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.

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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:

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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.)

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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

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.