Software Update perpetually stuck checking for updates

[cbeau7]

I'm trying to upgrade my iMac (Late 2015) from Catalina (v 10.15.7) to Monterey. I attempted to upgrade yesterday and went through all the usual paces of downloading the new OS, restarting, etc., etc., but it didn't actually install and I'm still on Catalina. The weirdest part is that I still have a software update notification in system preferences, but when I select it, the pop up that usually shows an available security or OS update just has a spinning wheel with a 'checking for updates...' message that never finds anything. So while I'd like to try and reinstall Monterey, it's not available or not being found for some reason. I've shut down and restarted several times with the same result. Please help!

 

[ferrarr]

Try the SMC and NVRAM resets.

MacBook Air SMC and PRAM reset - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[MacInWin]

Apple had issues yesterday all over their system. Today looks better, but iCloud is struggling:

Apple - Support - System Status

Status for all planned and unplanned events for Apple Services.

www.apple.com

 

[ferrarr]

Apple had issues yesterday all over their system. Today looks better, but iCloud is struggling:

Apple - Support - System Status

Status for all planned and unplanned events for Apple Services.

www.apple.com

I just found out this morning there in as OS update,

Apple security releases

This document lists security updates and Rapid Security Responses for Apple software.

support.apple.com

 

[MacInWin]

There are updates for Monterey, Big Sur, iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS and tvOS. All are security and performance related. The Monterey update seemed to fix my TM problems, so I am happy with it.

 

[pine man]

The Monterey update seemed to fix my TM problems

That's good news - but it broke mine!

TM wasn't running hourly backups until I manually forced a backup. It seems ok now.

It also seemed to have broken SuperDuper!, which failed three times to backup and only succeeded after erasure and reformat.

 

[MacInWin]

Peter, that is normally a sign that TM thinks one of the drives involved has disappeared, either the source drive or destination drive. In this case, I would think that because of the update to the internal, TM "lost" the internal drive, so it was necessary to start a new backup set. I didn't see the problem because I had forced a manual backup to test if the problem I had reported was resolved.

SD! has failed multiple times for me on Monterey. It errors out, but it has, in fact, copied everything over to the destination. It failed for me trying to execute "bless" on the backup to make it bootable. But it ended up bootable anyway, so the failure wasn't really a failure. Dave Nanian, at ShirtPocket, was very helpful, but it never could execute "bless" properly.

 

[pine man]

Jake, Not wishing to hijack this thread with other issues but I think you were correct about TM and it has settled down now.

SD! was weird! I had decided that I would use CCC for data and maintain SD! as a, hopefully, bootable backup with the intention of doing a 'full' backup everytime an update is installed and incremental backups of data in between. When I tried doing a fresh full backup today after updating Monterey it failed after backing up the system and before backing up the data, and in doing so changed the name I had given to the drive to Mackintosh HD. I tried a couple more times then erased and reformatted the drive and it backed up ok.

Never had these sort of issues with Catalina and earlier. Still we can't stand in the way of "progress' I suppose!

 

[MacInWin]

Jake, Not wishing to hijack this thread with other issues but I think you were correct about TM and it has settled down now.

SD! was weird! I had decided that I would use CCC for data and maintain SD! as a, hopefully, bootable backup with the intention of doing a 'full' backup everytime an update is installed and incremental backups of data in between. When I tried doing a fresh full backup today after updating Monterey it failed after backing up the system and before backing up the data, and in doing so changed the name I had given to the drive to Mackintosh HD. I tried a couple more times then erased and reformatted the drive and it backed up ok.

Never had these sort of issues with Catalina and earlier. Still we can't stand in the way of "progress' I suppose!

Well, on your new M1 iMac a bootable backup is of much less use than it was for Intel Macs. The reason is that the storage on the M1 Macs is so tightly integrated to the System on a chip (SoC) that if the "SSD" part fails for a hardware issue, the whole machine is unable to be booted, period. There are other threads hear on why that is so, so I won't beat that dead horse here any more. If the system gets buggered by software, you don't need a bootable backup, either. The M1 now has what is called Sealed System Volume that stores a verified copy of the system that has been checked against Apple's own versions to be exact. So, if your M1 Mac develops issued because something has gone wrong in the software, you enter Recovery mode, reinstall from that SSV to your system and you are back running again. No need, or use, for an external bootable drive. As an aside, the system you are actually running on the Mac is a snapshot of that SSV system and not the system itself. That approach keeps the copy in SSV inviolate. And any backup actually backs up the snapshot, not the SSV. Apple has significantly changed security approach in the Monterey on M1 systems!

