QuickTime 7.1.5 Special Report: Common fix: Try re-installing (first installation may not be complete); forcing installation

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 1:08 a.m. PT

4 min read

If your QuickTime 7.1.5 installation is incomplete, various issues can manifest, including those discussed elsewhere in this special report (problems playing embedded media, stalls/freezes during startup, etc.).

The reasons an installation can fail partway through are many, but among them are insufficient disk space, disk errors, permissions errors, or in-use files.

Verifying the installation There are a few methods you can use to check if installation took place completely:

If you are running the QuickTime 7.1.5 installer for the first time, or are re-running the installer, go to the "Window" menu (while the Installer is the active application) and select "Installer Log." When the installer log appears, select "Show Errors and Progress" from the pull-down menu in the lower left corner, then run the installation. You should be informed of any skipped or otherwise uninstalled files.

To verify an installation you have already performed, download the shareware tool Pacifist and install it to your /Applications folder and follow these steps:

Drag the QuickTime 715.pkg file (the QuickTime installation package) over the Pacifist application icon. You will be shown a list of package contents -- files that are modified by the QuickTime installer (we've listed these files and their function in a separate section of this report).

Click on the listing "Contents of QuickTime 715.pkg," (the top listing).

Press the "Verify" button at the top of the main Pacifist window.

Wait for the verification process to take place, then click on the "Changed Files" tab.

If versions of components contained in the package do not match those installed on your startup drive, you will see the message "The following files' checksums did not match those specified in the package. The files may simply have been updated to a later version, or they may have been tampered with," followed by a file listing. Files listed here were not properly replaced by the QuickTime installer. The screenshot below shows a system that has not had any files modified by the update.

Forcing installation/re-installing If you have an incomplete installation, the first thing to try is to repair disk permissions with Apple's Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities) then run the QuickTime 7.1.5 installer again. In some cases incorrect permissions or other issues that are resolved by the repair permissions process can prevent proper installation.

Failing the above, restart from an alternative startup drive (or your Mac OS X installation disc) and run a "repair disk" routine from within Disk Utility. If you are starting up from your Mac OS X install disc, put the disc in your optical drive and restart holding down the "C" key. After your system starts up and you've selected your language, go to the "Utilties" menu and select "Disk Utility" (for Mac OS X 10.3.x and earlier, select "Open Disk Utility" from the "Installer" menu). Use the "Repair Disk" function. After disk repairs are complete, restart from your normal startup drive and re-attempt installation of QuickTime 7.1.5.

Finally, you can use Pacifist to attempt a forced installation. As described above, drag the QuickTime 7.1.5 installer package (QuickTime 715.pkg) over the Pacifist icon. Again, selec the listing "Contents of QuickTime 715.pkg," (the top listing). This time, click the "Install" button at the top of the main window, and leave the "Use Administrator Prvieleges" button checked.

After using one or more of the above methods, again verify your installation to make sure it has completed properly. If not, you may want to consider performing an Archive and Install or re-applying the most recent Mac OS X combo updater (from Apple's download page) then re-attempting installation of the update.

A few other notes on this issue:

If you are having this problem, first ensure that no other applications are running and no other processes being performed while installation is taking place. You may want to open Activity Monitor (located in Applications/Utilities) and kill any active processes that may be interfering with the install.

In some cases, this issue can be resolved by creating a new user account (as described in our tutorial "Common workaround -- create a new user account" then re-attempting the update.

In other cases -- usually when the update fails partway through and cannot be properly restarted -- deleting the following file: