Mac App Store Won't Download Updates

I have a Late 2015 iMac 27-inch Retina 5K with 32GB of Crucial RAM in it. It is running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 with all of the latest system updates to this very date of posting. The internal 1TB mechanical hard drive was so unbelievably and ridiculously slow (thanks to APFS) that I bought a Samsung T5 1T external SSD. I formatted the new SSD for APFS and used the latest version of Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.21 to transfer the “clone” of my internal hard drive to the external SSD.


My iMac starts up perfectly with the new SSD, 3 to 4 times faster than it ever did before and everything works perfectly. I immediately unmount the old internal mechanical startup drive after my iMac boots up so that it is nowhere in sight and does not get in the way.


I've been using Macs for 25 years so I like to think that I know what I'm doing. But -- there is one annoying problem that I have that I just simply cannot solve on my own, even after looking at numerous websites and forums on the Internet.


The Mac App Store shows that I have six software updates, one of which is GarageBand 10.3.5 which I need. When I click the update button for any one of these six updates, the circular progress wheel spins for about three or four seconds and then just stops. Nothing downloads at all. 


I have deleted the App Store preference files, cache files and also the following files as recommended on many sites:


sudo rm -R $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/*


I have logged in and out of my account, I have logged in and out of the Mac App Store. I have restarted my Mac numerous times. I have killed the softwareupdated process in Activity Monitor. I think I've tried absolutely everything that I could find on the Internet. Nothing I’ve done solves the problem.


What is happening?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Sep 25, 2020 4:53 PM

Reply

Similar questions

41 replies

Oct 2, 2020 9:41 AM in response to BDAqua

BDAqua wrote:

Yeah , the new Supplemental won't download here either.


Download the "new" macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Supplemental Update [a.k.a. Safari14.0MojaveAuto-10.14.6] .dmg file manually here. Please let me know how you make out and if it solves any problems for you:


https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2015?locale=en_US


(very confusing because Apple has created additional confusion by reusing the same name it used for a completely different “10.14.6 Supplemental Update” that’s more than a year old)

Oct 2, 2020 3:13 PM in response to SmackAndToss

Yesterday evening Apple pushed an update via System Software Updates that required a reboot. This might be the supplemental update you are talking about. It mentioned some Safari updates & some security updates.

I figured I'd give it a try.

Today I noticed that there were more updates in the App Store, so decided to check it out.

All the updates were downloaded and installed. Finally it's fixed for me.

I hope this update also works for everyone else.

Thanks Apple for fixing the bug.

Oct 2, 2020 3:26 PM in response to Nuke

Nuke wrote:

This might be the supplemental update you are talking about...


Yes, I noted that supplemental update in my post directly above your last post, Nuke. Thanks for letting me know about the success you had, very good news.


But here's the strange part. I haven't installed anything at all since I started this thread on Sept. 25th -- no system software updates, no nothing. This afternoon, I opened the Mac App Store, saw five updates sitting there and decided to try again and download GarageBand 10.3.5.


It downloaded without a hitch. It worked perfectly. The Mac App Store now works perfectly for me and I haven't installed anything since I started this thread on Sept. 25th.


Go figure. This must've been some sort of server communication problem on Apple's end. Anyway, thanks Apple for doing whatever you did. I am a happy (recording) camper.

Sep 27, 2020 9:48 PM in response to SmackAndToss

Yes, there are dangers, but I always clone before doing an update so I can boot from he clone & continue right along with doing biz... Apple has put a Monkey wrench in the works with Catalina & killed cloning altogether with Big Sur.


I normally do not even run off the Internal drive due to the failure rates & difficulty of replacing the drives lately.

Oct 2, 2020 7:51 PM in response to SmackAndToss

Same here, the two app updates I spoke of previously downloaded tonight with no issues. My computer hadn't even been on, never mind installed any macOS software update, before retrying. I guess something was broken on the back-end, and Apple fixed it for us. Yay!


To whomever at Apple took notice of this thread, thank you very much for taking the time to get this working again! :D

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Mac App Store Won't Download Updates

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.