Big Sur – Installation failed An error occurred while installing the selected updates.

45 thoughts on “Big Sur – Installation failed An error occurred while installing the selected updates.”

1. Pingback: An Unexpected Error Has Occurred The Troubleshooting Assistant Cannot Be Continued - Secured Guide

2. Hello sir,
   I hope you are safe and sound. I have got MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017), 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 and would like to install mcOS Big sur but the problem is; (1) it take too long to download, (2) when it reaches to its last part, Big Sur Error 3 occurs.

   May I know how to overcome this problem. I am not so good on computer. Would you please send me a link so I can click to automatically download and install the Big Sur for MacBook air?

   Thank you so much in advance and truly appreciate your great cooperation and capacity building for new commerce
   Dr. Hekmat Sial
   Afghanistan

3. Hello,
   I have MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017), version 10.12.6 and now I want to install mcOS Big Sur.

   First it shows about 140 hours 30 minutes or so to update and when it reach to last part it shows a message
   The operation could not be completed . (PKDownloadError Error 3.)

   May I know how to fix it?

4. Due to a couple of errors on my part, I needed to “cleanse” my 2017 MacBook Pro which was running OS 11.2 beta, this morning. It is now evening with lots of intervening events and I am have finally come round to doing exactly what you laid out above. It is Catalina which is being loaded. I will hold off on upgrading to Big Sur for a few days to let myself cool off.

   Oddly, I have been running Big Sur beta since the spring and had not seen this problem before. Yes, early on, I had to wipe the SSD clean and laying everything back in a couple of times and never saw this problem till today.

   Oddly, mine wanted me to move over into Target mode, even though it was nowhere close to having completed laying out the operating system? Any idea of what that was about?

5. UPDATE: I’ve already installed macOS Big Sur by clean installing, downgrading then upgrading. But be sure to backup your device before you do this and check if it’s compatible with the latest OS (check here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211238)

   1. BACKUP YOUR DEVICE using a external hard drive.
   2. Restart your device.
   3. While it’s off, press and hold Command-R until the Apple logo appears. This should put your Mac on recovery mode (For more information on recovery mode, please check: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255).
   4. Open disk utility and erase MacOS Data-HD and select the extended version. This should empty your drive.
   5. Use first aid on MacOS to make sure there are no errors.
   6. Restart your Mac again.
   7. Before it turns on, press and hold Option-Command-R until the globe icon appears. It’ll take a few minutes before the internet recovery interface opens.
   8. Select reinstall the original MacOS version (e.g. Yosemite). This should downgrade your OS. When it’s over, it’ll restart your device.
   9. When the Mac is already open using the older version of MacOS, open the AppStore and find macOS Big Sur.
   10. Download macOS Big Sur through the AppStore. The upgrade should go smoothly as you have previously emptied the drive. It’ll restart after the upgrade is done.
   11. When your Mac is already open, find Migration Assistant and access the your last backup in your external drive.

   Had to wait for the holidays just to get this done and over with! Hope you find this helpful!

   1. Any tips for an iMac that won’t download either MacOS? I originally received the circle-line once when I booted up. Followed directions to clean the disk and make an extended journaled one. I followed directions for Recovery and downloaded Big Sur, but said an error occurred after downloading. I went a step further and did Command + R so it only said Mac Utilities and downloaded Catalina, the original MacOS for it. It downloaded, restarted, and got a screen that said the MacOS couldn’t install and to check Diagnostics. Ran Diagnostics, everything is fine. Sounds like a problem on Apple’s end in MacOS software, but any help appreciated.

6. Getting a message that an error occurred applying software update. Can’t get
   into anything, reboot brings up the Apple and shows 29% and goes right back to the error message. I’m very frustrated and don’t have a clue where to go from here!

   1. I’m having the same exact problem Mary. I am just commenting so that I will get notifications for any further responses. My screen also gets locked there. I’m currently trying a cycle of shutting down, restarting, retrying

      1. Im following Tim and Mary because I’m in the phone now with Apple support and I will let you know.
         So far we have had to wait to ask an upper level senior advisor…I’m currently waiting to see if they have a solution other than that it has to go into the Apple store for repair.

      2. You will either need to try to reinstall from your time machine if you backed up to there.

         Or reinstall MacOS like I did, only because I don’t recall when I last did time machine. (My daughter had my MacBook for over a year for school).

