Error #2038: “The application could not be installed. Try installing it again. If the problem persists, contact the application author.”

Ouch, this is a rare but nasty one, typically a Mac issue caused by bad permissions or quarantined files.

Here’s a few things to try on your Mac. They are fairly technical in nature, so if you don’t know what these mean, I’d ask a unix-savvy friend for help. If you don’t have one, email us and we’ll get on a screen-sharing session with you.

  • Uninstall Adobe Air completely: open terminal and enter
    sudo rm -rf /Library/Frameworks/Adobe\ AIR.framework/
    then enter your password when prompted and enter. After that, download the AdobeAIR.dmg from get.adobe.com/air and double-click on it to mount it. Back in Terminal, enter
    sudo /Volumes/Adobe\ AIR/Adobe\ AIR\ Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ AIR\ Installer -uninstall
    to uninstall Air. If uninstallation fails, let us know and we’ll take a look.
  • Once Air is uninstalled, I’d run the Air Install Repair script from Adobe, for good measure.
  • The steps above should make sure your system is clean. Try installing Air from the Adobe AIR Installer in the DMG again. If that fails, there’s another thing you can try:
  • In terminal, enter
    sudo chmod 777 /Library/Frameworks/
    and
    sudo chmod 777 /Applications/
    and try to install Air again. If it succeeds, call the same two commands in Terminal again, but with 755 instead of 777.

Keywords: Installation Error

Last Updated: Dec 19, 2012 07:13AM PST

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