Updating to MacOs Sonoma Stuck at 5 minutes

Same here m2 mini pro 16gb

And you really think, that so many users, who have exactly the same symptoms with the same update starting the day before yesterday have now all hardware as reason of the problem? Don't think so.

Did you get the issue resolved? Ita same for me..

I've been stuck at 30mins 'preparing Sonoma update' for a long, long, long time. Brand new Studio M2.

In fact, it is so annoying it has prompted me to leave this comment; my first comment in ten years of being on apple discussions.

(Pair this with the unbelievably annoying fact that setting up the Studio with third party bluetooth mouse & keyboard is almost impossible... and I find my belief in Apple products is being truly tested).

maydemillenium wrote:

Sure, what a great idea. Amazing! Uhmmm, just one small question: And what about those who don't have S. in the trash bin?

I think there are multiple issues causing some of these stalled updates. Some occurred where emptying the bin fixed it clearly had something "live" in the trash that was impeding the update. However my experience has been that sometimes people are too impatient and when they interrupt the update it may impede the next try even worse because the killed off process may not terminate cleanly.

My experience with this update (with two MacBook Pros and one iMac) was that leaving it alone is always best. Both of the MacBook Pros took much longer than 5 minutes when that indicator came on, in one case nearly an hour, but the other was just about 15 minutes. The iMac, which is newer and faster, was very fast.

I would let it run overnight before concluding that it will never complete. At that point I would boot into safe mode and try to update from there. If that fails I would boot into recovery and run Disk First Aid.

If all these things fail, I would make sure that I have two viable backups (e.g. Time Machine) and then follow Apple's instructions for preparing the Mac for sale, which basically wipes it clean followed by a fresh OS install. Then I would, upon first boot up, create one Admin user, it could be named Admin. Then update the MacOS to the latest version. This will work unless there is a hardware problem, as the Mac is a vanilla Mac configured like a brand new computer, with nothing but its MacOS (and Apple supplied programs). Then, when fully updated, run Migration Assistant and migrate over only files and user accounts, but no settings or Applications or other miscellaneous items. Then one has to reinstall third party software. This sounds like a lot of effort but it really only takes a few hours, possibly less time than cycling repeatedly to the stalled MacOS update. I have done this on an older Mac that hung like this on a security update. It did fix the problem in that instance.

Same here this afternoon. Still waiting at 30 minutes. Restart didn't help.

Funny thing: I wanted to try/prepare the update, because my iPhone15 outofthebox new phone is stuck now at "only 1 Second" to go for hours now during initial update to 17.4.1. So I wanted to update Sanoma to do the update via the Mac. But there I'm now stuck as well at "only 30 minutes to go"

I think that there is something wrong with the Apple servers? But the service status is showing green.

But I would think that it would be a surprise to have more or less the same stuck problem on two different devices at the same moment/second because of different reasons.

tastesalittlestrangetome wrote:

Having a new ‘out of the box’ mac does not help (me). I agree with your process, but my completely clean, brand new mac studio M2 has been stuck on ‘30 mins preparing update’ for over 14 hrs.

14 hours is way too long. Something is wrong. If your Mac is "completely clean, brand new" how did you attempt the update: for instance did you migrate over accounts and content from a previous Mac with Migration Assistant before trying the update? If so, I suspect something was migrated over causing this. If you tried the update before placing ANYTHING (no files, nothing) on the Mac, you should take the brand new Mac back to the seller and show them the anomalous behavior and request a replacement (yours is new so it is under warranty). If the Mac is factory fresh with no files placed on it yet, then that would indicate that the hardware has a problem.

Wow. What a long text. And now? You are right, most probably is, that the current problem is not the same as the one as the thread started.

Nevertheless you have replied to a actual post and this was only one of many who have the same problem in the last days. Just have a look at horse from 11. 12. And 13. And they will not all have hardware problems now.

Ofc perhaps a split or a separate thread might be helpful, but this should be relevant for those, who have now all the same problem.

I too, am stuck on the 5 minutes remaining. Guess I will go to breakfast and check back in an hour.

Mine as well but no sooner than I come on here to find a solution it finished. 🤣

Emptying the trash worked for me. Still hit the stall with "about 5 min left" but it was less than 10 min before the update started.

Cry more.