 

[elddum]

I'm trying to upgrade my iMac (Late 2015) from Catalina (v 10.15.7) to Monterey. I attempted to upgrade yesterday and went through all the usual paces of downloading the new OS, restarting, etc., etc., but it didn't actually install and I'm still on Catalina. The weirdest part is that I still have a software update notification in system preferences, but when I select it, the pop up that usually shows an available security or OS update just has a spinning wheel with a 'checking for updates...' message that never finds anything. So while I'd like to try and reinstall Monterey, it's not available or not being found for some reason. I've shut down and restarted several times with the same result. Please help!

Did you solve the problem? I have the same issue in BigSur (11.6) on MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) that Software Update spins in checking forever with no result. Same if using terminal to run "sudo software update -l", just says "Finding available updates" and never completes.
Have booted in safe mode and it appears to work and can see the update... HOWEVER... I am reluctant to apply the update in safe mode and then find I cannot boot up back into normal mode due to a conflict with whatever is causing the problem in the first place.
Appreciate any useful thoughts out there.

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

The fact that it works in Safe Mode tells us that you have something running in normal mode that's blocking software update from working.

The most common offender is Anti-Virus software. If you have any AV software running, our advice is to quit it and then uninstall it. If you must for any reason run AV software, we can advise you on which one is best to use with macOS that won't interfere with normal operations.

 

[elddum]

Welcome to our forums.

The fact that it works in Safe Mode tells us that you have something running in normal mode that's blocking software update from working.

The most common offender is Anti-Virus software. If you have any AV software running, our advice is to quit it and then uninstall it. If you must for any reason run AV software, we can advise you on which one is best to use with macOS that won't interfere with normal operations.

Thanks for the advice.
As it turns out, the problem rectified itself after a week or so - weird!
No changes to sw, network or anything.
Disappointing - I hate not knowing the cause.

 

[jdanham]

Did you solve the problem? I have the same issue in BigSur (11.6) on MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports) that Software Update spins in checking forever with no result. Same if using terminal to run "sudo software update -l", just says "Finding available updates" and never completes.
Have booted in safe mode and it appears to work and can see the update... HOWEVER... I am reluctant to apply the update in safe mode and then find I cannot boot up back into normal mode due to a conflict with whatever is causing the problem in the first place.
Appreciate any useful thoughts out there.

I have exactly the same problem but am still literally spinning my wheels and beachballs trying to kick this Mac Mini to find ANY updates. No AV or other utility software running, the hard drive is healthy and I am on a 1GB LAN connected to 1GB internet connection. The **** thing just keeps checking! Going to a `direct' route via a link to the Big Sur download on the App store also failed - except instead of saying `checking' it says `finding' after I click on the download icon! If I had a full backup I would gladly wipe this machine and start over.

 

[elddum]

I have exactly the same problem but am still literally spinning my wheels and beachballs trying to kick this Mac Mini to find ANY updates. No AV or other utility software running, the hard drive is healthy and I am on a 1GB LAN connected to 1GB internet connection. The **** thing just keeps checking! Going to a `direct' route via a link to the Big Sur download on the App store also failed - except instead of saying `checking' it says `finding' after I click on the download icon! If I had a full backup I would gladly wipe this machine and start over.

Sorry to hear that @jdanham . I'd make sure you take a full backup of your all data, even before applying an upgrade.
I was lucky and mine corrected itself after about a week or so. It might be worth to try booting in safe mode (How to use safe mode on your Mac) to see if it still has trouble or if it finds the updates ok. Then you are stuck with the decision of whether to apply the upgrade in safe mode - but it might help in diagnosing.
Just on the off chance, I would also ensure you have tried powering off your Mac and your router/modem, and restarting them all (I always power back on in order of modem/router/Mac) - just in case there is a glitch in some routing tables or firewall rule that is incorrectly blocking something. An outside chance but might be worth a try.
Good luck!

 

[janzaldua]

We are still having these same issues at our company as of right now. Some people were able to fix it by going into safe mode, while others have had no luck. We tried other things like deleting the SoftwareUpdate plist file, but nothing is working. Any other advice?

 

[Finch]

I've had a terrible time over the last few months with this problem. I just posted about my possibly helpful escapades at:

Software update is stuck on checking for … - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

When I booted my Mac today, I am hopeful that the problem will be fixed with the latest Catalina update that I was finally able to complete yesterday. Software update checking still works today and I'm trying hard to be optimistic.