Why does Flash fail to install on my Mac?

June 3, 2007 8:51 AM

Why does Flash fail to install correctly on my Intel-based Mac?

I tried to update Flash the other day and it failed to install. I've tried a couple more times and it's just not working. Can you help me debug the problem?

I've tried installing with Firefox. It reports that the installation failed with no error message.

I also tried using the installer from the Flash site. It terminates without error but Flash doesn't work in Firefox or Safari.

In the console, I see the following:

'Sun 03 Jun 2007 06:42:32 -800'
/Users/davido/Library/Application Support/604187: line 1: Continue: command not found
mkdir: /Users/davido/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/: File exists
mkdir: /Users/davido/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/: File exists
/Users/davido/Library/Application Support/614982: line 1: Continue: command not found


Anyone have any ideas?

posted by david1230 to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I'm having the same problem on my PowerMac G4 and on the windows box at work. It's not us. It must be something Adobe screwed up.
posted by mds35 at 9:05 AM on June 3, 2007

My dad has the same problem on his macbook pro. It indeed seems to be an all-too-common Adobe installer fuckup.
posted by stereo at 11:00 AM on June 3, 2007

I had the same problem when updating Flash a few weeks ago on my Intel iMac. It seems to be a conflict between newer and older components of the Flash installation.

Here's what worked for me: Run Adobe's Flash uninstaller to get rid of all the older components, use Disk Utility to repair disk permissions, then run the Adobe installer again.
posted by zedediah at 12:24 PM on June 3, 2007

Hm. I'm running Flash from an intelmac and never had this problem. i highly recommend that you call customer support, if this is an update you paid for. (i mean, i assume you're talking about flash flash, and not flash player?)
posted by phaedon at 12:34 PM on June 3, 2007

Flash player
posted by david1230 at 12:38 PM on June 3, 2007

Thanks zedediah, that worked!
posted by david1230 at 12:42 PM on June 3, 2007

It worked for me, too, but I had to replace some receipts in the library first before I could repair permissions. Luckily I have a second hard drive with a clean install of OS X on it. I must have deleted some receipts from my primary drive thinking they were unnecessary when I wanted to free up some disk space.
posted by mds35 at 6:52 AM on June 7, 2007