Why does “Verifying….” take soooooo long? Esp for just a dot release?

[MareLuce]

It’s been at least 30 min so far. EDIT: 2 hours
What exactly is happening in the “Verifying…” part of the 26.2 install?

It sounds like a security check. To be clear, I’m appreciative of the massive amount of work Apple puts into not letting installs be hacked. But I really really wish this part didn’t take so long

FAST reports my WiFi speed at 250Mbps.

 

[kitKAC]

I think verifiying is making sure the update downloaded intact and wasn't corrupted in anyway, but that taking 2 hours sounds like the process got stuck along the way.

 

[!!!]

On macOS you can see some of what's actually happening during updates. From what I last saw it appears to read the entire update multiple times. This is entirely dependent on SSD read speeds and CPU speed, it doesn't have anything to do with internet speeds after download.

The verifying process is indeed checking the downloaded update files to ensure they have not been corrupted/tampered with and that its signature is intact.

Apple Watches have fairly weak CPUs and they presumably throttle quite quickly, it wouldn't surprise me if the update doesn't run at "full speed" on any i-Device (I'm lumping the watch in there too). Personally I just let the watch update overnight on its charger.

 

[Howard2k]

It’s been at least 30 min so far. EDIT: 2 hours
What exactly is happening in the “Verifying…” part of the 26.2 install?

It sounds like a security check. To be clear, I’m appreciative of the massive amount of work Apple puts into not letting installs be hacked. But I really really wish this part didn’t take so long

FAST reports my WiFi speed at 250Mbps.

Your watch is almost certainly not using your Wifi, it's using your bluetooth.

When I do a software update I usually turn off BT on the Watch, then download and install the update, then turn BT back on when done. Turning off BT will force it to use Wifi.