Mac Product Update is failing - error download failed

[bcohen]

What's up with the downloaded product update for the mac? I'm trying to load my product and it requires that I update. It gets about two thirds of the way through and dies saying Error update failed.  This is the Mac TurboTax Basic 2020.

I then tried Mac TurboTax Basic 2019 and that one required updating too. That one also failed about two thirds of the way through saying Error update failed.

What's going on?

[Critter-3]

Why does TurboTax for Mac keep saying there are updates when I check for updates?

TurboTax for Mac automatically adds the current tax form updates whenever you select Check for Updates from the TurboTax menu. This creates the illusion that updates are available even if you're on the latest release.

If you want to make sure you're up-to-date, quit and reopen TurboTax. If you're not on the latest release, the program will automatically download it.

Other Options

If the steps above don't work, you can force a download of the most recent update. This applies to TurboTax for Mac installed from a CD or download and for the TurboTax app available in iTunes.

1. With TurboTax open, select the TurboTax menu.
2. On your keyboard, hold down the Option key.
3. This will change the Check for Updates menu option to Download Latest Updates...
4. Selecting this option will force the most recent update for TurboTax to download and install.

 

[bcohen]

Nonsensical answer. This is not the question I'm asking. The  instructions given above are impossible to follow in the situation I'm in.

TurboTax cannot be opened because the automatic update fails before getting to the end. Any answer which requires that it do so is useless.

[Critter-3]

Contact support for a personal answer to your issue :    

Please contact support via phone for assistance with this; contact details can be found here

[bcohen · Accepted solution]

I tried starting TurboTax 2020, 2019, and 2018, and all required an update which then failed with the error download failed message. I tried on a Mac running Big Sur, and one running Mojave, with the same result. I tried it with the home wifi and using my phone as a hotspot. Each time the download would get to a slightly different number of megabytes downloaded before it failed.

Finally, I timed the process with a stopwatch. Every time I ran it, it would fail a few seconds more than one minute after the megabytes downloaded progress numbers started. The total number of megabytes downloaded varied a bit, but the time it failed was always exactly the same.

My phone hotspot is slightly faster than my home Internet, and with that the download was very close to finishing in that one minute. After repeated tries, sometimes it was able to complete the updates. As long as it finished before 60 seconds after the progress numbers started, the update worked. My home Internet, was too slow to ever get done in time, the phone hotspot was just on the edge.

As far as I can tell the workaround for this bug is to be on a faster Internet connection that allows the update to complete within a minute.