recently purchased theme will not install: missing stylesheet error

I recently purchased a theme from themeforest
I tried to install from within wordpress- manage themes but it would not install
I get this error message:
Stylesheet is missing.

I tried to follow a tutorial about how the theme folders are too buried for the auto install to work.so I tried uploading the template folder
no dice.
I can see the stylesheet and also tried moving those out of the folder they were in but that didn’t work.

I have uploaded several themes before- piece a cake.
But, not this one.