Flash player installation fails on Yosemite/Mavericks

[djvicker]

I have been unable to upgrade or install flash player for quite some time now.  This started on Mavericks several months ago when an update failed but I'm now on Yosemite and the problem persists.  I've tried many, many things on the apple and adobe forums to try and get flash to install or update including booting in safe mode, removing the flash player completely, offline installer and many others. I've even spend about an hour with Apple in a chat session and another hour in a Genius Bar appointment - both techs were very knowledgeable but ultimately could not help.  I've become convinced that something odd was messed up in my OSX installation so tonight I reinstalled the OS trying to fix this but even that did not fix it.  The symptom is always the same - download goes fine but shortly into the installation phase it fails.  The most useful info I've been able to get is by running the installer directly via terminal.

sudo ./Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player.app/Contents/MacOS/Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player

2015-05-24 21:24:41.113 Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[6962:42186] Install failed with error code: 17.

2015-05-24 21:24:56.960 Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[6998:42619] Install failed with error code: 1.

I'm at my wits end.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OSX 10.10.3

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)

2.7 GHz Intel Core i7

[djvicker]

My problems are pretty much identical to those posted at the end of this thread:

General Installation Error, mac 10.8.2

Here is a more complete listing of my system.log if that helps.

May 24 22:24:16 ___ authexec[9524]: executing /Volumes/Adobe Flash Player Installer/Install Adobe Flash Player.app/Contents/MacOS/Install Adobe Flash Player

May 24 22:24:17 ___ su[9531]: in prompt_echo_off(): tcgetattr(): Operation not supported by device

May 24 22:24:17 ___ su[9531]: pam_chauthtok: conversation failure

May 24 22:24:17 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate[9527]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

May 24 22:24:17 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

May 24 22:24:22 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent): The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.

May 24 22:24:27 ___ su[9537]: in prompt_echo_off(): tcgetattr(): Operation not supported by device

May 24 22:24:27 ___ su[9537]: pam_chauthtok: conversation failure

May 24 22:24:27 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate[9533]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

May 24 22:24:27 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

May 24 22:24:37 ___ su[9543]: in prompt_echo_off(): tcgetattr(): Operation not supported by device

May 24 22:24:37 ___ su[9543]: pam_chauthtok: conversation failure

May 24 22:24:37 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate[9539]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

May 24 22:24:37 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

May 24 22:24:38 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: summary table not allowed on FS with block size of 2048

May 24 22:24:38 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: could not initialize summary table for Flash Player

May 24 22:24:38 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Flash Player on device disk3s2

May 24 22:24:38 ___ mds[68]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7ffc95016000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:1 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Users/dvicker/Library/Application Support/Adobe/.46C5D7F9-9381-433F-B806-9C120EC22368/7D708FF7-8AD5-4EB7-A7B4-330993BEA77A

May 24 22:24:39 ___ Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[9557]: Install failed with error code: 17.

May 24 22:24:40 ___ mdworker[9183]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:40 ___ mdworker[9201]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:40 ___ mdworker[9190]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:40 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: unmount initiated on Flash Player on device disk3s2

May 24 22:24:44 ___ CoreServicesUIAgent[369]: unexpected message <OS_xpc_error: <error: 0x7fff72707c60> { count = 1, contents =

        "XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff72707f70> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }

    }>

May 24 22:24:44 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (org.mozilla.firefox.181224[9181]): Service exited due to signal: Killed: 9

May 24 22:24:44 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.ReportCrash[9566]): Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash

May 24 22:24:45 ___ ReportCrash[9566]: Saved crash report for plugin-container[9191] version 1.0 to /Users/dvicker/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/plugin-container_2015-05-24-222445____.crash

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Received display connect changed for display 0x4280382

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Found 27 modes for display 0x04280382 [27, 0]

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: MPAccessSurfaceForDisplayDevice: Set up page flip mode on display 0x04280382 device: 0x7fe2e96188a0  isBackBuffered: 0 numComp: 1 numDisp: 3

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: CGXMuxAcknowledge: Posting glitchless acknowledge

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: _CGXGetWindowMovementGroup: Operation on a window 0x14 requiring rights 0x5 by caller Dashboard

May 24 22:24:45 ___ DashboardClient[5196]: _NXMoveWindow: error moving window (1000)

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Received display connect changed for display 0x4280382

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Found 1 modes for display 0x04280382 [1, 0]

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Received display connect changed for display 0x3f003f

