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While trying to install a PKG installer package, I've run into an issue where it refuses to finish installing.

The PKG almost finishes, but ends with the following error, and does not finish installing.

The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

The macOS version is the latest and a fresh install, and it is the latest version of the software, but I'm not particularly interested in my specific case, as I already chanced upon a workaround. I'm mostly interested in debugging why it fails to install.

Is there any way to debug a failed Installer package to find out anything about why it failed?

I tried checking Console, but didn't find anything. I also tried running Installer.app by the command line in the hopes it would give me something to go on.

/System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Installer

Unfortunately, it just repeated the message in Terminal.

2017-03-10 14:02:45.426 Installer[654:7354] The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

I was hoping to be able to find out something more about why it is failing. Just telling a manufacture, "it just doesn't finish installing on my machine" really doesn't seem very productive if there is no way to figure out why.

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Aha! It turns out the log for the installer can be found in the application menu.

Window -> Installer Log (⌘ + L)

Window -> Installer Log

You may need to set the log window to Show All Logs to see all the relevant information:

Show All Logs

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  • I see "archive open fail" in the log. Now what?
    – Dan Dascalescu
    May 8 at 18:34
  • @DanDascalescu I haven't seen that one before, but my guess would be it means the pkg files is damaged, incomplete, or maybe not-signed. Maybe try clearing the quarantine xattr's for the file if you think the issue might be the latter.
    – Alexander O'Mara
    May 9 at 3:00
  • The package was fine per pkgutil --pkg-info. I installed with sudo installer -pkg MacPorts-2.8.1-13-Ventura.pkg -target /. 🤷🏼‍♂️
    – Dan Dascalescu
    May 9 at 16:37
  • I'm new to MacOS and was doing this from Recovery Mode, so the above option wasn't available to me. However, I was able to find it in /var/log/install.log.
    – Mark Allen
    May 22 at 19:10

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