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

YES! After trying the Google DNS and running the script as suggested earlier in the terminal window, nothing changed. But using the UK DNS (84.45.85.23) seems to be working! From 5 days to 1.5 hours.. still going.

I too am using Telus (from Victoria).

Fingers crossed... 🙂

I am also a Telus Optik Internet customer with 15Mbps service. I can confirm that I have been experiencing this problem for many days now as well. I initially thought it was that Apple's servers were overloaded so I kept trying. Then I went on a business trip to Denver and brought my Macbook along to see if I could do the Yosemite update. It downloaded in just over 1 hour, whereas from home (over Telus) it kept saying 5+ days and would always crap out.

When I got back from the business trip I tried again with another device, thinking the Apple backlog had cleared, but same problem. That got me to checking the forums and I found this forum as well as another on Apple forums that confirmed that this seems to be a Telus specific issue. I tried the Google DNS suggestion that seems to be solving the problem for some out there, but to no avail.

I broke down and called Telus technical support. The first level support had not heard of this issue, but I offered to email him the forum links I found on the topic which confirmed many people were experiencing similar issues. This got him to escalate it to their Premier support, who was aware of the issue and they had apparently already logged a ticket with Apple because the belief is that there is a connectivity issue between Telus and the Apple servers, but they aren't sure where the source of the problem lies.

My gut feeling is that Telus may be throttling traffic to/from Apple with the expectation that a lot of people would be downloading Yosemite and IOS 8. Why can't Canada get its act together and enforce net neutrality?

I would encourage any and all of you who are experiencing this problem to report it to Telus so they get innundated with calls about the issue. Also, if you're so inclined you could report it to your local MP to get net neutrality on the government's agenda.

UPDATE: I tried the recommendation of using the UK DNS (84.45.85.23) as a last ditch effort, even though I had already tried the Google DNS servers without any luck. I'm happy to report that using the UK DNS resolved the issue. I hope this helps Telus to find out the source of the problem. Thanks to those of you who made this suggestion. You're a saviour!

I reported on a slow download in this forum last Thursday. I am also a Telus Optik user. After two sessions with Telus (not their problem they say, talk to Apple) and one discussion with an Apple tech who admitted he was puzzled with the slow response. This AM, I had the idea to disconnect the TV lead from the router and resume downloading. Download went from 0.4 GB/hr to 1.16 GB/hr. So happy to say Yosemite is up and running.

This worked great! It brought my download time from 1 day 20 hours to under an hour! Thanks!

Had the same problem here in NYC. Yosemite download was slated to take 2 days. I changed the DNS settings as directed by Frank252 and the download will now take 20 minutes. Thanks for the fix.

Got a message that there was an update 10.10.2 but it took 3 hours for the update to download. Works fine, but 3 hours?

The Combo of Frank252 and ryanbr's suggestions are what worked for me. My internet speed is over 100 mbs and I went from an estimated 9 hours to an estimated 48 minutes.

Thanks a lot guys!

Just to add to the other answers with another thing that influences download speed while using Yosemite. I was getting pretty slow download performance so started watching with Activity Monitor set to showing Network. The display showed little blips of network activity. So, used the thing on the application menu to hide everything except Activity Monitor. The difference was dramatic.

I thought to take a screen shot, which I hope is included here. Guess where along the timeline I hid all the apps? I got this difference in download performance from lots of sites, not just Apple. I'm using a 5K Retina iMac so I'm guessing it is pretty busy polling every process that uses the screen in preference to serving the network transfer.

The other thing you need to do is to change the Energy Saver prefs so that it doesn't put things to sleep or slow the disk down when the display shuts off.

Regards-

Jan

As mentioned earlier here the problem seems to be NOT restricted to TELUS. Had the same problem over here in Switzerland and tried the suggestion using a VPN connection. The download of the actual Yosemite beta all of a sudden took about six minutes as opposed to the 24 hours estimated before.

same issues too - extremely slow download yosemite os 😟

It's really super stupid that they force you to download through their uncomfortable app store and then they can't technically support issues like this slow download. With super speed connection I am just waiting forever now.

There is not even a progress bar to show if it is downloading or it is dead. Understand your suffer. Outrageous!

I connected to a RTP (NC) VPN from my office (which is in San Jose) and the download time went to 1Hr 8 minutes from earlier 6 days and 3 hours...

You dont even have to pause the download while you connect to VPN. While its downloading, just connect to some other VPN and see the download time recalculated to much much less...

Hello guys. Same problem here in Romania also on all my 4 devices in the house: mac, two iphones, one ipad. Painfull speeds of 10-12KB/s when using either my ISP's DNS or even google's DNS. Both appstore and software updates download at a very slow speed while everything else works pefect.

I really do not know what the issue is, even the tech guys from the ISP are having a hard time understanding what on earth is going on.

I've solved my problem for now by using another ISP's DNS servers from Romania and seems that with these it works.

In case you guys wanna try them out here they are:

213.154.124.1 and secondary 193.231.252.1

Here is info from Canada:

We use Xplornet wi-max style wireless @ a rural location. Downloads from Apple were *very* slow. Nothing worked. Any downloaded from Apple servers caused network speed to crash from 2.5 mbps to roughtly 300kbps - that is basically dialup speed. But ONLY on Apple downloads. Just bought an Apple MacBook Pro, and am downloading the development stuff which was not provided on any sort of CD with machine (really bad idea, Apple.. here is why...). I checked everything II could think of, as all other network access at our rural location works fine - ie. we can stream Youtube videos, run Skype, no problem. So I called the tech-support at Xplornet, and asked them "Do you throttle Apple iStore traffic?" And GUESS WHAT - the woman who answered confirmed that that is exactly what they do. Some kind of nasty (and I thought, illegal) use of packet-inspection to cut the download speed from our typical 2.5mbps to 300kbps - and this is during "peak hours", which for these people at Xplornet, means (get this..) 8:00am to 1:00am, next day!! The Xplornet representative says they have not defrauded us, but I think I might find a different legal opinion if I inquire further. We bought and paid for a high-speed wi-max connection, located on top of a 50-foot tower, and we are getting 300kbps, AND THAT IS BY DESIGN! This link typically works correctly, at reasonable speeds - EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF ANY ACCESS TO APPLE iSTORE!. Perhaps the Xplornet ISP assumes some folks are downloading music, and they are dumb teenagers, and can be easily and legitimately cheated? I am trying to install the Apple Development software (the machine came without even a "c" compiler, and the download has been running for a couple of hours now. At the very least, I thought folks should be alerted to this issue. Why would Apple's legal team tolerate this deliberate assault on the operation of one of their key products? And why would an ISP damage its own customers so agressively? It seems both morally wrong, and economically foolish.

Just for confirmation, I attached an old Windows box, and looked at the network activity in the Task Manager/Networking display. I attached the image. Yes, it really is 300kbps, as per what our Xplornet ISP does deliberately to Apple download users.

With the Xplornet transponder connected to a 100 mbps LAN card, we get 0.3% of 100mbps, or 300,000bps. Flat-lined, we are.

This is just a wrong thing to do to your paying customers.

- GEMESYS Canada.