An error occurred preparing the software update - Monterey

[Triggisaurus]

I’m having an absolute nightmare with upgrading to Monterey. If anyone can help it would save me.

I’ve tried to upgrade from Big Sur. I’ve tried to upgrade from Catalina. I’ve tried installing on an external drive. I’ve used internet recovery and usb installers. All have failed.

My drive is now erased and blank. Original Apple Fusion Drive in a 2017 iMac 5k.

I’ve used recovery to install Monterey, and I get this error all the time

“error occurred preparing the
software update.”

I’ve seen this happening for other people so can someone please tell me what worked for them?

 

[Triggisaurus]

For anyone in the future I resolved this by a process of elimination, eventually concluded it was my ram.

I used a programme called Member to test the ram one stick at a time to ID the bad module. I found out I had one bad stick. I re-situated the other sticks and the install completed.

 

[randalf72]

It worked for me after much time spent trying to figure it out.

I would note that the software is called rember and not member. Predictive text I guess.

Also in my case I removed the memory, just leaving the stock 8mb in and then reinserted the other two sticks after the software had updated.

Then I ran rember and got no issues with the memory so I’m chalking it up to the memory just needing to be reseated.

Thanks to the OP though. This is the only place I’ve seen potential memory chip issues as a possibility for this error.

 

[kocoman]

is there debug logs for this error? thx

 

[SketchyClown]

Thanks for this little tip. Had massive issues reinstalling Monterey awhile back, gave the error described above. Also gave me a couple just black screen reboots which is highly unusual for even this old machine.

Ran "Rember" tonight and it didn't get far before finding an error.

Tested the chips separately, and they seemed to pass, then put them all back in, and got the error again.

Now we go the other way, take one out at a time. First one I took out the test went fine. Could I have found the bad one that quick? Took another out, put the first one back in and the test failed almost immediately. Tested further and it kept coming back to the same chip.

It seems this one refuses to seat "snugly" in the slots like the other ones. Loose in any slot. Odd how that happens when it has been in there for 4 years and never a problem until recently.