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Found 1 modes for display 0x003f003f [1, 0]

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Received display connect changed for display 0x3f0040

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Found 1 modes for display 0x003f0040 [1, 0]

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Received display connect changed for display 0x3f0041

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: Found 1 modes for display 0x003f0041 [1, 0]

May 24 22:24:45 ___ WindowServer[189]: _CGXGetWindowMovementGroup: Operation on a window 0x10 requiring rights 0x5 by caller Dashboard

May 24 22:24:45 ___ DashboardClient[5196]: _NXMoveWindow: error moving window (1000)

May 24 22:24:45 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: summary table not allowed on FS with block size of 2048

May 24 22:24:45 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: could not initialize summary table for Flash Player

May 24 22:24:45 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Flash Player on device disk3s2

May 24 22:24:45 ___ mds[68]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7ffc92874000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:1 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Users/dvicker/Library/Application Support/Adobe/.46C5D7F9-9381-433F-B806-9C120EC22368/8CBCE2D5-A791-4B7B-908B-2271C51E58D2

May 24 22:24:47 ___ authexec[9588]: executing /bin/sleep

May 24 22:24:47 ___ su[9587]: in prompt_echo_off(): tcgetattr(): Operation not supported by device

May 24 22:24:47 ___ su[9587]: pam_chauthtok: conversation failure

May 24 22:24:47 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate[9583]): Service exited with abnormal code: 1

May 24 22:24:47 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.locate): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

May 24 22:24:47 ___ authexec[9589]: executing /usr/sbin/chown

May 24 22:24:47 ___ authexec[9591]: executing /bin/chmod

May 24 22:24:47 ___ authexec[9592]: executing /bin/chmod

May 24 22:24:47 ___ com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent): The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.

May 24 22:24:47 ___ nsurlstoraged[332]: realpath() returned NULL for /var/root/Library/Caches/installer

May 24 22:24:47 ___ nsurlstoraged[332]: The read-connection to the DB=/var/root/Library/Caches/installer/Cache.db is NOT valid.  Unable to determine schema version.

May 24 22:24:47 ___ nsurlstoraged[332]: realpath() returned NULL for /var/root/Library/Caches/installer

May 24 22:24:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---

May 24 22:24:47 ___ nsurlstoraged[332]: ERROR: unable to determine file-system usage for FS-backed cache at /var/root/Library/Caches/installer/fsCachedData. Errno=13

May 24 22:24:47 ___ authexec[9595]: executing /bin/chmod

May 24 22:24:48 ___ authexec[9596]: executing /bin/rm

May 24 22:24:48 ___ Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[9578]: Install failed with error code: 1.

May 24 22:24:48 ___ mdworker[9565]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:48 ___ mdworker[9580]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:48 ___ mdworker[9581]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:48 ___ mdworker[9582]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:48 ___ mdworker[9579]: (ImportBailout.Error:1325) Asked to exit for Diskarb

May 24 22:24:48 ___ kernel[0]: hfs: unmount initiated on Flash Player on device disk3s2

[djvicker]

This thread was also helpful:

Can't install Flash player on Macintosh

Here's the contents of the installation log:

2015-05-24 22:54:50 -0500   IM: ---------- log start ----------

2015-05-24 22:54:50 -0500   IM: All install checks pass

2015-05-24 22:55:01 -0500   IM: User has 1 process that needs to be closed before the Flash Player can be installed.

2015-05-24 22:55:12 -0500   IM: [install started]

installer: Package name is Adobe Flash Player

installer: Certificate used to sign package is not trusted. Use -allowUntrusted to override.

2015-05-24 22:55:14 -0500   IM: [install completed]

2015-05-24 22:55:14 -0500   IM: [install failed]

2015-05-24 22:55:17 -0500   RA: Unable to execute privileged task '/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash Player Install Manager/fpsaud'

2015-05-24 22:55:17 -0500   IM: ----------  log end  ----------

It seems like a pretty bad idea to bypass the certificate check. 

[djvicker]

I tried creating a new test user and I WAS able to install the flash player under that user.  So this is appears to be something specific to my user/environment.

I also tried installing under my normal user with the "allowUntrusted" option but it still didn't work.

sudo ./Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player.app/Contents/MacOS/Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player -allowUntrusted

2015-05-25 22:13:40.761 Adobe Flash Player Install Manager[26110:191690] Install failed with error code: 1.

