Hopefully, you'll be installing the 14.0.0.145 Flash update very soon - however the same problem you experienced persists with that.
Fortunately there is a simple solution.
There appears to be a problem with Adobe Flash Player Install Manager - the simple answer is to let the system install the flash update instead:
When you use the Flash updater, it downloads a disk image to a temp folder (inside /private/var/folders but you don't need to know that). This is automatically mounted (briefly) while the app 'Adobe Flash Player Install Manager' launches. Adobe Flash Player Install Manager is supposed to manage the whole instillation but in some case it gets stuck. If this process fails for you (such as hanging on 95% completion), there is a very simple route forward which doesn't require you to open your browser or manually download anything.
It only requires 3 steps and you can be 100% sure you are getting the correct update - the one Adobe tried to install but failed. I've broken these down into detailed but very simple substeps (further down this post) for anybody who is unsure, but experienced users can probably just follow these three steps:
- Force quit Adobe Flash Player Install Manager
- Locate and mount the Flash Player Installer disk image with Disk Utility
- Locate the Adobe Flash Player installer package within the Install Manager app and run the installation from Finder
Hope this helps. Enjoy.
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Those steps in detail (as carried out in OSX 10.6.8).
1. Force quit Adobe Flash Player Install Manager
- Press these three keys together: Cmd + Option (or Alt) + esc
- Select Adobe Flash Player Install Manager in the popup window titled "Force Quit Applications"
- Hit return or click the button labelled "Force Quit"
2. Locate and mount the Flash Player Installer disk image with Disk Utility
- Open Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities folder or find it with Spotlight)
- On the left hand side, your attached drives and mounted volumes are listed above a horizontal line. Below that line you should see one or more disk images (named e.g. something.dmg). These are recently accessed disk images - including one containing the adobe updater.
- At or near the bottom of that list you should see something called decryptedFile.dmg
- Under that you might see a (greyed out) volume image called Flash Player
- Double click decryptedFile.dmg (or the Flash Player volume if you can see it - it makes no difference).
- This should mount a volume titled "Flash Player" and automatically open a finder window showing the contents.
- The volume "Flash Player" will show up in your Finder sidebar and on your desktop (unless you've chosen not to show External Disks in Finder preferences)
3. Locate the Adobe Flash Player installer package and run the installation from Finder
- You should by now have a Finder window open showing the contents of the volume "Flash Player". If not, open a new Finder window and click on Flash Player in the sidebar. The sole contents are an app called Install Adobe Flash Player.
- Right click the item "Install Adobe Flash Player" and select "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu that appears.
- This opens a new window showing a folder called "Contents". Open it by double clicking to reveal the contents including a folder called "Resources".
- Locate and open the folder "Resources" and look for a file called Adobe Flash Player (Adobe Flash Player.pkg)
- This is the Installer Package for the update. Double Click it.
- Don't be put off by the words "Welcome to the Adobe Flash Player Installer" - this is not the Adobe Flash Install Manager (the one that failed you earlier) this is Apple's "Installer" app.
- Follow the steps to the end then eject the volume Flash Player in the normal way (e.g. Finder sidebar)
- Open the Flash Player control panel to check the current version has now been updated.
- Don't be put off by "PPAPI Plug-in is not installed" - you can ignore it.
Some steps may go differently if you are running a different version of Mac OS X - I use 10.6.8