         Hold down the power button until your MacBook shuts down. Wait a few seconds.

         Push your power button to turn your MacBook on and quickly simultaneously push and hold the Command-Option-R keys for approximately “7” seconds and release when the screen prompts you to select a network.

         Select your network enter your network pw.

         After completing this press and hold down your power button to shut the MacBook off.

         Once it has completely powered off wait a few seconds then push the power button to turn your MacBook on and quickly press and hold the Command-R keys until either a loading screen or utility screen appears.

         Once you are at the login screen at the top left select Erase Mac I believe is the name of the selection you should select.

         Follow the prompts to erase and reinstall the selected macOS on the Macintosh HD.

         This should fix it.
         Mine just barely ran into an error at the very end of the install…
         I’ll just repeat it and see what happens. If anything else I will be calling them again asking for an appointment.

         Good luck ?

7. I’ve a solution. Register your Mac for public beta testing. Download installer, launch it and you’ll get a public final release. Not beta.

8. I’m getting this below error
   Making read-only compressed disk image containing Install macOS Big Sur.app…
   …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
   hdiutil: create failed – internal error
   Command ‘[u’/usr/bin/hdiutil’, u’create’, u’-fs’, u’HFS+’, u’-srcfolder’, u’/private/tmp/dmg.GUM9cu/Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app’, u’./Install_macOS_11.0.1-20B50.dmg’]’ returned non-zero exit status 1

   Is there a fix for this.

   1. I just used the disk utility to erase the drive and then formatted it GUID with Mac OS Extended Journaled, then used createinstallmedia to write the image. Didn’t get any errors that way.

9. I TRIED to install Big Sur on late 2015 iMac 21.5″ 8gb RAM, 1TB HD and it bricked my whole computer. Tried internet restore around 5 different ways with Apple support on chat because phone lines were backed up. Wouldn’t recognize HDD, first aid on HDD and HDD Data failed, HDD appeared unmounted. Couldn’t restore from external because there was supposedly no HDD. Ran diagnostics and was told HDD had no errors. Had to restore using Shift+Command+Ctrl+R and delete all data, using GUID. Took 5 hours to get back to OS X El Capitan. Took about a week to get back to 10.15.7 Catalina Will not be installing Big Sur on this device. I’m good with Catalina.
   This is a repost. Email was incorrect on original

10. Hi! I’ve already downloaded the full installer twice, but in both cases, the installation won’t proceed because the installer is supposedly ‘damaged’.

    1. I had 3 different USB drives. I used createinstallmedia on all three. 2 of the 3 were giving the error that the InstallAssistant was damaged. The 3rd drive worked and I got it installed. I even got WiFi working on my late 2012 Mac Mini.

       You may have to try multiple different USB drives before you get one that will function correctly.

11. I keep getting an error that the InstallAssistant is damaged. Seems like it’s related to the micro patcher. The installer will start within Mac OS but it’s not patched. I’ve tried different USB drives and still get the error.

    1. Big Sur has been an absolute nightmare for me to install as well. Software update errors, downloading the standalone installing package and creating the install file also has issues. Creating a bootable USB also errors out when installing from that. Downloading Big Sur via Internet Recovery also errors out. You are not alone! Pretty much rolling back to Catalina and giving up soon. Been an Apple person for many years–and am pretty tech savy. I have clean installed OS after OS for years–but this IS ridiculous. I have literally spent an entire day trying to get Big Sur on my Mac, and I STILL can’t get it to install.

       1. I found yet another 32GB USB drive. Followed the process again. I was finally able to get the installer to run. It’s currently installing. I’m sure it’s still gonna be rough if it completes successfully. But, this isn’t my main computer or anything. It’s really just a convenient little box to bring over to people’s houses that don’t have a smart TV, roku, fire stick, etc… Sure I could just bring one of those devices, but I would rather have a full OS to work with. It keeps my brain lubricated getting things like this to run. 🙂

       2. Same here! Bricked my late 2015 iMac. Had to completely erase HDD but that took 5 hours because it didn’t recognize HDD. Calling what I went through a nightmare is being kind

12. Hello!
    I,ve had this issue with MBP late2018.
    Apple support direct me to repair shop (we don’t have official Istores or “Genius”). This is getting outrageously big, some older 2013/14 machines getting “bricked “!? Some people are disconecting internally I/O with positive results!? Any new ideas on what the hell is going on?

13. Does anybody know if Apple has fixed the upgrade issue yet? I’m not going to start another Big Sur download until I know it’s safe.

14. Same issue but don’t know where to get accès to terminal while on the black screen with logo. Please help

    1. Hi, Bravado: I was in the same boat, but Mr. Macintosh got me going [thanks!]. Power your computer down, then plug in your time machine back up. Then power back up while holding the option key down. You’ll then get a screen that will allow you to toggle between your time machine back up and the Big Sur installer. Pick your own backup from there, and your desktop will be rebuild.

15. any updates yet? I still cannot download the update. And it’s now 11/15.

    1. Nothing…now 16 of November and I still unable to download it. Holy God, I hate to see that red mark dot in my System Preference.

16. I seemed download Big Sur OK and then as part of install it started to reboot and fails at same point each time. Recover to previous OS does not work. Downloading BS agin did not help. Cannot restore from backup as will not connect to NAS!
    Stuffed!
    Waiting for Apple Support call on Monday

17. I was four hours into the Big Sur download this morning and then my screen went black. My screen is dark except for a message that says “An error occured when applying the software update.” I can still access the Mac Update Assistant from my top menu, but I have no other commands other than to restart or power down. And I can’t boot from my Time Machine backup because I can’t see my Catalina desktop. Any suggestions?

    1. Dave, it’s possible that you can boot back into the os but first are you connected to wifi in the update assistant screen?

       Also reboot and hold down option. do you see Macintosh HD and macOS installer icons ?

       1. Same issue with only macOS installer and wifi networks options

       2. I have the same issue, my mac (MacBook Air 2019) downloaded the update from system preferences and went into the mac installer page (the black screen with the apple logo and the little white bar telling you how much was done) and when it was about 15 minutes remaining a little window popped up and it said an error occurred while applying the update. I then restarted my computer and it went to the catalina start page and after I typed in my password it went back to the mac installer page (the same one as before)
          Please help with this as I need it for an exam today.
          Thanks

          1. Ishaan, I had to go back to my Time Machine backup and rebuild with last-week’s backup. So I’m back to Catalina.

       3. Hi Mr. Macintosh. I am experiencing the exact same thing. I just rebooted and held down the “option” key. Now I see the macOS installer icon. I do not see a Macintosh HD icon, though. Where should I go from here?

    2. I have the same thing… so frustrating
       Did you get any reply to your question?? Or is apple leaving you hanging?

       1. Hi Joan: I ended up having to reinstall my most recent time machine backup. So I’m back to OS Catalina, which is just fine – but I bet there are a whole lot of people who are looking at a black computer screen with no backup. I think Apple has really stepped in it, this time.

18. I’m still getting the “An error occurred while installing the selected updates.” on one of my computers as of 6pm est November 13.

    1. Finally got it with Curl!

       curl -H “Host: swcdn.apple.com” 8.248.93.252/content/downloads/50/49/001-79699-A_93OMDU5KFG/dkjnjkq9eax1n2wpf8rik5agns2z43ikqu/InstallAssistant.pkg –output ~/Desktop/InstallAssistant.pkg

       Things that didn’t work: SMC/NVRAM, Safe Boot, download from app store, the link that sysin posted below.

19. Hiya.

    New Security and Safari for Mojave today too.

    I’m waiting this time. Have you heard of any problems yet?

    1. Guess not…

20. Do you think Apple blocked users temporarily to help balance the load on their servers?

21. Now work well ，thanks

    Downloading http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/50/49/001-79699-A_93OMDU5KFG/dkjnjkq9eax1n2wpf8rik5agns2z43ikqu/InstallAssistant.pkg…
    % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
    Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
    0 11.3G 0 87.8M 0 0 1554k 0 2:07:32 0:00:57 2:06:35 1308k^C

    1. Failed again…

       1. Is this final version?

    2. Unable to open this link

22. Apple reports that Big Sur has been pulled to solve the “interruption” causing OSCP issue, which caused Macs to lock up with no warning, since they couldn’t validate codesigning.

Comments are closed.