Brave crashes on launch when installed via universal PKG from Brave Manager

[LaurenWags]

When I install Brave from a PKG file using Brave Manager, Brave crashes on launch. This doesn't happen if I install Brave from GitHub repo using same version PKG.

No issues when installing DMG via Brave Manager.

Steps:

Note, be sure you don't have any other channels installed already and no "BraveSoftware" folder under ~/Library/Application Support

1. Navigate to GH repo and grab latest PKG for Beta (universal or architecture specific, doesn't matter - but I used universal for below screenshots)
2. Install from PKG file, following prompts
3. Open Applications folder and launch, application launches as expected:

Screen.Recording.2025-10-30.at.9.04.34.AM.mov

4. Close browser
5. Delete Brave Browser Beta.app from Applications (note that you need to use your password to do this)
6. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support in a finder window
7. Delete the BraveSoftware folder (note that you don't need to use your password to do this)
8. Can also delete the BraveSoftware folder from ~/Library/Caches if you wish.
9. Launch Brave Manager from terminal
10. Install the same PKG version used above from Brave Manager.

11. Open Applications folder and launch, application crashes on launch:

12. Delete Brave Browser Beta.app from Applications (note that you need to use your password to do this)
13. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support in a finder window
14. Delete the BraveSoftware folder (note that you now need your password to do this, where you didn't before)

Note - if at step 15 you try to use Brave Manager to delete the profile folder, you aren't prompted for password. I'm guessing this is because Brave Manager isn't deleting the "BraveSoftware" folder but just the sub folder for the channel.

[mherrmann]

Doesn't reproduce for me with the following steps:

1. Uninstall all Brave channels.
2. Delete ~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware.
3. Download https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v1.85.92/Brave-Browser-Beta-arm64.pkg.
4. Install from PKG.
5. Launch Brave Beta.
6. Close.
7. Delete Brave Browser Beta.app from Applications,
8. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support in a Finder window.
9. Delete the BraveSoftware folder
10. Launch Brave Manager from terminal
11. Install Arm64 Brave Beta 1.85.92 from the PKG.
12. Open Applications folder and launch.

No crash.

[mherrmann]

It does reproduce for me with the universal PKG. The problem is caused by, or at least intimately related to, brave/brave-browser#39567. What Brave Manager does is:

sudo installer -pkg Brave-Browser-Beta-universal.pkg -target /

The problem can be reproduced by using this step instead of Brave Manager. It goes away when Brave-Browser-Beta-universal.pkg is renamed to Brave-Browser-Beta-arm64.pkg.