Error installing AIR on Mac

Question

I'm running Leopard 10.5 and I keep getting this error when I
try to install AIR:
quote:
This application requires Adobe AIR to function. Please
download the latest version of the runtime from
http://www.adobe.com/go/getair,
then launch the application again.
So, I need AIR installed before I can install AIR? Uh, ok?
Has anyone else experienced this? I've downloaded the latest dmg
and still no luck.

Answer 1

Obviously you don't really need AIR installed to, uh, install
AIR.
Here's what's going on: during the installation process, the
copy of AIR that's about to be installed is used, rather like an
AIR application was running during the install process. Normally
this error message would only appear if you had installed an AIR
application, uninstalled AIR, and then tried to run the application
again. When we run this code during install, we don't expect to
encounter an error like this, since—assuming the installer
isn't corrupt—we *know* there's a good copy of AIR present.
So while we detect the error, we didn't bother special-casing the
error message for this situation.
Receiving this error message from the installer, then,
suggests that either (a) something is wrong with the DMG you
downloaded, (b) a mounted DMG on your system isn't behaving like
DMGs on other Leopard systems, or (c) something even more bizarre
that I haven't thought of yet.
If none of that rings a bell, here's a couple of things to
try:
1) Find a site that uses the badge installer, like
desktop.ebay.com. Installing via this method doesn't use a DMG and
may avoid the issue. (I realize you may not want the eBay Desktop
app; you can always uninstall it afterward.)
2) Run dtruss over the install process, and then send me the
output. We'll let you know what we find. (Let me know if you need
details on how to do this.)