Why does my Mac version of TurboTax 2018 take so long in the Extracting update phase of the software update process?

[georgew751]

I am running the latest version of macOS Mojave, 10.14.3. When I start TurboTax 2018, it often says that it has to install an update to the program. Updating takes upwards to 20 mins--I haven't actually timed it, but it's takes a long, long time. Most of that time is spent in "Extracting update...".

It takes much longer to update than a typical Mac program. Can this be fixed?

[macuser_22]

I have never timed it but usually start to finish when I update takes about 5 minutes (not counting the time to download over the internet).   

Too many other processes and applications open and running maybe,  and not enough RAM that requires swapping temporary memory in and out of the hard drive and slows everything up.

The Utilities -> Activity Monitor -> Memory will show the amount of memory used - the more memory used the longer things will take.

[JoeJayFF1]

I doubt it's RAM. I have more RAM than God -- and checked activity monitor -- and this happens to me every time. It extracts the update up to maybe 95% or so, then hangs for 3 to 5 minutes, looking like it's frozen. But for whatever reason, it's not. I just leave it for 5 minutes, and magically it chimes when it's done. But yes, it is weird.

[Marburger]

Its taking 20 minutes to extract an update.  this is ridiculous

[TechiPerson]

As other Mac users with this issue I too have it with Mac 2020 TurboTax Premier. The last 10% of each update extract takes at least 10 minutes. The first update after installing the new program took 20 minutes. Did not have this problem last year with the 2019 version. Running macOS Catalina 10.15.7.

[georgew751]

I recently learned that if I disable my Virus Protection Real-Time-Scanning feature, the update extraction went much faster.

[bmeeks]

It's piss-poor coding by the developers, plain and simple. Something with the extract portion of the code is terribly inefficient and Turbotax is simply sitting on their thumbs instead of trying to address the issue.

[Don300]

George W751:   Worked like a charm!  This has bothered me for at least 4 years ... great detective work.  I uninstalled Avast and the extract worked as it should.

[Carlie]

Right George: I  also uninstalled Avast on my Mac and the update zipped right  through.