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So I have used Cygwin on and off for the past few years and I've installed it a handful of times. However, I've never experienced the install hanging during the install process. When this happens, the install literally freezes and doesn't budge a "bit." I've read that this is a somewhat common problem but like I said, I've never come across it before.

Here's a play-by-play of what I'm doing and where it hangs on me.

  1. Download the Setup-x86.exe from http://cygwin.com/install.html
  2. Install from Internet
  3. Use "C:\cygwin" as the default root directory for all users.
  4. Use "C:\Users\Austin\Downloads" as the default local package directory
  5. Direct Installation
  6. Use http://mirrors.kernel.org per this question.
  7. I don't specify any additional items for the install (I thought it would best to keep it as simple as possible after running into this problem multiple times.)
  8. I don't change any of the "Resolving Dependencies" (whatever those are)
  9. ...and everything goes great until a certain package get's tripped up and causes the install to hang. This is almost always a different package at a different point in the install. In this instance, it was texinfo-5.2-1.tar.xz and the install was at 94%! So close!!!

So what I'm looking for is how do I help the installer continue from this point? What do I need to do to go in cygwin and give it the extra motivation it needs to finish the job.

Work around to the problem above:

So after fiddling with the install a little more, I discovered that if you close the frozen install, and re-execute the setup file, it forces the install past the point where it got snagged the previous time. For example, after canceling the snagged install at 94% (mentioned above), I ran the setup file again and got to 95% before the install snagged again. I repeated this setup about 5 times before successfully installing cygwin.

Like I said, this is just a work around and may be the best/only solution.

Community
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Austin A
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  • I've got the same on Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. – Tom Raganowicz Feb 09 '14 at 19:28
  • @Austin How did you re-execute the setup file, did you run while it was hanging from before, I cancelled and ran it, but it started from scratch. I've been having this problem for days now. – somethingSomething Apr 01 '14 at 17:05
  • Hey @somethingSomething, so if I remember correctly, all I did was close the install and re-execute the .exe by double clicking on the file in my downloads folder. I had to repeat this a number of times but each time I reran the file, the install would creep a little farther along until it finally finished. I know it's not a very technical response but does that answer your question? – Austin A Apr 02 '14 at 23:42
  • @AustinA Thanks for the reply, I understand now, I thought you meant that you somehow could restart the downloading from where you were when it froze, I see now that you mean it got further each time. Thanks, it keeps freezing on me. – somethingSomething Apr 08 '14 at 16:44
  • Just wanted to note that the process isn't necessarily hanging -- I got all the way here in my Google search and then it started changing files. It just had no progress bar to start. – Noumenon Dec 15 '17 at 01:58

7 Answers7

16

I had the exact same problem on my Win7 64 bits with the 64 bits installer. I successfully solved the problem by deleting the content of 

c:\[cygwin_install_dir]\var\log

Which contained two files:

  • setup.log
  • setup.log.full

Restarted the installer and everything went well!

Hope this will help.

formixian
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8

https://cygwin.com/faq.html#faq.setup.hang

I turned off my anti-virus software and the install proceeded through with no problems.

Eric
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8

I want to share my solution which worked. BTW, I tried all the solutions listed here and could not solve.

  • Open Task Manager
  • Kill any dash.exe or bash.exe
  • Run Cygwin installation.
  • Make sure to use default install path. Somehow changing it did not work for me.
  • Get to the first stuck point
  • When it is stuck at *.dash, kill dash.exe
  • When it is stuck otherwise, kill bash.exe
  • Then it will lead to successful setup.
Andrew Chong
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1

I fixed the same type of problem installing CYGWIN on Windows 8 by turning off my firewall. The hang up disappeared and I had no problem after that.

TaylorGirl
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0

Something that also worked for me, suggested from the cygwin mailing list, was doing a full rebase as follows:

  1. Run /usr/bin/rebase-trigger full on the cygwin terminal
  2. Reboot and terminate any cygwin-related processes and services
  3. Run the the setup again
Toribio
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0

Look out for the BLODA (Big List Of Dodgy Apps) in the Cygwin FAQ, and uninstall:

BLODA - A list of applications that interfere with the normal working of Cygwin by intrusively injecting themselves in the system call chain

(Description taken from the Cygwin acronyms list)

Martijn Pieters
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user3437245
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I was able to get this to work - mine was just stuck on 0/Perpetual with no progress bar. It was Windows defender, I added my cygwin folder (C:\cygwin64) into the exceptions for windows defender and progress started immediately.

nwinder
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