Cannot download the rest of the loops/instruments

Is this a new mac and did GarageBand come preinstalled? Or did you migrate from a different Mac? There may be many reasons for this problem, check the possible causes:

• Check, if GarageBand is installed in the "Applications" folder and named GarageBand. Otherwise you cannot update it.
• Have you accepted a preinstalled GarageBand to your AppleID? Sign into to AppStore and check the Purchase Tab. Accept, if necessary.
• GarageBand may already have downloaded the loops, but not indexed them. Then you could try to rebuild the Loop Index: Rebuilding the Loop Index in GarageBand
• GarageBand may not be able to remember that it updated, because of corrupted preferences, then try HangTime's "oddball" problems fix and delete the preferences:

http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/GBFAQ.html#oddballprobs

Remember, in Mt. Lion the user library is hidden; you open it best from the Finder's "Go" menu, from the main menu bar:

Go > Go to folder then hold down the alt/option key until the library appears in the drop down menu. Select it to open and remove the file Preferences/com.apple.garageband.plist

If all fails, try to reinstall GarageBand - move the application to the Trash and download it again from the AppStore.

. Re: GarageBand '11 won't download additional loops

Regards

Léonie

Unfortunately, none of this works for me. I bought a Mac Mini from an Apple store a few weeks ago. It has the latest software (apparently), and Garage Band basically seems to work. But the clicking on the "extra" instruments tries to initiate an update process that simply never works.

As far as I can tell, the extra instrument download doesn't work for anyone anywhere ever.

Pretty frustrating.

As far as I can tell, the extra instrument download doesn't work for anyone anywhere ever.

I am sorry to hear it is not working for you.

But believe me, there are plenty of happy GarageBand Users where the additional contents did download and install without any problems. I just reinstalled my system and GarageBand and everything installed as advertised. In these forums you usually only see the users posting who are having problems, not the ones without problems.

I'm having similar problems. New Mac Mini but can't download the extra instruments. I had bought the latest Garageband in the MAS before my new Mac Mini, but I can't download the extra instruments on my new Mac Mini (with GB pre-installed) or on my old MacBook, where I installed from the App Store.

Something is not right here!

I'm in more or less the same boat. My MBA came with Garageband and it's able to update, but my new iMac has been unable. I wonder if this is a MAS problem where I 'accepted' Garageband on the MBA, so it's confused about it's status on the iMac? I've tried every 'tip' I could find but so far it refuses to update.

Is there a way I can transfer the instruments and loops from my MBA to the iMac and trick it to think it's done the update?

You could copy the instruments library and the loop library, then rebuild the loop index:

The Instruments Library needs to go into:

/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/Instrument Library/

and the loops into

/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/

When all has been transferred, reindex the loops: See Rebuilding the Loop Index in GarageBand

I don't know if posting this now is useless, but it turns out if you hit CMD+R at the "No updates available" screen, the GarageBand update will pop up. Worked for me!

YOU ARE GENIUS.

work for me 🙂 🙂 🙂

new imac !

mountain lion.

thank u !!

Holy crap, I was seconds away from reinstalling the entire program! CMD+R and voila. thanks a bunch, man. worked perfectly.

but. . . .what the heck is CMD+R anyway? how does it access stuff that should be accessed automatically?

It's a shortcut for "Reload", just like in Safari, Chrome, etc.

For some reason the update doesn't come up automatically, at least I'm glad I got it to work! (:

Perfect! I'm downloading now. Thanks!