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One possible cause: Installation failed. The installer reported: installer: Cannot install on volume / because it is disabled.

  • April 12, 2013
  • 3 replies
  • 123 views
S
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Since I could not find a solution or explanation for this error in the the great JAMF Nation / Google / Internet troubleshooting database, I would like to share one possible cause for

Installation failed. The installer reported: installer: Cannot install on volume / because it is disabled.

Background: Attempting to distribute package via policy in JSS. Received the error in policy log. The package is a .MPKG and being pushed through SMB.

Solution: Turned out the software had a software requirement (could only run on Mac OS X 10.6 or later) and was failing on Mac OS X 10.5.x assets. I am also speculating that this error may occur if there is a hardware requirement issue as well.

    3 replies

    mm2270
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    • mm2270
    • Legendary Contributor
    • April 12, 2013

    Yes, that error basically means the target system doesn't meet the requirements that the pkg or mpkg needs. It could be something like, attempting to install an MS Office Update on a Mac that doesn't have an installation of Office present, or the installed version is lower than it needs to be. Or like you found, the OS is lower than the minimum requirement. I'm sure there are a number of other reasons you may see this.
    The term "Cannot install on volume / because it is disabled." is analogous to running the installer manually in the GUI and getting the list of available HDs/partitions and they are all greyed out and unelectable. Same thing.

    S
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    • sean
    • Contributor
    • October 15, 2013

    Possibly worth mentioning that a package failing in this way may require a removal of a receipt related to the install. Check /var/db/receipts and remove the related receipt and try again!

      GabeCz
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      • GabeCz
      • New Contributor
      • February 6, 2026

      i just bumped into this problem. VERY old post but maybe helps others.

      i got the error too Installation failed. The installer reported: installer:

      Cannot install on volume / because it is disabled. in my case it meant that the app was already installed.

      or at least jamf thought it was as i just deleted its manually installed version 1-2 minutes before trying to install it from the store.

      sudo jamf recon didn’t help, and at this moment i have no time to reboot. but i suppose that’d do the trick.

      all in all, don’t just look at the error message it is only a generic error message, look what follows. there, for me it said something like package already installed.

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