Yosemite download is insanely slow (nothing wrong with my network)

Thanks so much, this worked perfectly for me! I'm assuming I just remove the 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and change it back to the original once it's done?

Yes you can return to your original DNS settings or just leave them set to Google's or set it to another public DNS such as OpenDNS.

The local (Vancouver BC area) Telus DNS server I was using when I had the super-slow Yosemite download was 75.153.176.1. I think that is what I was using anyway, that was my secondary DNS, my primary DNS pointed to my router I think and I'm guessing it got the same DNS IP address from the Telus system, somehow (I'm definitely not a network guy!). I had 1 or 2 previous problems with slow downloads of updates from Apple.

People who are having the slow Yosemite download could try contacting their ISP and maybe they will have some idea about what is going on.

Same thing is happening to me. I have tried all the above suggestions, too. Repeatedly.

Out of curiosity, how many of you were Yosemite beta users? I was signed up to be a beta user, but I could never download the betas either. This is purely speculation on my part, but I wonder if maybe all beta people are getting shunted to the same download server at Apple and we are all crushing it.

Solution:

Same here in Switzerland today. Just start and stop the update about 4 - 6 times and check the progress line inbetween.

I had 300 MB in two hours an now 1 GB in 5 minutes - and it's rushing on ... 🙂

Oh I bet Apple's server admins will just love a bunch of us thrashing their servers with disconnect/connect requests by pausing/resuming our downloads in an attempt to speed things up. But hey, I don't work for Apple so I tried it anyway! Still didn't help.

akces wrote:

Same thing is happening to me. I have tried all the above suggestions, too. Repeatedly.

Out of curiosity, how many of you were Yosemite beta users? [...]

fyi not a Yosemite beta user here. also, when I first noticed the slow download speed, I wasn't using my local ISP's (Telus) DNS servers, but instead I'm usually pointed to OpenDNS servers. my network speed to other sites otherwise is fine, it's just the Apple downloads these past couple days.

anyhow so I left the download running overnight, after switching DNS servers to google's. at that point yesterday, probably 12hrs or so into it, the download had completed less than 400MB. this morning I checked and there was a message saying the download had failed and a suggestion to restart it. I pressed Resume and it looks like it picked up where it left off, about 1.3GB completed - now download is continuing to crawl along.... showing 1~2 days left 😟

luckily I decided to updated a secondary Mac first, so I can just leave it running and it won't affect my other tasks while I use my main Mac. If the speed doesn't increase, once it is finally done I think I'm going to save the installer file and make a USB flash drive version of the install to use on my other Mac...

My download is getting slower and slower as it goes. I have tried every DNS I can find. OpenDNS, Google, local ISP, my dog. And yes I tried the cache flush and rebooting the DNS responder process. Nothing changed for me.

I am guessing that they are just getting overwhelmed with Yose downloads and iOS 8.1 downloads. But it is odd that Apple with its super data center(s) can't handle this. Maybe they can use their $8.5B profit from last quarter to bring some more servers online. Or maybe they shouldn't have discontinued the Mac Mini server after all!

Thanks a lot! This solved it for me. From days to 20 minutes of waiting! Stopped first time and resumed and got down to 2 hours. Paused and resumed again and now 20 minutes. Worked for me.

DEFINITELY DNS PROBLEMS - thanks Frank252!

My DNS was set to the OpenDNS addresses (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220) and AppStore was telling me to come back tomorrow morning (8+ hrs).

Changed DNS in Network Settings to the Google IPs (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) and hit pause then resume on the download and it's jumped to 25mins.

So switch DNS even if temporarily as seems there's DNS problems on the web atm.

Glad the DNS swap is working for others. Really frustrating it isn't working for me. I'm gonna try it again. For like the 10th time. Btw, what ISPs are you other people on? I am on Mediacom in Iowa for both work and home.

I was a Yosemite Beta user and am now trying to download the full version. I changed my DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and it didn't fix the issue. Still slow as molasses.

I tried restarting my computer after the change and no luck. I even cancelled (not paused) my download and restarted it. No luck.

Note: I tried to change my DNS back to the original one. When I clicked the "-" to remove the 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, my old addresses came back.

I have ruled out the beta being an issue with this because I also tried updating my kid's iMac and she wasn't a beta tester. Same slow issue using Google's DNS on her computer as I am experiencing on mine. Good news is only 1 day 17 hours left for me. 3 days for her! Should have 10.10 installed before 10.11 comes out.

It definitely seems to be a problem in Western Canada (I am also located near Vancouver and use Telus as my ISP). I've been trying all day to download iTunes 12.0.1 and/or Yosemite, but it was extremely slow and prone to errors in the download. I thought I had the security update downloaded twice, only to get a message about errors and the installation was aborted.

After reading your post about the geographical reason, I switched on my VPN to the UK. I now have iTunes and the security update downloaded & installed. Yosemite is now downloading at a much more decent speed (it's calculating less than an hour). 🙂

Been struggling with this since Saturday morning. Interestingly, while watching my Yosemite update trickle in at a snails pace I decided to download the latest Garage Band update. While the estimated time for the 5 gig OS update was several days, the 500MB Garage Band update downloaded (simultaneously) in 3 minutes making me think this is a Yosemite specific issue and not a general Apple server issue.

I'm also in the Vancouver area (Telus) and will try Frank252's suggestion. I'll let y'all know if it does the trick.