Troubleshooting: Silverlight installation on MacOS-X

One of our ClipFlair Studio users reported on having some issue trying to install Silverlight on MacOS-X, so I gathered some related info below:

 

---

 

First of all, at the Silverlight installation webpage, at the System Requirements tab, you can find the following requirements:

• Macintosh (Intel-based) Intel Core Duo 1.83-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor with 512-MB of RAM
• Macintosh OS 10.5.7+ (Intel-based)
• Firefox 3.6+ or Safari 4+ web browser (note that Safari isn’t supported on Windows since it doesn’t support plugins I think)

So, if you use Chrome, checkout https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2445334?hl=en, although those instructions applied to Silverlight 4. With Silverlight 5 which doesn’t officially support Google Chrome on MacOS-X (supports it only on Windows), there is a serious issue with text input.

Also I’d suggest using Mozilla Firefox instead of Safari.

---

 

If the Mac User already has Silverlight installed but has problems using the Silverlight component take the following steps in Removing Silverlight plugins on Macintosh:

• Double-click the hard drive icon on your desktop
• Find the plugin by Navigating to your Internet Plug-Ins directory: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/

Remove the plugin by Dragging any of the following into your trash bin:

• Silverlight.plugin
• WPFe.plugin

---

 

The Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) and higher versions of Mac Operating Systems seem to have the feature called "Resume" which ensures that the Mac system will recall the state of applications and files just before you quit which would allow you to open them up again, and just pick up from where you left off.

However, the "Resume" feature may be a stumbling block when it comes to installing Silverlight.

Therefore, it might be a good idea if we turn off the "Resume" feature temporarily in order to install Silverlight.

If you have a Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or higher version then:

1. Go to System Preferences.
2. Go to "General" Tab.
3. Make sure "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps" is unchecked.

After successful Silverlight installation you can go back and select that option again.

 

 

---

Ensure that you quit all browsers on the Mac before the installation of Silverlight.

1. From the top menu bar use Quit action to exit the browser. Do the same for all open browsers (e.g. Safari or Mozilla Firefox). Else see above how to set your system to not restore applications after reboot.
2. Shutdown your Mac, and then start up your Mac again.
3. Make sure all browser applications have been quited (don’t just close their open windows, you need to select the Quit menu action to close the browser process).

---

 

After following the above steps, to install Silverlight do the following:

1. Navigate to the folder where your browser places downloaded files.
2. Click on the Silverlight installation file (should be a file with the extension .pkg or it might be file with extension .dmg which contains a file with extension .pkg)
3. Run the installation (the .pkg file)