Garageband was not able to install the new sounds

Helge1972 wrote:

...as if they were two completely different programs.

they are.

sounds good then. 🙂 I haven't upgraded to Yosemite yet. I was just wondering if you are having any problems with Garageband or Logic Pro with Yosemite?

I do not use GB myself, my daughter does and she has used it a lot lately on my other Mac. She has not said anything so I guess it is all good. She does not have Logic Pro.

Thank you very much!

I've tried everything including deleting literally everything inside the /private/var/folders directory and I am still getting the same error. I'm on a fresh install of Yosemite but can't even run GarageBand at all as every time I launch it I get the downloading components screen followed by a password prompt and then immediately the error message that it can't be installed and to close and relaunch to try again. I've removed the app and reinstalled, too. I don't want to have to deal with installing Logic as this is just used for simple podcasting and audio editing and, for my purposes, GarageBand is more than usable. I'd really love to see someone from Apple reply to this thread.

So I have done all the suggestions in this whole thread and still the problem has not been resolved... the same thing happens to me 100% all the time. I am currently not updated to Yosemite though.... would that be the problem.

If you are only using it for podcasting then I don't understand why would would need all those extra loops and instruments that come with the download?

I don't want to download all the loops and stuff like that. I don't need them. I don't think you understand. I did a fresh install of Yosemite. I installed GarageBand. When I go to launch GarageBand it gives me this message about HAVING to download all the extra loops and stuff and I can't do anything but watch it fail. I can't cancel out of the download, I can't ignore it, I can't do anything but watch it attempt to "finish installing" and fail.

If there was a way I could launch it without all this stuff I would.

Have you figured this out? I don't know if I have an answer for you, but I got something to work for me.

I based it off of lijoesat's post above:

"Hey guys... i found something that might help.. http://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/case-of-the-continually-failing-g arageband-software-update-macos/ "- (please read the rest of his post for better context)

I got to the /private/var/folders, but then had to go my own way because I have Mavericks, which handles updates and download through the App Store app.

Here is my thread (bear with me): /private/var/folders/pw/gq1y5c9n3b3gpy1yz5xqt26c0000gn/C/com.apple.garageband10 /com.apple.MusicApps

Probably not going to be the same for you, who knows. But what I found in this folder were some installers (the ones that have icons that look like little open cardboard boxes). I tried clicking on them and one of them gave me an error over and over. So, I deleted it. It seems the next time my Garage Band tried to download the loops, it did it successfully, and then actually installed them. I check, and the loops are no longer greyed out - they seem to be there. And all those installers disappeared.

Even if this doesn't work exactly for you, the answer may be to delete something in that folder related to updates or installers that may be glitchy. If there is an Apple expert that could verify this for me, I'd appreciate it.

Update: I just noticed that Helge1972 seemed to already figure this out before me - great! So, let us know if this works for you, lindsaybits, and mark it as answered so others will find it helpful, too.

Same problem. I tried safe mode and I tried deleting my entire cache folder (that seemed to help a little). Made sure I was signed in too just in case I didn't have the permissions to install the new sounds.

I usually use Pro-tools because so many people I work with do but wanted to try Garageband because I thought it would sound great and have an awesome UX. I guess not. I'm a big Apple fan but if I were them, I would fix this issue or just not sell the app, makes me realize not everything Apple does is well thought out. The sounds that did load were pretty good which made me even more angry.

O...M...G! After months of trying to get Garageband 10 to load the extra content, I did it! Thanks community. Yeeha!

@Fprefect444, my comp can't even find any of those folders. And I'm on OSX 10.9.4 with the new GarageBand. Also not able to download the sounds :-(

Lou, you're saying the find command returned nothing? If so, perhaps the directories are not on your system because Garageband, for whatever reason, did not download anything, zilch. In my case the download went on for some time until I was asked to type the admin password for the install. That's when things went badly. But the files (packages actually) were there waiting for me to double-click them as I described.

Just to be thorough, copy and paste the find command into a terminal window just to be sure there is no typo...

find /private/var/folders -print | grep -i garageband

If that does not work, grep for the last component of the directory I found on my system, like this...

find /private/var/folders -print | grep -i lp10_ms3_content_2013

I just tried both commands to be sure they worked. They did, for me at least. By the way, I am on OSX 10.10 so I am pretty sure we are compatible.

One more thought, try this nuclear search to be sure files are not cached somewhere before they get moved into the directories I noted in my posting...

sudo find / -print 2> /dev/null | grep -i 'garageband.*\.pkg'

Good luck, and let me know how it went.

p.s. Disappointed to learn the new Garageband does not include the smart instruments available on iOS. You're suppose to compose it on your iOS device then copy the song to your Mac. Not kidding.

You can go to this folder easier, fprefect444. What you are viewing is $TMPDIR

Paste this into a Terminal window:

open $TMPDIR

This will open a Finder window, and you can browse the folder in the Finder and easily access the temporary files:

If someone is not comfortable with the Terminal as you are, browsing the directory from the Finder makes it easier to see, what will be deleted.

Instead of deleting the folders, it is probably necessary to repair the permissions and the ownership for $TMPDIR, if the installer cannot remove the partial downloads on its own.

Hi Léonie, well sure, use $TMPDIR if you want to do it the easy way. Did not know that. That is helpful.

Unfortunately for this discussion, anyway, my apple.com.garageband10 directory was empty. I was only guessing as to why Lou_Cos could not find all those garageband packages I found on my system.

Now that I think about it, looking at all those "*.pkg.resumeDataMA" files I found in my "lp10_ms3_content_2013" directory, it seems Garage Band 10 is downloading those files directly into the "lp10_ms3_content_2013" directory as it gets them, so there is apparently no other cache directory.

And as you say, not everyone is comfortable using Terminal and good ol' Unix/Linux commands, which is really curious considering the impressive effort Apple goes to to make things "just work". Yet getting Garage Band 10 to download and "install" its core content (i.e., filename "MAContent10_GarageBandCoreContent.pkg" and "MAContent10_GarageBandCoreContent_v3.pkg") for many of us at least, requires Terminal.

p.s. I have tried fixing permissions per the disk disk utility. No joy. Maybe certain permissions need to be changed to something other than what the disk utility thinks they are suppose to be. Just a thought. Oh, here's another one...or three... How about a little fixer utility from Apple to solve this old problem, OR a place where users with this problem can go to download the packages directly, OR an upgrade to Garage Band that fixes this bug?