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