Why does Haskell Platform fail to install on OS X?

Question

I asked this on Haskell-cafe, and the only answer I got was -- try stackoverflow, it is more closely watched.

When I try to install the latest Haskell Platform, the installation always fails.

I've tried this several times over several days. Here is todays situation: Package downloaded from Haskell Wiki: http://lambda.galois.com/hp-tmp/2011.2.0.1/Haskell%20Platform%202011.2.0.1-i386.pkg, http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html

My system: OS X 10.6.8 (was 10.6.7 the first time I had this problem), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. According to df -H I have 221G of free disk.

I have Xcode 3.2.5.

After downloading, I go through the installation steps, and right at the end it says "Installation failed, contact the software developer" or words to that effect.

Is this a known problem? Any Comments or suggestions?

NEW TRY on 7-1:

I was very puzzled by references to "NeoOffice" in previous log messages before (see my comment below). I completely removed NeoOffice from my machine and ran the Haskell Platform installation again. Now the console system log says:

-- Jul 1 11:06:43 jrv installd[1489]: Starting Jul 1 11:06:43 jrv installd[1489]: uid=0, euid=0 Jul 1 11:06:43 jrv installd[1489]: PackageKit: * Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Print Selection Service.pkg Jul 1 11:07:41 jrv Installer[1472]: The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

---

If so, I'm surprised no one else has seen this problem.

New Edit July 2:

The problems with Library/Receipts/Print Selection Service and others were red herrings, due to the installer finding broken installations, but eliminating these had no effect on the final outcome. Maybe this is something new in 10.6.8?

After eliminating those, I unpacked both the current Haskell Platform and the previous one, and have tried comparing them, but to no real avail. Running diff on the Distribution file of both yields that previous one has a "choice4" while current has a "choice14", but with my meager knowledge of os x packages I don't see that that makes a difference.

I ran installer in verbose mode from the command line, and now get:

---

sudo installer -verbose -pkg Haskell\ Platform\ 2011-2.2.0.1-i386.pkg -target /
installer: Package name is Haskell Platform
installer: Upgrading at base path /
installer: Preparing for installation….....
installer: Preparing the disk….....
installer: Preparing Haskell Platform….....
installer: Waiting for other installations to complete….....
installer: Configuring the installation….....
installer:  
installer: Writing files…..... (lots of writing files, then )
installer: Moving items into place….....(lots of these)
installer: Running package scripts…..... (lots of these, too, and finally:)
installer: Running package scripts….....
##
installer: The upgrade failed (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.)

---

I.e., no real additional information.

I'm out of ideas, but at least I've eliminated a couple of broken apps from my machine :-)

Thanks for all the comments so far.

JRV

Fusspot

Can you post the exactly message, and any logs. Then we can contact the maintainer of the Mac installer. I've not seen other reports. – Resting

I had the same problem when I tried the 64-bit installer for 7.0.3. With the 32-bit installer, I could not get Mac-native (Quartz) gtk2hs applications to run, and I don't think anyone else has either. – Quatre

Is Console.app saying anything more helpful? In the past, I remember just such a result where the Platform installer couldn't find the right gcc I think; there is a remark on the GHC (not Platform) website that one should make sure to install the "Unix Development Tools" in particular. See e.g. haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_0_4#macosxintel . I think installing "Unix Development Tools" is something you need to specify explicitly in some panel with some ways of installing XCode but not others. It's just one idea. – At

The installation process runs as follows: 1) intro screen, 2) skips destination selection screen, 3) install type give choice custom or standard (I choos standard), 4) install says wr4iting files, ... gets to 'writing package scripts' then shows failure window, which says: – Fusspot

The installation gets to 'writing package scripts' then shows failure window, which has a message also on the console: Console says: ` Jul 1 08:12:08 jrv installd[835]: PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Print Selection Service.pkg Jul 1 08:13:09 jrv Installer[815]: The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Jul 1 08:14:29 jrv installd[835]: Exiting.` I used a utility called 'unpackage' to unpackage the package. I found a folder called 'haskellPlatformPostflight' which is empty. – Fusspot

Never mind the empty postflight folder. I found that I can unarchive with xar, and get all details of the package. Don't know whether this will help, I don't know enough! – Fusspot

Hm, I have 7.0.3 by another means at the moment, but I thought I'd try it and see ... and it failed a little earlier for me ... It says it's "because there was no software to install" and that the package uses a "deprecated pre-10.2 format (or uses a newer format but is invalid.)" – At

Unsurprisingly that error was due to some sort of incomplete download. After downloading it again it fails pretty much as John Velman s does. – At

@Velman: Did you mean "writing package receipts"? It would be best to see the whole set of log messages from the installer run, but judging from what you've posted, I suspect that your package db on your machine is corrupted somehow. OpenOffice & Printers are not things the Mac HP installer touch. IF it got that far, then it is likely that HP is installed at that point. Did you try running ghci or cabal from the command line? – Robinett

@Quatre - You can't have the 64bit and the 32bit versions installed at the same time. I'm guessing you ran into that issue. – Robinett

I haven't got 64bit and 32bit both installed. My ghci from previous installation of package Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.0-i386.pkg still works. I've separately downloaded the latest package at least 2 times with same results. Answer may be in comparing the prev package which works, and current package which doesn't. I'll report when I get some more time to work on this. I need to read up on packages. – Fusspot

I just tried to install the latest version and got the same failure. I looked in the console log and found the following interesting message: 4/12/12 11:57:20.526 AM com.apple.SecurityServer: Failed to authorize right 'system.install.app-store-software' by client '/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PackageKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/installd' [13964] for authorization created by '/System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app' [13952] No idea what it means or what I'm supposed to do to fix it. – Sterne

Answer 1

I think this is as close as I can come to an answer. I have to infer that something in my installation of HaskellPlatform had gotten messed up, which caused the installation to fail.

When the installation failed the first time (for whatever reason) it installed some of the elements of the platform, but did not make it completely usable.

Finally, I removed all traces (as far as I could tell) of HakellPlatform, cabal and GHC from my computer. After this, I re-downloaded the HP, and reinstalled successfully.

So far the new installation _did_not_fail_, and is working OK.

Thanks to all who commented. I learned a lot.

Fusspot

I had the same problem as you. I followed your cure and successfully run the installer after uninstalling previous versions of Haskell Platform and GHC. Everything seemed ok until I tried to import "Control.Monad.Reader". This produces a "Could not find module `Control.Monad.Reader'" error. Do you have the same problem? – Guenzi