And the corresponding ~/Library/Logs/FlashPlayerInstallManager.log

2015-05-25 22:13:39 -0500   IM: ---------- log start ----------

2015-05-25 22:13:39 -0500   IM: All install checks pass

2015-05-25 22:13:39 -0500   IM: User does not have any processes that need to be closed.

2015-05-25 22:13:39 -0500   IM: [install started]

installer: Package name is Adobe Flash Player

installer: Certificate used to sign package is not trusted. Use -allowUntrusted to override.

2015-05-25 22:13:40 -0500   IM: [install failed: 1]

2015-05-25 22:13:40 -0500   IM: Install failed with error code: 1.

2015-05-25 22:13:40 -0500   IM: ----------  log end  ----------

Is that the correct way to use that command line option?  Also, I only got error code 1 this time - not 17 and 1.  Is there documentation on what those error codes mean?

I'd really appreciate some help on this.  Anyone from Adobe out there?

[jeromiec83223024]

Unfortunately, I've got nothing concrete.  The installer comes from another group inside Adobe and we just changed from one technology to another, so I'm not familiar with the new stuff.  I'm not aware of docs on the internal error codes, and we don't intend for end-users to use command-line parameters during a successful installation.

If the installer is working correctly in a new user profile, then like you've noticed, something is wonky with that profile, but I don't understand why the check for the code signing certificate is failing on your primary profile and not on the secondary profiles.  It definitely wouldn't be the first time that I've seen software throw a bogus error message for a unexpected failure state, so it's a good hint, but I'm not necessarily convinced that that's the root-cause.

If the date is *way* off in your primary profile, that could cause a cryptographic signature validation to fail (the certificate looks like it's issued in the future or expired, etc).

If you're behind on OS updates, you might be missing updated Verisign root certificates that are necessary to validate the trust chain.

If you're running antivirus, you might want to temporarily disable it or check the logs to see if it's interrupting the installation.  Sometimes AV products will just randomly kill the installer (this is the source of a large fraction of failure cases).

If none of those work, I'd probably do disk first aid as a sanity check as a next step, followed by a reboot, if you haven't done that already.

See the "Try Disk Utility" section:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203176

While you're there, choose Repair Filesystem Permissions (Verify will frequently return clean, but then Repair will still fix a bunch of problems).

[_maria_ · Accepted solution]

Hi djvicker,

There are a few posts on here with the same "installer: Certificate used to sign package is not trusted. Use -allowUntrusted to override." issue.  Please see the following threads:

installer: Certificate used to sign package is not trusted. Use -allowUntrusted to override.

Re: Unable to install Flash Player on Mac

Certificate not trusted... Flash won't install OS X 10.10??

The installer is correctly signed, both the online installer Jeromie refers to and the offline installer. The online installer simply downloads and installs the offline installer silently in the background, whereas the offline installer is the complete installer package.

--

Maria

[djvicker]

All of those threads were very helpful but the last thread fixed this for me!!  Before I was getting this:

pkgutil --check-signature Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player.app/

Package "Install Adobe Flash Player.app":

   Status: signed by untrusted certificate

   Certificate Chain:

    1. Developer ID Application: Adobe Systems, Inc.

       SHA1 fingerprint: DE 07 21 37 82 FF A3 03 B3 55 BA 82 02 EE 36 F7 72 C7 14 B3

       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    2. Developer ID Certification Authority

       SHA1 fingerprint: 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86

       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    3. Apple Root CA

       SHA1 fingerprint: 61 1E 5B 66 2C 59 3A 08 FF 58 D1 4A E2 24 52 D1 98 DF 6C 60

Specifically following the instructions in here seemed to clear this up:

Google site certificates failing in Safari | Apple Support Communities

And after:

pkgutil --check-signature Install\ Adobe\ Flash\ Player.app/

Package "Install Adobe Flash Player.app":

   Status: signed by a certificate trusted by Mac OS X

   Certificate Chain:

    1. Developer ID Application: Adobe Systems, Inc.

       SHA1 fingerprint: DE 07 21 37 82 FF A3 03 B3 55 BA 82 02 EE 36 F7 72 C7 14 B3

       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    2. Developer ID Certification Authority

       SHA1 fingerprint: 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86

       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    3. Apple Root CA

       SHA1 fingerprint: 61 1E 5B 66 2C 59 3A 08 FF 58 D1 4A E2 24 52 D1 98 DF 6C 60

And now the flash installer works.  Thank you very, very much!!