I'm beginning to feel worried about how much it takes to install recent Xcode updates. An hour ago, I clicked on the "update" button for Xcode 7.1.1 in App Store. It spent about 30 minutes waiting, and then another 30 minutes installing (and has not finished yet)... is this normal? I've been developing on Mac since Tiger, and Xcode updates have always been a matter of a few minutes... are you experiencing these times too, or is there anything wrong with my iMac?
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macOS Worrying installation time of Xcode updates
- Thread starter asiga
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I did notice both my MacBook Pro & iMac took ages when it said installing, haven't noticed this before but this update took forever
For some reason it takes a very long time to update Xcode, even on a very fast network, on a computer with a fast SSD.
I have gigabit fiber and a super fast SSD and it took ages for the 7.1.1 Xcode update for me as well.
Finally it took slightly more than an hour for me (mid-2010 iMac, with spinner HD). About 30min wait, and 40min download+installation.
There're several things I really dislike regarding this. In no particular order:
Yes, this is a rant, but it's pretty similar to the rant that made me switch to the Mac, and even Apple used it in their commercials when the Mac did most of the things right while Windows did them wrong.
There're several things I really dislike regarding this. In no particular order:
- The confusing duplication of installation progress bars in the App Store application and the Launchpad. It's confusing not only because the installation progress could be monitored in two different and unrelated places, but because the progress bars seem to be broken in the App Store: they work sometimes, they don't work most of the times. In Launchpad they always work. Why did you do this, Apple? OS X has always provided a solid appearance. This new policy for showing installation progress is weak and partially broken. I really miss those days when you saw a very reputable Aqua progress bar in Tiger: It really gave you the feeling that installation would finish successfully even in case of nuclear threat.
- The weight. Should a minor update be more than a 4GB download? And that's compressed, man!!
- The long wait at the end of the progress bar. Installation seems to be finished, the progress bar is almost at the end, but... it will take about 20 minutes more for installation to finish. What are you doing here, Apple? I mean, is the 4GB download the Xcode source code and we're compiling Xcode on our machines, or what? It looks like a joke.
Yes, this is a rant, but it's pretty similar to the rant that made me switch to the Mac, and even Apple used it in their commercials when the Mac did most of the things right while Windows did them wrong.
That's something that's been bugging me I click update all in the AppStore and things start downloading then the buttons all go back to Update yet the Launchpad shows the apps downloading.
I prefer using the command line interface instead of the Mac App Store for updating apps.
I forget the exact flags you need, but the name of the command is softwareupdate. You'll want the maximum level of verbose. It gives you a lot more details as to what's going on instead of just a progress bar.
I forget the exact flags you need, but the name of the command is softwareupdate. You'll want the maximum level of verbose. It gives you a lot more details as to what's going on instead of just a progress bar.
In some cases, yes. No need to worry.
True: what's shown in App Store is sometimes misleading, or inconsistent with the states of things at a particular time.
Console is our friend; you can view logs relating to Installer and/or App Store.
I assume that you use Yosemite (OS X 10.9.5) or El Capitan, I don't know which.
http://superuser.com/a/997722/84988 draws attention to the value of Instruments, but it may be not sensible to use Instruments whilst updating Xcode.
If you use Yosemite, please see http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/214787/8546 – you can tell us whether File Control is compatible.
Bottom line: there's much to Xcode. Expect installation and updates to be time-consuming. To understand the consumption, see what happens with (at least) the file system during that time.
This pretty much sums up my experience with Xcode updates, and many other installs from the Mac App store too. I have also had issues with with downloading the doc sets for Xcode after an update.
Apple should really look into this and clean up the errors and inconsistencies that show up when using the Mac App store. It is far more frustrating than it should be.
They should also figure out how to do incremental updates for huge applications like Xcode.
