New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on January 07, 2021) follows:
Software updates are meant to address existing bugs and bring about new features and performance enhancements. But what if the update process itself is riddled with issues?
Well, that’s exactly what macOS users that are trying to hop onto the Big Sur 11.1 bandwagon have been facing for around a month now.
The latest version of macOS (for now) was made available to the general public on December 14. And ever since, several users have been struggling to get their Macs updated.
According to complaints, macOS does display a prompt saying that an update to Big Sur 11.1 is available. But carrying forward with the update process leads to some unexpected behavior.
A system crash dialog is displayed soon after the process and the update simply fails to install. This is apparent from the fact that “System preferences” continues to display the macOS version as 11.0.1.
If you are one of the users facing this issue, then worry not, for it has an easy enough workaround.
This has solved the problem for most users. To boot into safe mode, you need to hold down the Shift key before starting up the device until the login screen shows up.
There are also several reports doing rounds about the Big Sur 11.1 update failing to download completely by getting stuck on “preparing” at the end.
macOS Big Sur 11.1 update fails to complete download
In this case, you can simply try downloading and installing the update manually through this App Store link.
Hopefully, the above-mentioned instructions have finally landed you onto Big Sur 11.1. If you are interested in more issues like these along with their resolutions, then be sure to check out our Big Sur issues tracker.
Reports coming in can confirm that the issue still persists even after the latest Big Sur 11.2 update.
Update 1 (February 08)
Below is a screenshot of the error message affected users are getting when trying to install macOS Big Sur 11.2 update.
And just like was the case with 11.1, affected users unable to switch to 11.2 can do by getting the new firmware straight from the App Store.
According to MacRumors, the latest macOS Big Sur 11.2.1 update has addressed the issue where some users have been unable to download and/or install the new OS.
Update 2 (February 16)
Update32 (August 09)
IST 14:02 pm: New reports now indicate that some users are facing this issue when trying to update their Mac to macOS 11.5
One of the suggested workarounds involves opening the terminal and typing in softwareupdate -i -a –force. This should fix the bug, and has been tried with success on both my intel and M1 laptops.
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