Software update on server just says 'waiting'

I have exactly the same issue.

I've tried stopping and starting the service, Changing from automatic to manual and back again...

Just checked mine and mine is still the same. I've got 10 updates with the 'waiting' status starting with iTunes 11 on the 29/11/2012 going up to Macbook Air and MacBook Pro Update 2.0 on 05/12/2012.

Very frustrating.

Server 2.2 Update hasn't made any difference.

Just deleted all of the software update related files and settings and after a long wait for the updates screen to be populated all of the updates in the list now say waiting. This is driving me mad. Nothing has changed in my network set up.

Actually, that seems to have done the trick. I turned off the SU service in server app and deleted the Software Update folder at /Library/Server/Software Update and I also deleted the swupd folder at /etc/swupd/

Reopened Server app and turned the service on without any errors. Software update had a message saying the the list was being built (can't remember the exact message). The message was on for a while before I went for lunch so an hour and a little while later I came back and the list was populated with software updates with the status of 'waiting' which prompted me to make my last post.

I then tinkered with a few settings, set SU to manual mode and noticed that updates in the list became available, this raised my hopes. I clicked 'download and enable' on a few recent updates and the status changed back to "waiting". This made me sad.

A few seconds later the update at the top of this list changed its status to downloading and it's been working its way through the download list nicely for the last few minutes.

For completeness, the SU Server is now working normally which ever setting I choose and clients are able to query and download from the server.

Clearning the above directories seemed to work the trick.

One thing to check is the log file. It likely indicates why the updates have stopped downloading.

/var/log/swupd/swupd_syncd_log

I suspect there is a good chance that there is not enough free space according to the parameters.

For example:

<Warning>: Download cancelled for product 091-5293 (Chinese Word list Update 1.7)

<Warning>: There is insufficient free space to host additional downloads.

<Warning>: The volume for /Library/Server/Software Update/Data/

<Warning>: has reached the mimimum free space reserved for this volume type

<Warning>: * volume reserve (system) : 20%

<Warning>: * updates volume free space : 17%

Thanks for that. I'm sure that's been the case.

Do you know how I can shift my SWUPD storage to a non-boot volume?

Is it a case of editing the /Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist?

There's a line here...

<key>portToUse</key>

<integer>8088</integer>

<key>serviceState</key>

<true/>

<key>syncBandwidth</key>

<integer>0</integer>

<key>systemVolumeReserve</key>

<integer>20</integer>

<key>updatesDocRoot</key>

<string>/Library/Server/Software Update/Data/</string>

<key>valueBandwidth</key>

<integer>0</integer>

<key>volumeReserve</key>

<integer>5</integer>

Looks like that line points to the storage area. Is it as simple as changing that line and hey presto?

This is a handy command to issue, shows more detailed status of the Software Update processes and the configuration. It lists many of the parameters, I suspect many can then be modified with the serveradmin command line utility.

sudo serveradmin fullstatus swupdate

I had previously copied all my data to a larger secondary volume. Then simply used the ln command to link it from the default location to the new location. That worked for a while but then quit for some reason.

Actually changing the parameter using serveradmin seems to be the proper way to do it.

i.e.: sudo serveradmin settings swupdate:updatesDocRoot = "/Volumes/Data/SoftwareUpdate/Data/"

In this example we have a volume labeled 'Data'. And on that volume is folder called "SoftwareUpdate". We wanted the update data stored there.

I've tried this this morning. Think I've managed to point to my secondary volume. Just have waiting status on all of the downloads. I'll leave it a while and see what happens.

Thanks for your help.

Seems to be ticking away now downloading following your instructions, thank you!

Something to note. I found that the docroot attribute got reset occasionally.

What worked was turning the service off. Changing the attribute and turning it back on. I checked the /Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist to make sure the settings had stuck and also check in terminal.

Thank you once again. Not my post so can't mark this as helping me.

Indirectly, you solved this issue for me. On my server, Software Update was 'waiting' because there was less than 20% (95GB on a 500GB volume) free. Reserving 100GB seems a bit excessive, so I...

1) Shut down Software Update

2) Edited /Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist to change the systemVolumeReserve to 10 (10% == 50GB)

3) Restarted Software Update

Now the downloads have resumed.

Thanks!