Because Autodesk sucks and won't give me the tools to do my job as an admin, I had to dig and find where to get the full installer...
The Autodesk Desktop App wasn’t updating on one PC. I tried everything. Even did a full manual uninstall of the Autodesk desktop app. That’s where I ran in to the next problem… When tying to install the desktop app, the install would error out with Aborted Error 8. What’s Error 8? Nobody knows. Lots of speculation on the interwebs but nothing concrete. What did work was finding the full installer. (God forbid Autodesk could give me a log or a verbose mode to better explain the problem. It's not like I'm paying $44k/year for your software. Oh wait, I AM.)
Autodesk only lets you download a lite ”bootstrap" installer. That fails with Error 8.
http://www.autodesk.com/ada-akn-install2
I did some digging and found a reference to a full download but it was for an ancient version.
I then noticed that when you ran the lite “bootstrap” installer, even though it errors out, it makes an XML file…that points to the full installer file name and location!!!
- <installerInformation>
<version>8.0.0.46</version>
<desc>http://help.autodesk.com/view/ADSKAPP/ENU/?contextId=RELEASE_NOTES</desc>
- <platformFileList>
- <platformFile>
<filename>AdApplicationManager-installer.exe</filename>
<platform>windows</platform>
</platformFile>
</platformFileList>
- <downloadLocationList>
- <downloadLocation>
<url>https://emsfs.autodesk.com/utility/wingman/installer/8_0_0_46/</url>
</downloadLocation>
</downloadLocationList>
</installerInformation>
So as of this writing (9-16-2020), it was…
https://emsfs.autodesk.com/utility/wingman/installer/8_0_0_46/AdApplicationManager-installer.exe
That installed perfectly and the updates started working as soon as I signed in to the App.
To find out what the latest version number is, check out the release notes:
The Autodesk Desktop App Release Notes
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/desktop-app/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/ENU/Deskto...
TL;DR = Autodesk Desktop App wasn’t updating because it was too old of a version. Uninstalled but new “lite” version
wouldn't install and errored out. Had to find and install full version.
For doing a full manual uninstall of the Desktop app:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Install-Autodesk-Desktop...