Troubleshoot AIR installation

Adobe AIR is a computer program known as a runtime. It is necessary to have Adobe AIR on your computer to run certain applications. Applications that require Adobe AIR are called Adobe AIR applications.

Most Adobe AIR problems are related to having the correct version of Adobe AIR. Before you begin troubleshooting your problem, get the latest version of Adobe AIR for your operating system. Adobe AIR is available for free.

Before you begin troubleshooting, perform the following tasks:

Determine the version of Adobe AIR on your computer
Locate the installation log file

An Adobe AIR application requires a minimum version of Adobe AIR. Typically, the Adobe AIR application's installation program makes sure that your computer has the correct version of Adobe AIR. If necessary, the Adobe AIR application downloads and installs the latest version of Adobe AIR.

You can check which version of Adobe AIR is installed on your computer. To do so, follow the steps provided here.

However, you can get an older version of Adobe AIR here.

The installation program installs Adobe AIR at the following location:

/Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/

The Adobe AIR installation log file can help you troubleshoot your installation problem. You can also use the log's contents if you post a question to the Adobe AIR installation issues forum.

For Adobe AIR 1.0 to 1.5.3, see this document for more information.

You can get the contents of the install log using the following steps:

Mac OS X

Open the Console application from the Applications/Utilities folder.
Select System.log from the log list on the left.
In the String Matching filter field, type Adobe AIR.
Select all, and then copy and paste into a text file.

The application could not be installed because the AIR file is damaged. Try obtaining a new AIR file from the application author.

The .airappinstall.log file can reveal the specific issue. The Adobe AIR application installer could've found an instance of Adobe AIR or the Adobe AIR application on a mounted drive other than main drive. Time Machine (10.5.x) could have a backup of the application. Unmount drives other than main drive and retry installation.

It's possible that the Adobe AIR application didn't download from the website completely. Retry downloading the Adobe AIR application (the .air file).

You could receive an invalid signature verification log error if the certificate used to sign the Adobe AIR application has expired.

The AIR Installer states it is already installed, or requires AIR. Can't install AIR

This error can occur if the installer is in a different language (Korean).

Mac users experienced this error in 1.1. A corrupt locale list could be the cause. Try moving languages in your locale language list or adding a language. Mac OS rebuilds locale settings.

The user interface / window does not appear when running an Adobe AIR application, the Adobe AIR installer, or the Adobe AIR uninstaller.

Check the locale settings to see if Latin American Spanish (es-419) is in the list. Incorrect settings trigger an esoteric bug that can cause the behavior described in the Adobe AIR installer and uninstaller, and in some Adobe AIR applications.

The Adobe AIR installer doesn't display a window when launched.

This issue appears to be a conflict with an internal Webkit library. Follow these steps to work around this problem:

Download and mount the latest Adobe AIR installer from http://get.adobe.com/air

Open the "Terminal" application found in your Application/Utilities folder

Copy and past the following command:

sudo /Volumes/Adobe\ AIR/Adobe\ AIR\ Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ AIR\ Installer -silent -eulaAccepted

After hitting enter, you will be prompted for your login password.

Installation takes a few minutes. Look for output similar to the following:

Adobe AIR is currently  not installed 
Installing version  2.5.1.17750 
done

Once complete, close Terminal and install your Adobe AIR application.

During installation of Adobe AIR, you receive an error dialog with contents similar to "An error occurred while installing Adobe AIR. Installation may not be allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator."

Follow these steps for the manual solution:

Using Finder, navigate to your Applications folder and look for a file (not a folder) named "Adobe". If one exists, rename or delete it.

Open the Terminal application in your Applications/Utilities folder. Run the following commands:

sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx /Applications/Adobe
sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/
sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/AIR/
sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx /Users/Shared/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/

Next, adjust the ownership of a particular folder. Run the following two commands in Terminal, noting the user name response of the "whoami" command. Replace username with your username in the next command:

whoami

sudo chown -R username:staff ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/AIR/

Close the Terminal application and rerun the Adobe AIR installer.

During installation of Adobe AIR or an Adobe AIR application, you receive an error similar to the following:

"You cannot open the application Adobe AIR installer.app because it is not supported on this architecture."

The Mac PowerPC is no longer supported by Adobe AIR. You can only install and use Adobe AIR applications that require AIR 1.5.3 or earlier. Use Adobe AIR version 1.5.3:

Download Adobe AIR 1.5.3 for MacOS.

Note: Adobe AIR applications that require Adobe AIR 2 or later cannot be installed or used on a Mac PowerPC.

.See other installation problems.