25

I opened GarageBand for the first time, to find that most of the loops required me to download the Apple Loops from Software Update. I agreed to this.

The App Store opened and gave me the option to install the update from Updates - I clicked Install and waited for the download to complete. It did, and then the installation began.

About half an hour later, the update is stuck on (Installing - Calculating...) This doesn't seem normal - the last time I installed the Loops, they were done in about ten minutes.

Force quitting and re-opening the App Store doesn't help, nor does a reboot. When I open the App Store, the update is still at the same process.

Is there anything that I could do to get the update to finish installing?

Here is a screenshot of the App Store in this state: The App Store in the state that I have described.

Improve this question
1
  • 2
    Four years after this Question was first posted, and the problem still exists in the latest OS X. Is Apple not listening ?
    – Mike Gledhill
    Commented May 7, 2017 at 7:10

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
22

In an act of desperation, I managed to fix the issue by:

  • Deleting /Library/Updates

  • Doing 

    sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist RecommendedUpdates
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist DidRegisterLocalUpdates

    in a Terminal session

  • Restarting the Mac

The update is re-downloading now.

Interestingly, before I tested these steps, I found the update ready to install in /Library/Updates, however when I tried to install the PKG file, Installer claimed that another installation needed to finish (?). Deleting it and restarting fixed the problem.

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Simply deleting /Library/Updates & restarting worked for me
    – Jon
    Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 16:29
5

Try deleting the cache located here:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/

And the prefrences plist, here:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

And start the application again. It should have flushed whatever updates that got stuck.

Improve this answer
2
  • 2
    That didn't work. I deleted the Caches file (and /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate since there wasn't one in ~/Library/Preferences) and opened MAS. However, when I clicked Update, the update restarted again from Installing - Calculating.
    – Faiz Saleem
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 13:17
  • 1
    For me, removing ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/ worked.
    – Kousik Nandy
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 18:38
5

This happened to me after updating to the Developer beta of macOS Sierra. For me, the following solution helped.

Delete the downloaded updates:

sudo rm /Library/Updates

Kill the software update daemon:

sudo killall -9 softwareupdated

An additional note to analyze AppStore / softwareupdate problems is probably using the Console app or tail to have a look at /var/log/install.log.

Improve this answer
4

I have encountered this issue a couple of times, lastly while trying to install Microsoft Word from the Apple Mac Store. The following steps solved the problem for me:

  1. Close the Apple Mac Store COMPLETELY.
  2. Wipe the contents of the App Store cache folders. To do so, enter the following in your command line:
sudo rm -R $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/*
sudo rm -R ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/*
sudo rm -R /Library/Updates/*
  1. Kill all the processes shown in the Activity Monitor being listed when searching for ‘store’:

App Store process deletion

  1. Delete your App Store Preferences and Cookies:
sudo rm -R ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appstore.plist
sudo rm -R ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.storeagent.plist
sudo rm -R ~/Library/Cookies/com.apple.appstore.binarycookies

And that's it, just start your App Store normally, and retry to install your app.

P.D.: A reboot may be needed.
P.D.: Don't freak out if the RMs say these files/folders do NOT exist and therefore they can't be deleted, you just are where you wanted to be already
P.D.: I know, I know, some of these commands do not need SUDO rights, but it doesn't hurt to using them either

Improve this answer
3

Related to Emil's answer, I just wanted to add that I had a similar problem updating xcode. Simply clearing the cache and restarting App Store worked for me. 

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/
Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    This and sudo killall -9 softwareupdated worked for me.
    – SmileBot
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 2:12
2

Had a very similar problem to this - updates stuck on the 'Checking for Updates' spinning icon. Reboot failed to fix problem.

Because I am a newbie, much of what was said above seemed difficult, so I thought I'd just try the one thing I could actually find on my machine, which was to delete:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.pIist.plist

This step alone seemed to fix things for me.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Files not found on Mojave, but these might be the new relevant files: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appstored.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.appstored.commerce.plist
    – Simon B.
    Commented Mar 6, 2019 at 14:46
0

I had this problem and I quit the App Store, used Activity Monitor to kill the softwareupdated process, then restarted the App Store and I was able to download again.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    This is the same as previous answers and should've probably just been a comment to the other answer(s) and not an answer by itself.
    – fsb
    Commented Mar 21, 2017 at 23:41
  • 1
    No it isn't -- all the other answers involve going into the Terminal to run commands. This solution just involves opening Activity Monitor. The outcome is the same but it's a more accessible way to do it for most users.
    – Derick
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 19:12
  • 3
    It's the same answer with a different way of doing it. This should've been a comment or edit to the existing answers, not a new answer.
    – fsb
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 19:21
-1

An additional note to analyze App Store / software update problems is probably using the Console app or tail to have a look at 

/var/log/install.log
Improve this answer
-2

just go to store option and click on reload page

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .