Over a week ago, reports started coming in that newly created Adobe deployment packages were failing to install via Munki, with the error message of “Adobe Setup error: 82: Unknown error“. After some digging and help in the MacAdmins Slack community we’ve found a possible solution. Read on to find out more.
What happened?
The first inklings of an issue were reported in the #adobe channel in Mac Admins Slack on March 16th. The day before, Adobe had released updates to a number of titles including:
- Illustrator 2021 (25.2.1)
- Animate 2021 (21.0.4)
- Photoshop 2021 (22.3)
- Photoshop 2020 (21.2.6)
- Premiere Rush 2021 (1.5.54)
If you tried to deploy these titles using Munki, as well as a selection of other 2021 titles, they would fail the install shortly after starting. You’d then find the following entry in the Munki error.log, install.log and ManagedSoftwareUpdate.log (found at /Library/Managed Installs/Logs/)
ERROR: Adobe Setup error: 82: Unknown error
This was the same on different versions of macOS, and if installed with a user logged in, or at the login window. The exact same packages would install fine when attempted via the GUI or via another deployment tool.
What was the fix?
After some detailed discussions in Slack, it was found that Munki detected these packages as Adobe titles and “installed” them in a different way. This different method was being tripped up by changes Adobe have made to the recent installer packages and so was failing.
The fix was to force Munki to treat these packages as “normal” installer packages (although anyone who’s dug into them knows they’re far from normal)! To implement the fix, any affected installer packages should have their pkginfo modified to either:
- Remove the
installer_typekey (which will be set to “AdobeCCPInstaller“); or - Set the
installer_typekey to a blank (or rather empty) value
Either of these options will force Munki to treat the package as a normal installer package, and seemed to install fine.
How do I implement the change?
Note: This change resolved this issue for us and in testing. Please test in your environment before rolling out.
This will depend greatly on how you specifically work on your Munki repo, but a few suggestions:
I manually edit the text files in my Munki repo
You should find and edit the pkginfo file/s for the affected Adobe packages in your repo to remove the installer_type key as mentioned above
I use Munki Admin to work on my Munki repo
Bring up the details pop-up window on each affect Adobe installer, and on the “Basic Info” tab, clear out / remove the value in the “Installer Type” box. Save and repeat as needed.
I use the dataJAR AutoPKG recipes to import my Adobe application installers
First of all, thanks! We find those things useful and glad others do too.
Secondly, as per this commit, we’ve now added this key to both our 2020 and 2021 Munki parent recipes. If you pull down the changes (and update your local trust info/s) any new imports should take advantage of this.
I’m afraid for anything already in you Munki repo, you’ll need to change the value manually.
Testing Notes
I wouldn’t be involved with an Adobe issue without some structured testing!
For this testing, I used a macOS 10.15.7 VM with VM Fusion Pro. I ran a number of titles through a single test each via Munki. Each title was configured to require a logout and the VM was restored to a snapshot before any Adobe installation for each test.
Additionally I tested Photoshop 2021, 2020 and CC2019 installs and uninstalls, both with and without the change above to briefly test both the installation of older, unaffected packages, and the uninstallation packages.
| Title | Version | Task | Key value | Result |
| XD | 31.1.32.2 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Failed |
| XD | 31.1.32.2 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| XD 2020 | 33.1.12.4 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| XD 2020 | 33.1.12.4 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Media Encoder 2021 | 15.0 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Failed |
| Media Encoder 2021 | 15.0 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Media Encoder 2020 | 14.9 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| Media Encoder 2020 | 14.9 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop 2021 | 22.3.0 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Failed |
| Photoshop 2021 | 22.3.0 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop 2020 | 21.2.6 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Failed |
| Photoshop 2020 | 21.2.6 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop CC 2019 | 20.0.10 | Installation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| Photoshop CC 2019 | 20.0.10 | Installation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop 2021 | 22.3.0 | Uninstallation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| Photoshop 2021 | 22.3.0 | Uninstallation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop 2020 | 21.2.6 | Uninstallation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| Photoshop 2020 | 21.2.6 | Uninstallation | [Blank] | Success |
| Photoshop CC 2019 | 20.0.10 | Uninstallation | AdobeCCPInstaller | Success |
| Photoshop CC 2019 | 20.0.10 | Uninstallation | [Blank] | Success |
I fully admit this wasn’t an all encompassing test (unlike the last lot of testing I did) but I feel it covered enough for our needs.
Background information
After some detailed discussions on Slack, I found out some more background about how Munki handles these installs when the installer_type key is set to AdobeCCPInstaller.
More of an issue in older years (and still very much the case on Macs with spinning rust Hard Drives), Adobe installers could take a long time to install their payloads. I have regularly seen as long as 30+ minutes per application package! As Adobe packages don’t utilise the expected payload behaviour, and instead use a post install script to move data around and perform actions, the feedback to both the user and macOS isn’t great. The user will see a message along the lines of “running package scripts” for much of the time the installation is processing. In normal usage, Munki would use this same output to display progress to the end user.
Munki showing a message along the lines of “running package scripts” for ~30 minutes per Adobe package could often lead to users thinking the deployment has become stuck, when the issue is more with how the vender is using the package. It was discovered that Munki could trigger the same deployment tool inside the Adobe package that the post install script does, and that this would give much much better output, and so this is what the value of AdobeCCPInstaller for the installer_type key does.
At some point between now and then, this method continued to work, but the output from the tool was reduced and this method arguably isn’t too useful anymore. This has now culminated in Adobe making changes to how their deployment tool works that affects the deployment method used.
I’ve created a discussion on the Munki-Discuss mailing list to discuss this issue. If you’re seeing the same behaviour, please feel free to contribute here.
Outro
This post is out later than I wanted to but real life got in the way! I hope if you’ve encountered this issue, the above information will help you get up and running again.
As always, if you have any questions, queries or comments, let me know below (or @daz_wallace in #adobe on Mac Admins Slack) and I’ll try to respond to and delve into as many as I can.
