IOS update 14.8 failing to download

Do you have 6GB spare storage? If not then update using a computer.

Update phone

Click on this link

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Phone will not update

If your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch won’t update - Apple Support

Clearing out some Podcasts to free up space worked for me as recommended by LD150. Thanks!

Seems like this update requires a lot more space than it should. No sure why an update of under 200MB would require almost 6GM of free space on the device. Obviously, causing problems for a lot of users.

It’s when things go wrong that using a computer gets you out of the mess.

Is why I am convinced that the lightning port (or USBC) will never disappear.

Borrow a computer or go to a Genius Bar

It is sound advice, just not suited to your situation.

You could fully back up to iCloud then erase all content and settings, update OTA then restore backup.

Unfortunately, not everybody has the option of updating via a computer (including me). For a supposedly stand-alone device, it shouldn’t be necessary.

iPadOS 14.8 is listed as a 309MB update to my OS, so it shouldn’t require 6 GB of free space to install. Normally, if space was an issue, the system would tell me that BEFORE it would let me download. My iPad Air 2 downloaded it (in 30 seconds) but never made it into the preparation stage; when the status should have been “Preparing Update” following the download, it instead read “Update Requested” and kicked out the aforementioned error. The first several attempts never created a file for me to delete from storage. The same iPad, over the same network, moments later, and with no modifications to the amount of space available, was able to download iPadOS 15.0.1 - listed as 2.33GB in size - but that update failed to make it past the verification stage on an attempt to install it - THAT was likely a matter of available space. My next attempt after that to install 14.8 also failed, but took considerably longer to do so, and cleared another 700MB of space after it failed - space that was mysteriously occupied again after a restart. All that makes me think there’s more going on here than a shortage of available storage.

Agreed.

Feedback to Apple with a feature request

Product Feedback - Apple:

I have the same issue, This is not expected from Apple and due to this update did not happen none of my application is working why we are paying premium for IPhone to get this kind of Support

[Edited by Moderator]

Normally, I’d consider that sound advice, but the nearest Genius Bar is several hours’ drive away, and the last time I borrowed a computer to do an iPadOS update, it got me INTO a mess, rather than out of one; I had to install iTunes on the computer first, and the iTunes install crashed the computer’s hard drive, rendering it irrecoverable. Hard pass! I’ll find another option.

I’m also hitting the same problem, if free space is the issue, Apple should update their error message to say which validation check failed and not just “error downloading update”. Very poor user interface.

I don't know, ask Apple not us.