Carbonite Support > Difficulty Installing Carbonit...

Difficulty Installing Carbonite (Mac 2x)

There are some cases in which the Carbonite software may not install properly on your Mac computer.

Here are some basic steps that you can take to resolve installation failures:

  1. Make sure your internet connection is working normally.
  2. Check if your device is a supported operating system.
  3. Make sure that your computer’s clock is accurate.
  4. Make sure the Carbonite installation file was downloaded within the past 24 hours.

If these steps were followed and you are still unable to install Carbonite, there may be additional steps that you need to take to install Carbonite successfully.

The sections below are collapsed. Please click the section title to open / close a particular section.

General Troubleshooting

If the installation was interrupted, Carbonite may need to be removed before you can install successfully. To resolve this issue, please first uninstall Carbonite from your computer and then reinstall using the steps below.

  1. Uninstall Carbonite
    • If you are unable to uninstall Carbonite through the Carbonite software, manually uninstall Carbonite.
    • If Carbonite is not installed, proceed to Step 2.
  2. Restart your computer
  3. Reinstall Carbonite
Difficulty Opening Carbonite

In some cases, the Carbonite installer may not properly install or open correctly after it is downloaded from the Carbonite website. The instructions below can be used to resolve this issue.

  1. First, use Finder to locate the Carbonite app package that was downloaded from our website. It is usually located in the Downloads folder.
  2. Move the Carbonite app package from the Downloads folder to the Mac HD/ Applications folder.
  3. Control + click or right-click the Carbonite app in Finder and click Show Package Contents from the context menu. Another Finder window will open and display the contents of the Carbonite app package file.
Show Package Contents
  1. Double-click on the CarboniteInstall icon from the new Finder window.
Carbonite Install
  1. Carbonite will now install correctly.
Carbonite is Trying to Add a New Helper Tool

When attempting to install Carbonite, you may be prompted to enter a password, like the window seen below.

If you type your Carbonite password into this window, Apple will not allow you to continue with the installation.

If you come across this message, type in your Mac password and click Add Helper to continue the installation of Carbonite.

Installation Fails at “Registering” or Gets Stuck

Computer Name is Invalid

If your installation fails at the “Registering…” step, there may be an issue with your computer name.

You will need to verify the following:

  1. Your computer has a computer name
  2. Special characters do not exist in the computer name.
    • Non-accented alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z and 0-9)
    • Spaces ( )
    • Dashes (-)
    • Underscores (_)

Once you have verified that the computer name meets these requirements, you should be able to reinstall Carbonite successfully.

Multiple Languages are not Supported

Carbonite does not support multiple languages for Mac. With multiple languages, the Carbonite installer or interface may fail to open if you have more than one language.

To resolve this, you can remove languages that are not the primary languages you wish to use.

  1. Click the Apple icon at the top-left corner of the screen.
  2. Click System Preferences.
  3. Open Language and Region.
    Mac Preference Pane Language and Region
  4. Highlight the languages you wish to remove.
  5. Click Minus (–) below the language you wish to remove.

Removing languages will not delete the language from your computer. You can switch back to these languages at any time and Carbonite will continue to work if only one language is selected.

My Security Software May Be Blocking Carbonite

A secure connection to our servers is required for Carbonite to install. If you use security software or have configured your firewall recently, you may need to make exceptions for Carbonite to connect properly.

The following exception may need to be added:

  • /Macintosh HD/Applications/Carbonite

Additionally, Carbonite uses the following ports for installation, backup, and restore operations.

  • 25 (SMTP)
  • 53 (DNS)
  • 80 (HTTP)
  • 443 (HTTPS)
Feedback