]

confirming based on dupes

Comment 23

[Bernard Alleysson]

Attachment: internal version of SafeArrayGetVartype

Removed the dependency on oleaut32.dll ordinal 77 (SafeArrayGetVartype)
I think there's no problem with other oleaut32 imports.
I don't know how to test this (feel free to provide some testcases). It's also
a bit scary because it relies on MS documentation of hidden SAFEARRAY structure
member (at offset -4):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/automat/htm/chap7_9ntx.asp


It should be tested on all Windows platforms (win95/NT4/98/me/2000/XP/2003).
Let me know if it works and if it's worth going for reviews.

Comment 24

[[e-mail]]

I get this trace from Dependency Walker. I have no idea why it then proceeds to
complain about ordinal 77:
Loaded "c:\mozilla\components\XPC3250.DLL" at address 0x60C60000.  Successfully
hooked module.
Loaded "c:\winnt\system32\OLEAUT32.DLL" at address 0x65340000.  Successfully
hooked module.
First chance exception 0xC0000138 (Unknown) occurred in
"c:\winnt\system32\NTDLL.DLL" at address 0x77FC02CD.
Unloaded "c:\mozilla\components\XPC3250.DLL" at address 0x60C60000.
Unloaded "c:\winnt\system32\OLEAUT32.DLL" at address 0x65340000.
LoadLibraryA("c:\mozilla\components\xpc3250.dll") returned NULL. Error: The
operating system cannot run %1 (182).

Comment 25

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

since trunk only supports win2k and higher, this seems WONTFIX.