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I am trying to update my iMac with the latest security patch for Catalina, or alternatively upgrade to Monterey, however when I go to System Updates, my Mac stalls on ‘checking for updates’. I have shutdown and rebooted numerous times, checked I have enough Ram and also checked Activity Monitor. Where to now? Thanks, Janet
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Found this old tip from 2017 on StackOverflow and it fixed the issue for me right on.
The issue seems to be with the firewall of MacOS allowing incoming connections. Resetting the cache of accepted certificates fixed it. A reboot is required. Here are the steps:
By default, the built-in application firewall for macOS automatically allows applications signed by Apple to receive incoming connections. If you've adjusted the settings for your application firewall, you might need to allow incoming connections. If the issue persists, reset the cache of accepted certificates:
I’m not sure about all that, all I know is that command when run on a machine where all you are getting is the endless “checking for updates” symptoms, results in a successful check and any available updates can be selected for install.
Maybe someone smarter than me can explain why that is the case ;)
I'm not sure how running software update in the terminal as you describe would make any difference, but based on reported experiences, a few things seem to have helped, even if inconsistently or temporarily. Maybe that's one of them. After months of not having Software Update work, I had it work briefly and I don't know how. I had changed an automatic update setting but I don't believe I saw an immediate affect. Regardless, I finally updated Catalina and later it went back to not working. I revisited here and at some point, I tried booting in safe mode to no avail. Maybe, the only two or three people that reported this problem with Big Sur (here in this thread and in one at mac_forums.com) found success using safe mode (recovery) although one them used it to reinstall the OS. Everyone else that gave their OS (not many) said it was Catalina, and far as I can see, a flurry of similar reports are starting in 2022. That seems interesting if true. The natural reason for Software Update spinning forever is a network problem or just the Apple server itself being unreachable. Some of the people clearly encountered network problems and were able to figure that out. For the rest of us, perhaps the majority, I believe our problem or solution remains unclear. I think the May 16 Catalina update possibly helped me, and deleting the crl cache (after copying it, as described) and restarting appears to work for me. Leaving a hung Software Update running and restarting my iMac (with Software Update being reopened on restart) has been working for me. Other weirdities are that even the Catalina security updates that I was able to download through direct links would not install (infinitely spun just like Software Update) and Howard Oakley's Silent Night would likewise spin forever when attempting to check for security updates. Given the limited number of contributors to this dicussion, and the inconsistencies, I'm not overly certain of much except that Apple is at least at fault in not detecting some error and reporting it to the victim.
I tried a few other recommendations like deleting the com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist but that didn't work.
This DID!
Thank you!!
Is there any error message within:
/var/log/system.log
?
Which version of Catalina Security Update are you trying to install?
Its name should look like
Security Update 2022 xxx
Software update is stuck on checking for updates on mac