[BUG] System.InvalidOperationException UniGetUI Elevator.exe -- Regression from #3913

[BartJolling]

Please confirm these before moving forward

• I have searched for my issue and have not found a work-in-progress/duplicate/resolved issue.
• I have tested that this issue has not been fixed in the latest (beta or stable) release.
• I have checked the FAQ section for solutions.
• This issue is about a bug (if it is not, please use the correct template).

UniGetUI Version

2026.1.4

Windows version, edition, and architecture

Windows 11 Pro 25H2

Describe your issue

I had already reported and solved this issue in #3913. Looks like my fix was lost? See my PR: Devolutions/GSudo-for-UniGetUI#4

Trigger: My PC is a corporate laptop that has AdminByRequest.exe installed.

The root cause is that public static Process StartElevatedDetached(string filename, string arguments, bool hidden) returns a Process object, and the object is used to get SafeProcessHandle so that the StartService function can return it.

However, when AdminByRequest.exe is installed, the Process object points to AdminByRequest and not to Uniget. And by the time you try to get the SafeProcessHandle, the AdminByRequest has already exited.

Fortunately, these handles are never used - so the fix was simply to stop returning the Process object and the SafeHandles.

The other part of the solution was to add the certificate subject of AdminByRequest to the Uniget Elevator so that it passes the integrity checks.

But please review the original pull request and apply the same fixes

Package install operation for Package=JGraph.Draw with Manager=Winget
Installation options: <InstallOptions instance (only non-default values are shown)
	OverridesNextLevelOpts: False>
Overriden options: <Scope=;RunAsAdministrator=;WG_SpecifyVersion=;PS_NoScope=False;Pip_BreakSystemPackages=False>
Starting operation...
Executing process with StartInfo:
 - FileName: "C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Programs\WingetUI\Assets\Utilities\UniGetUI Elevator.exe"
 - Arguments: ""C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\winget.exe"  install --id "JGraph.Draw" --exact --source winget --accept-source-agreements --disable-interactivity --silent --accept-package-agreements --force"
Start Time: "13/04/2026 15:51:48"
Error: System.InvalidOperationException: No process is associated with this object.
at System.Diagnostics.Process.EnsureState(Process.State) + 0x1ed
at gsudo.Helpers.ServiceHelper.StartService(Nullable`1, Nullable`1, String, Boolean) + 0x7c5
at gsudo.Commands.RunCommand.<RunUsingService>d__8.MoveNext() + 0x724
--- End of stack trace from previous location ---
at gsudo.Commands.RunCommand.<Execute>d__6.MoveNext() + 0xe5
--- End of stack trace from previous location ---
at gsudo.Program.<Start>d__1.MoveNext() + 0x19a
End Time: "13/04/2026 15:52:17"
Process return value: "999" (0x3E7)
draw.io could not be installed

Steps to reproduce the issue

#3913
Install AdminByRequest, perform an installation that requires elevation

UniGetUI Log

https://github.com/Devolutions/UniGetUI/issues/3913

Package Managers Logs

https://github.com/Devolutions/UniGetUI/issues/3913

Relevant information

#3913

Screenshots and videos

#3913

[mamoreau-devolutions]

Hi,

The UniGetUI Elevator is now built from https://github.com/Devolutions/gsudo-distro with a nuget package, x64 and arm64 builds, etc. When I did the rework, I extracted the differences in the code from https://github.com/Devolutions/GSudo-for-UniGetUI with the upstream gsudo repository, and then re-applied them on top of upstream gsudo release tags.

The current UniGetUI Elevator build is based on top of gsudo v2.6.1, here's the branch with the patches: https://github.com/Devolutions/gsudo-distro/tree/release/v2.6.1

I do recall that some changes included letting AdminByRequest go through the process filtering, those should still be in place. Let me try and review if the other change you mention has been broken through the transition of the way it's built.

[mamoreau-devolutions]

Bart Jolling (@BartJolling) can you take a quick look at Devolutions/gsudo-distro#4 ? I tried porting the remaining parts of the patches that didn't get migrated correctly

[mamoreau-devolutions]

Bart Jolling (@BartJolling) I made a code-signed build here, which you can download and extract to overwrite in the UniGetUI installation locally, and confirm that it works with AdminByRequest: https://github.com/Devolutions/gsudo-distro/actions/runs/24358828720

If you can't test easily, I guess we can release blindly with those changes and cross fingers it will work on the next release. I don't have AdminByRequest so I can't test it.

