Unity Hub cannot install Unity when it needs to elevate privileges on Mac

It downloads Unity fine, but then gets stuck on “installing” forever. The only unusual situation on this Mac is that writing to the Applications folder requires elevated privileges. No dialog ever shows up asking for admin password.

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Hi there,
Thank you for using hub :slight_smile:
Regarding the first question that installing takes forever, we enabled a better logging system in the new version of the hub. You should receive the update in the next 24hrs. This will help us to investigate why the installation didn’t finish.

Regarding the privileges in Mac, since we are installing in /Applications/Unity/, most of the times it doesn’t ask for your permission (normally once for creating this folder if does not exist)

I’m still having the issue with 0.12.0. Where can I find the log?

To be clear, Unity Hub is not asking for permission even once.

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Regarding the logs, on Mac you can find it here: ~/Library/Application\ Support/UnityHub/logs

Regarding the permission, since you had Unity folder in the /Applications (due to the previous installation of editor I believe), MacOs does not require admin permissions.

Every time, we are trying to install without UAC, and if we failed due to access issue, we redo it with user permission.

Here are the relevant lines from the log:
{“moduleName”:“Download”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Editor download ended successfully. Download id: 2017.3.1f1”,“timestamp”:“2018-02-08T19:18:19.567Z”}
{“moduleName”:“Installer”,“level”:“info”,“message”:“Install 2017.3.1f1: /var/folders/m7/nbnys2253fq8zw92qk2vh43rhynfqv/T/unityhub-6b883901-0d04-11e8-b48e-53730d6418d9/Unity-2017.3.1f1.pkg to /Applications/Unity/Hub/Editor/2017.3.1f1 started”,“timestamp”:“2018-02-08T19:18:19.570Z”}
{“moduleName”:“UnityInstallerMac”,“level”:“warn”,“message”:“{ Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir ‘/Applications/Unity/Hub’\n errno: -13,\n code: ‘EACCES’,\n syscall: ‘mkdir’,\n path: ‘/Applications/Unity/Hub’ }”,“timestamp”:“2018-02-08T19:18:19.584Z”}

So the download succeeds but it then fails to create the folder required during install. Usually the standalone Unity installers ask for elevated permissions while installing, but this fails silently.

The Unity folder is owned by root/admin, so requires elevated permissions:
drwxrwxr-x 5 root admin 170 Jan 18 15:32 Unity

To be clear, this situation happens in certain office environments where the current user does not have admin rights on the machine, and writing to the Applications folder requires this, so it must elevate permissions requiring an admin to enter their credentials. The Unity folder above was created by a standard Unity installer after elevating permissions.

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An additional point: even if the Unity folder doesn’t exist, it still fails with the same error because the Applications folder requires admin access to write to.

Thank you for the log. As you discovered, the folder needs admin rights, and the hub is failing to create that. We will add a better UX to tell the user about the problem.

Workaround to that problem would be creating that folder and let hub install.

Solution to that problem would be a secondary location outside of Applications folder. We are working on this feature. Stay tuned for the updates.

This problem still exists.

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bump, bump aaand bump!

Sorry for the inconvenience.
Would you please report a bug through hub bug reporter (accessible through my account or the tray menu), then we can take a look into the logs.

It would be great if you can explain the issue in the bug report and maybe a link to this thread.

Thanks a lot

I have also been unable to install the editor through the hub for months. I am on Mac OS. My installation directory is “/Applications/Unity Versions” and the error I get is: “Editor Installation Failed: The install destination was missing or invalid”.

I tried moving the folder to my home directory, and that did not help. I then tried giving my personal user Read & Write permissions on the folder (the original permissions only allowed system and wheel to have R&W permissions). That worked. I then tried moving the folder back to Applications (keeping the modified permissions) and that also worked. Now, it prompts me to type in my password during install and doesn’t fail.

Hi @pfleetwood22 ,

Sorry for the inconvenience.
Would you please report a bug through the Hub bug reporter (accessible from the tray menu or “my account” dropdown menu). That way we can take a closer look into the logs and realize the issue.

Thanks,
Afshin

I generally do all of my work from in a non-Admin account. Continuously failed to open the installer. Problem was solved by doing the download from an Admin account.

You

A big problemthat everyone faces that everyone download the hub that are not latest . I request to download the latest version of unity hub

This is STILL a problem :frowning:

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I had the same problem today too. I managed to get around it my creating /Applications/Unity/ in Finder with an admin account, then the installer was able to prompt me for admin creds to do the actual installation.

I wasn’t able to get Visual Studio installed though. I’ve got this in the log:

{“moduleName”:“UnityInstallerMac”,“level”:“warn”,“message”:“[ ‘Error while copying the dmg file /Volumes/Visual Studio 1/Visual Studio.app to /Applications’,\n { Error: stderr maxBuffer exceeded\n at Socket.onChildStderr (child_process.js:354:14)\n at emitOne (events.js:115:13)\n at Socket.emit (events.js:210:7)\n at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:252:12)\n at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:235:13)\n at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:197:10)\n at Pipe.onread (net.js:589:20)\n cmd: ‘cp -a "/Volumes/Visual Studio 1/Visual Studio.app" "/Applications"’ } ]”,“timestamp”:“2019-04-26T19:10:01.553Z”}

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Looks like use Unity Hub it’s worst than just download the Unity Download Assistance, Don’t install my apps on my Applications folder because I have a really Small SSD to run everything, so I install all this on a secondary HDD, Unity Hub, Download the files, but when it’s trying to install just disappear, with all the downloaded files, doesn’t show errors, doesn’t say anything, just stay as if I cancel the download/installation, it’s annoying because I don’t see any error, and take a lot of time for me download the installation files, so what I do it’s just download the UDA, and Locate the Install on Unity Hub

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I got that same thing

For those still trying to figure out how to install unity on their mac, I was able to download the 2019.1.4 version by following this link: Download Archive
It’s technical an “older” version of unity, but seeing as the newer versions are still in beta, I think this is personally ok. On this page, you are able to directly download unity, instead of having to go through the UNITY HUB. Go ahead and download it to whatever drive works for you, and HUB should automatically recognize unity and become accessible through the HUB.
I hope this help, cheers!
Micah

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