MATLAB: Get a “Critical Error” when installing MATLAB 2009a on the Mac

Question

I had Matlab 2017a installed on my mac, but apparently I only had a license for 2009a. I therefore downloaded the 2009a installer and deleted 2017a from my laptop. When I run the installer I'm getting:

Critical Error

File operation error: Couldn't open with file: /var/folders/yl/3w_d6y1152793pfxf_pwl92c0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/<hidden-path>/d/update/bin/maci/unzip.

In which <hidden-path> is a directory I have left out for now.

How to solve this?

Answer 1

R2009a for Mac is almost not usable on any Mac that R2017a could run on.

R2009a for Mac was Intel 32 bit, for MacOS 10.5.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Neither of those operating systems can be used with R2017a, which needs Yosemite, El Capitan, or Sierra. Sierra is literally not able to run on hardware old enough to support Snow Leopard. However, there was some hardware overlap between Yosemite and Snow Leopard, some models built in 2009.