macOS Tahoe 26.4 update stuck at 'Preparing to go' for 5 minutes on iMac

M0ndayTuesday wrote:

Tahoe 26.4 update sticks with 5 minutes of preparing to go. I've powered off and restarted, checked disc space etc to no avail. Anybody else?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Tahoe 26.4 update

5 Minutes can be 15 minutes or longer.

Depending on certain factors listed below

Some which are beyond your control and those which are totally under your control

1 - Like poor Wifi connection

2 -Slow wifi connection

3 - Too many other people downloading at the same time and Apple  Servers are overloaded

4 - Software on the computer interfering with the download process including AntiVirus Software

5 - Notation: Disabling the AV Software may or may not solve the issue. Removal of the AV Software may increase the chances of the download to perform as expected.

6 - Running behind a VPN which may increase Packet losses or corruption of the download 

7 - Turn off any Third Party Two Way Firewall and try again 

8 - If via wifi  & too many Other devices using the wifi at the same time reducing the Bandwidth to your computer. 

Best Results are via Ethernet Cable to Router

9 - Restart in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal 

Try Again using the Software Update Applet in System Preferences / Setting 

10 - Worst case - Restart in Recovery Mode and choose Reinstall macOS. 

This in theory will pull the latest version of macOS this computer qualifies to run 

Casey_99 wrote:

Same issue here. Repeatedly freezes saying “About 5 minutes remaining”

Have disabled Norton AV but makes no difference.

Software on the computer interfering with the download process including AntiVirus Software

Notation: Disabling the AV Software may or may not solve the issue. Removal of the AV Software may increase the chances of the download to perform as expected.

Third Party Security Software  is useless

This will included Norton Antivirus 

Windows-like viruses that self-replicate and affect macOS don’t exist because of the underlying UNIX Foundation and permission limitations.

The macOS operating system resides in a sealed and read-only volume that can’t be opened by users or third-party applications.

Mac app security enhancements are sufficient to protect computers from malware.

Effective defenses against malware and other threats

Adware and Malware can affect computers and are often downloaded from “shady” websites or developers who inject them into downloads.

Source: User tip from @Kurt Lang

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250008855

This worked great for me

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 26.4

Then just find it in App folder and hit istall from there

M0ndayTuesday wrote:

Owl-53 - Thank you for the advice. My 5 minutes became an hour and ten minutes. I have saved your guide in case I have any future problems.

You are welcome 🦉-53

Patience and a short walk away from the machine has been my experience

My five pence is to give it much more time. The "5 minutes" is misleading. Give it 1-2 hours, and you might be sorted eventually. Worked for me. 👍

I hit the back button a couple times because I thought it was frozen but it flashed dark and popped up as the install screen. (The same black screen with the progress bar and Apple logo that I see when I update my phone.)

bean117 wrote:

It's not downloading on my Mac (M4 2025). I've tried on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of April.

The progress bar is just frozen (as shown) in perpetuity (over 1.5 hours so far).

The wifi download speed is over 130 Mbps and is currently not being used by any other devices.

No other applications are running.

Are there some specific processes I should be seeing at the top of the list, if my machine was actively attempting to download (via the Activity Monitor)? I currently have the vague impression that it's doing nothing at all.

My machine currently has over 200 GB of free memory. I guess the difference between 26.3.1 (a) and 26.4 not likely to be more than a few GBs at most, assuming its larger.

I've never experienced this with any Apple OS updates, and we're talking dozens of updates, over a decade.

It feels like a bug at Apple's end.

Any thoughts. I don't really want to try reinstall from Safe Mode/Recovery Mode. I might just wait for the next minor update of 26.4 and see how that goes. .

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/856ee6ab-3b0f-4e9f-9a05-4e41bff0fae5

If you have done Everything from an earlier posting here

You can always run this Terminal command

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 26.4

This will manually download the FULL VERSION of Tahoe 26.4

It is about 17.xx GB

It's not downloading on my Mac (M4 2025). I've tried on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of April.

The progress bar is just frozen (as shown) in perpetuity (over 1.5 hours so far).

The wifi download speed is over 130 Mbps and is currently not being used by any other devices.

No other applications are running.

Are there some specific processes I should be seeing at the top of the list, if my machine was actively attempting to download (via the Activity Monitor)? I currently have the vague impression that it's doing nothing at all.

My machine currently has over 200 GB of free memory. I guess the difference between 26.3.1 (a) and 26.4 not likely to be more than a few GBs at most, assuming its larger.

I've never experienced this with any Apple OS updates, and we're talking dozens of updates, over a decade.

It feels like a bug at Apple's end.

Any thoughts. I don't really want to try reinstall from Safe Mode/Recovery Mode. I might just wait for the next minor update of 26.4 and see how that goes. .

To answer your question " Anybody else? "

Not here are 3 different Apple Computers that we're updated from Tahoe 26.3.1 (a) to Tahoe 26.4 on the day of release March 24, 2026

(update: still frozen after 10 hours)

Same issue here. Repeatedly freezes saying “About 5 minutes remaining”

Have disabled Norton AV but makes no difference.