Garageband & sound libraries

HI! I recommend you search through previous posts and look for most recent.
This is not a straightforward fix and not even sure what the latest is...

The only way I have found is to install both the app and the sound library and package it (I use Composer). I saw some other posts as well and the only thing I could gather from them was packaging it with whatever packaging method you prefer.

I have composer so I will give that a shot. Thank you!

Ur welcome...I've tried pushing the sound library separately as we wanted to migrate to installing the apps through managed distribution, but no matter what I did it never noticed the sound library was there and wanted to download it each time. By composing, you don't get ability to update the app without having to capture it all again, but it prevents the subsequent download which was better for us in our environment.

Since moving to Managed Distribution, I've given up on installing the extra GarageBand pieces.
Also since we adding caching servers around the district, I've found that the few people who actually need this installed can do it fairly quickly (depending on your intranet of course). What used to take over 20min now just takes a few minutes for the full install to push from our Apple Caching servers (again depending on network traffic at the time).
Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

@gshackney are your users admins I guess?

No, however we have tech assistants at each building who can facilitate these one offs. It's still a pain we don't just have a pkg from Apple that can just be added but we deal. Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

I haven't looked at the latest GarageBand, but I managed this last summer with Composer rather simply. I will be working at this again in another week or two. If you folks are still having issues I'll try to circle back.

In our school district, we used a Mac with a fresh never before launched GarageBand.app install and then updated all loops and content.
All the content and loops "25GB" were in these directories. We could either use Target Disk Mode and copy over to devices via thunderbolt that really needed all the content, lab carts or the student could install the 25GB package from Self Service.

These are the folders needed to complete a FULL GarageBand install.

/Library/Application Support/GarageBand
/Library/Application Support/Logic
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index
/Library/Audio/Impulse Responses

Users would need to click on the Gear icon to reindex all the loops and content if they choose not to wait for it to index on each new AD managed mobile login.

The original problem I always found with the composer solutions was that it never seemed to make the garageband extras index properly, so it could never see all the extras as "installed". Perhaps the newer versions allow this now?

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

I've been working this issue myself. I think i'm in the home stretch but am hitting a snag...

So, I got all the extras via the python script https://github.com/carlashley/appleLoops. Ive got them all neatly sewn up into a single installer.

I Install Garageband via the app store, then prior to launching the app, I install the extras. Garage band launches asking to download content. I skip the install and go into the program I see the extras as available. But each time I subsequently launch GB it asks to download content again... It seems stuck in a loop (see what I did there? a loop... getting the loops for GB, I get a loop) I cannot get the admin prompt to go away nor make the stupid thing realize its got everything it needs to run. Ive tried re-indexing with no luck

Anyone have the receipt, plist, defaults write, combination of chicken blood and grave dirt, or string of expletives that might make the loop, loop go away?

Also, anyone have luck with https://github.com/jacobsalmela/adminscripts/blob/master/downloadGarageBandContentPkgs.sh#L351-L426 (the bash version of the python script above)?

thanks.

I've spent a lot of time dealing with this (mainly with Logic, but it works with GarageBand too).

I made a blog post about it, PLEASE NOTE THE STARRED COMMENT: my post

Basically you package up all of the audio you want in GB with composer; typically in:

/Library/Application Support/GarageBand
/Library/Application Support/Logic
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops Index
/Library/Audio/Impulse Responses

The trick to making it so it does not prompt the user to install the packages (even after you copy the files over) is to grab the receipts from /System/Library/Receipts. Because this directory is SIP protected, it's a bit tough. We don't disable SIP, so how I got around it was I made a new configuration in my jamf pro server that installed the packages (Logic 10.3, GarageBand 10.1.5, the content, and the index with the receipts in /System/Library/Receipts) and DIDN'T erase the drive. Set autorun data (or just netboot) to the new config and it copies the receipts and boom, no more password.

<removed double post>

Awesome post. Going to run through your workflow today.

peeves me to no end that I need to spend so much time on deploying an app store application!

@Eyoung Yeah, it was literally a month and a half of tinkering to find the right files/folders. And then when an update broke my system, I nearly cried. Thankfully I figured that out in only 2 weeks... :/

The last time I packaged up Garage Band, I found that I needed to capture the receipts. You would need to go into Composer Preferences before running a capture, and delete the folder the receipts are held in from the exclusion list so Composer will find them. I think they are in /var/db.

I should mention I have not done this with the latest version of GarageBand. Now that it's free for Managed Distribution, I plan on deploying it that way but I will make a package for all the extra content. From the numerous posts Ive read on this subject, the latest version uses different sound file packages than the previous versions. I'm not clear if you need all that old content as well or just the new sound packages. I believe they are labeled as 2016 packages?

jmahlman. I ran through your workflow... Can you clarify the keychain folder comment? did you literally just create an empty folder called Keychain at the level of /Application support?

thanks for the help :-)

I've got other worries too. GB crashes (goes unresponsive) no mater how I install it on a system with an AutoDMG created OS ... if I recover it with a fresh 10.12.5 it seems OK...

/rant we are not a music school.. this <expletive> thing is for one teacher for one grade for one section of an elective music course and I am into week 2 of fighting with it /rant

Carl Ashley's script here: https://github.com/carlashley/appleLoops

Gives you an easy way to grab the content packages. What I then do is stick them all in a single DMG, cache that on the target Mac, then run a script which calls the installpkg utility, pointing it at that cached DMG. Installpkg then goes through and installs every package in said DMG.

Get Installpkg here: https://github.com/henri/installpkg

@Eyoung Yes, in Composer..not on the system. Just create that blank "Keychains" folder.

I haven't tried it with the latest version to see if it's not needed anymore, but it used to be needed when I wrote that post.

Thanks for the clarification.

FWIW we opened a ticket with Apple and they acknowledged there shouldn't be a prompt.

They also said they haven't received a lot of reports about this.

If you have an AppleCare account, would help to open a ticket.

The more tickets, the more visibility and likelihood they'll put weight on it.

Also opened a ticket. Got bumped up to an engineer on the team for GB. I was told that there is no solution at this time, but if one comes up I would be contacted.

interesting results. I was able to get GB 10.1.6 under 10.12.5 to work with the GB content pkg's referenced in the wiki for deploying GB via munki. Option 2 still works. [https://github.com/munki/munki/wiki/GarageBand](link URL)

Install GB first, then package 1 then 2. the loops are the bare minimum, but that will do for my needs. Go check out the wiki entry... even without munki its worth the read.

I used createosxinstallPKG to grab GB but it looks like 10.12.4 broke that... [https://github.com/munki/createOSXinstallPkg#further-note-on-additional-packages-and-yosemite](link URL) so here's hoping something usable comes up going forward.

I, for one, will continue to hold my breath for an official Apple solution. <insert eye roll here>

To grab the GarageBand or Logic installers for sound libraries use the below...
SoundsLibrariesExtract

Then use InstallPKGsfromDMG from below
InstallPKGsfromDMG