Messenger won't install - any novel suggestions?

[Android Central Question]

My friend recently gave me a Galaxy Tab 4 (first mobile device), and it's been smooth sailing except that for some reason the official Facebook Messenger app won't install. It downloads successfully, but the installation takes a while and inevitably fails with an error 504. Every other app installs fine so I'm a bit confused. I have no 3G or anything; I've just been using the home wifi network.

Steps I've tried so far:
- Using a different network at a coffee shop
- Clearing the cache and data for both Google Play Store and Google Play Services
- Restarting my device
- Wiping the Samsung cache partition
- Downloading the apk file from a host site and installing it from my file manager (simply doesn't complete)

I've tried some combinations of these steps together and no luck. I have not personally done a factory reset but my friend did before he handed it over and he said it didn't install when he was using the tablet either. It seems almost like the hardware of this individual device has a problem with Messenger.

Are there any other weird or more obscure tricks I could try? Any steps I could take to troubleshoot or be able to read an install log or some debug output? I come from using Linux desktops so I'm comfortable getting my hands dirty and digging into the system a little.

 

[Rukbat]

Read Error 504 : App couldn't be downloaded due to an error 504 - AppsLova.com Try the methods in order and stop at the first one that fixes it.

Also, make sure that you have enough free internal storage to install it.

 

[Ivath]

I created an account so as to reply to this. Thanks for the link, but trying those solutions (some I had already tried) didn't give me anything.

What finally worked was Cindy Engel's tip: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/play/MIpNOuw_P4I/T2tJasRpFgAJ
The common theme here is Facebook or Messenger not working on a Tab 4 for some reason, so I'll detail what I did for other Tab 4 users who run into this problem. Install the app through Google Play as you would normally do, and after it finishes the download part of the process, let it install for a couple minutes. Then force your device to shut off by holding down the power button until it does - don't press "Power off" or "Restart" when the box pops up, just wait until the power button does it. When it restarts or you turn it back on, it should say "optimizing app 1 of 1" before you get to your lock screen. This might take at least a couple minutes, but when the device boots up the app should be installed. One downside to this method is that apparently the optimizing app dialog will appear on every restart, and I'm always a little wary about force shutting off an electronic. Anyway, I hope this solution helps someone else. I've been trying to figure this out for at least a week now and I finally got it.