Big Sur Can't Find Updates

[cwaldrip]

Trying to get users upgraded to the latest Big Sur. Software Update shows a red button indicator, but on opening it never finishes looking for updates. The softwareupdate -l command shows a similar result... it just sits until it's cancelled.

I thought it was a configuration profile, but I excluded my test machines from any OS deferral.

Next I thought that it was because we had been using the --ignore-update switch in softwareupdate command to ignore OS updates in Catalina or earlier. But if that carried over I can't undo it (--reset-ignored is no longer a switch) and it probably wouldn't even try to look for Big Sur updates if it was still applied.

Looking into a way to upgrade the OS to Monterey and the erase-install project isn't immediately possible because softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer just seems to spin its wheels as well.

I guess I can download Monterey, and push it up to our Jamf server, and deploy that down to the clients when they're ready to upgrade.

No alternative softwareupdate server or caching server are used in our org.

Any thoughts on why Software Update can't finish finding updates? or softwareupdate can't fetch a full install?

[sdagley]

@cwaldrip Use the --pkg option (see https://github.com/grahampugh/erase-install/wiki/3.-Downloading-(caching)-a-macOS-installer-pkg ) in erase-install to have it download the macOS installer .pkg directly instead of via softwareupdate.

[cwaldrip]

Ah! Fantastic! I hadn't dug too far into it yet. The name was off-putting at first (I just need to upgrade, not erase and install... but once I figured out it did more than that I started looking into it). My root issue was resolved by @nkuhl1630 and the kickstart command. But this is going to be a life safer!

[nkuhl1630 · Accepted solution]

I've seen this issue with Big Sur a lot over the past year or so. You need to kickstart Software Update. Open terminal and run the following:

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.softwareupdated

[bwoods]

This is the way. Run this or reboot the machine.

[Corey_Nechkash]

This is what solved our issue of Big Sur machines not checking for updates properly. I've even used this on Monterey machines that aren't showing the latest Security Updates.

[cwaldrip]

Wow... amazing. Even a restart didn't clear up Software Update, but the kickstart sure did. Awesome! Thank you!

[cwaldrip]

@nkuhl1630's kickstart solution seems to be the answer. I'll need to test more, but so far so good.
sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.softwareupdated

[bwoods]

Create a policy that runs daily or weekly and deploy to your fleet.