[BartJolling]

Hi Marc-André Moreau (@mamoreau-devolutions),

I tried two things. First I tried like this:

• I've downloaded the unielevated-signed-libraries from release package number 35
• Extracted the x64 build to the \Assets\Utilities\ folder.

Then I tried as well like this:

• I've downloaded the x64 version of gsudo.exe (package number 35),
• saved it to the \Assets\Utilities\ folder.
• Then I renamed the existing UniGetUI Elevator.exe to UniGetUI Elevator.bug.exe
• Then I renamed the new gsudo.exe to UniGetUI Elevator.exe

For both tries:
The nullReference exception is indeed gone, but now I get: Error: Unable to connect to the elevated service.

Package install operation for Package=JGraph.Draw with Manager=Winget
Installation options: <InstallOptions instance (only non-default values are shown)
	OverridesNextLevelOpts: False>
Overriden options: <Scope=;RunAsAdministrator=;WG_SpecifyVersion=;PS_NoScope=False;Pip_BreakSystemPackages=False>
Starting operation...
Executing process with StartInfo:
 - FileName: "C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Programs\WingetUI\Assets\Utilities\UniGetUI Elevator.exe"
 - Arguments: ""C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\winget.exe"  install --id "JGraph.Draw" --exact --source winget --accept-source-agreements --disable-interactivity --silent --accept-package-agreements --force"
Start Time: "14/04/2026 13:49:26"
Error: Unable to connect to the elevated service.
End Time: "14/04/2026 13:50:18"
Process return value: "999" (0x3E7)
draw.io could not be installed
draw.io could not be installed - Click here for more details

I have not looked at code changes yet

[BartJolling]

As an aditional test: in experimental features, I checked the box to use the original gsudo. Then I seem to get the same Error: Unable to connect to the elevated service. message.

I was looking at the original commit. If you compare tags 1.9.0 with 1.10.0 ...

... you will see there are a lot more changes required than the ones in the Devolutions/gsudo-distro#4 pull request

With only 2 code files in your pull request, compared to the 10 code files original commit, I cannot see if everything was applied correctly :-|

[mamoreau-devolutions]

The good news is that we've at least ported one more useful patch that was missing, the bad news is that we're obviously missing more of it before it's back to a functional state with ABR. Let me see if I can find the missing bits that remain to be ported over.

[mamoreau-devolutions]

Bart Jolling (@BartJolling) I've got another code signed test build here: https://github.com/Devolutions/gsudo-distro/actions/runs/24405274609

[BartJolling]

Marc-André Moreau (@mamoreau-devolutions) , looks like it worked (I took the unielevated-signed-libraries):

Package install operation for Package=JGraph.Draw with Manager=Winget
Installation options: <InstallOptions instance (only non-default values are shown)
	OverridesNextLevelOpts: False>
Overriden options: <Scope=;RunAsAdministrator=;WG_SpecifyVersion=;PS_NoScope=False;Pip_BreakSystemPackages=False>
Starting operation...
Executing process with StartInfo:
 - FileName: "C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Programs\WingetUI\Assets\Utilities\UniGetUI Elevator.exe"
 - Arguments: ""C:\Users\BartJolling\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\winget.exe"  install --id "JGraph.Draw" --exact --source winget --accept-source-agreements --disable-interactivity --silent --accept-package-agreements --force"
Start Time: "15/04/2026 8:39:17"
Found draw.io [JGraph.Draw] Version 29.6.6
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://github.com/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/download/v29.6.6/draw.io-29.6.6-windows-installer.exe
  ██████████████████████████████   124 MB /  124 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Starting package install...
Successfully installed
End Time: "15/04/2026 8:40:44"
Process return value: "0" (0x0)
draw.io was installed successfully

In the mean time, I ran 5 other updates as well with some packages requiring elevation and others not ... everything went fine

[BartJolling]

Marc-André Moreau (@mamoreau-devolutions) , it might be a good idea to push some of the fixes upstream to official gsudo, like getting rid of the SafeProcessHandles? That way, you have less things to check when applying future gsudo changes back to the Uniget Elevator ...

[mamoreau-devolutions]

the fix was shipped in https://github.com/Devolutions/UniGetUI/releases/tag/v2026.1.5

Bart Jolling (@BartJolling) the reason for working with clean upstream/downstream separation in the https://github.com/Devolutions/gsudo-distro repository was to keep source changes to the minimum, and facilitate rebasing on future release tags. I talked with Gerardo before making this downstream fork, as we have previously sponsored gsudo for code signing. There are many changes that are only for the UniGetUI Elevator variant, and they are better off in the downstream fork, but for the change you mention, I think it could be extracted into a pull request to be merged upstream.