XCode 7.1 Slow to Install on MacBook

Developer Tools & Services Xcode Xcode

Dygear OP

Created Oct ’15

Replies 37

Boosts 1

Views 62k

Participants 33

Computer: 12" MacBook 1.3 GHz (512 GB SSD).

OS: OSX 10.11.1

Tick Tock:

1825 Turned ok Macbook for first time.

1830 Installed Pages, Numbers, Keynote, OSX El Capitan Update. Setup FileVault for Full Disk Encrpytion.

1900 Went to meeting, used Notes.

2000 Came back from meeting.

2100 Installed Sublime Text 3, Homebrew (XCode Command Line Tools).

2200 Installed dot files, but did not compleate (took forever, ironic).

2300 Watched end of Mets game.

0000 Battery at 30% plugged into wall charger to recharge.

0006 Started Download of XCode 7.1 from App Store.

0010 Download Complete

0200 Started Writing this.

0210 Still not installed.

Now I understand that these CPUs are terminally limited, and that they will underclock under heavy sustained load. That effect seems to be compounded with charging the device while using it's CPU intensivly. But over 2 hours to extract and install XCode 7.1 is insane. Progress is being made on the install, the bar moves slowly, very slowly towards the right of the screen. But it's still pretty crazy that it's taking this long.

Boost

DevOps OP

Dec ’15

I found this article,unfortunlatey I havent been able to try it yet but it looks promsing: http://www.sneakycrab.com/blog/2015/5/28/speeding-up-slow-install-times-when-debugging-on-a-real-apple-watch

kazar OP

Dec ’15

I have a late 2011 (quad core) / 8 GB non-SSD Macbook Pro, and it takes me about 1.5-2 hours to install an Xcode upgrade. I always assumed it was the non-SSD, but I guess not.

And after that, another 30 minutes goes to installing enough additional components to actually run something on my iPhone.

ianji OP

Dec ’15

Xcode 7.1 took ages to install on my late 2009 iMac, and by ages I mean roughly an order of magnitude longer than earlier versions. Xcode 7.1.1 took equally long and even when it finally finished and appeared under "Updates installed in the last 30 days" it was still showing up as an available update. Eventually I clicked "Update" on that and it installed all over again, equally slowly, and is now showing up twice under "Updates installed in the last 30 days".

Last night I installed Xcode 7.2 and again it took agaes, but fortunatrly this time I only had to install it once. It was stuck at 3 minutes remaining for the best part of a hour, occasionally jumping to some other figure like 14 minutes for a few seconds before switching back to 3 minuts.

BuzzKal OP

Dec ’15

Yup, installing Xcode 7.2 for about 20 minutes now, MacBook Air with SSD. Keeps going from "less than a minute" to "6 minutes" to "1 minute" to "7 minutes" to "13 minutes" to "less than a minute" ..... etc. etc. Very frustrating. This is all in the "installing" phase of the update, so has nothing to do with the network performance, I would assume. Why it takes so long to update a few files on an SSD, I can't fathom. And, why it has NO idea how long it will take, well, that I can fathom - called "sloppy programming"!

I guess I am lucky, the whole thing finished in about 25 minutes. Still WAY too long, but better than what the others above have reported.

Smooth OP

Feb ’16

MacBook Pro mid2011 El Capitan, 10.11.3 Been installing xcode since...yesterday! Im now having issues updating Silverlight, it wont complete before other installations are complete... I really want to get back to my work now.....Apple please?:)

jjrob OP

Feb ’16

My Xcode download is also taking very long; shifting between 2 hours and 24 days. I have 22.7 GB of memory left, which is more than enough storage. What is happening?

KMT OP

Feb ’16

22.7 gb is marginal - Do the math.

All required just so the OS can breath while trying to unpack and install, not counting loaded apps such as Safari.

Download: 7gb
Unpacked Installer: 10gb
Xcode Installed: 9gb
Swap space for OS X: 8gb ~ 12gb

askurat OP

May ’16

Glad I found this page. I have been trying to install it for the past few hours on and off. I figured something was corrupted so I'd stop the install process and try again after restarting. But reading this thread it just looks like it takes a long time to install so I'll leave it to finish and see how long it takes.

2012 Macbook Pro with only 4gb of ram so that's probably the reason it's so dreadfully slow. I should probably upgrade those sticks 😁

runninghead OP

Jun ’16

Newb here. Just found the same problem myself. It wouldn't be an issue if the App Store made it clear up front that a) this is a massive app for those who just want to tweak a little code now and then and b) it's an overnight install. It's expectations that ar the issue here.

Saabir OP

Sep ’20

Just upgraded to Big Sur I'm on a 8GB ram (everything else is fast and ok)
Im on my 5th hour waiting for Xcode ..bar moves painfully slow and now there's a tiny bit left, while all time was passing by I just installed VS code , android studio with emulators etc , node , git (couldn't wait for Xcode's one), and a whole lot of other things I needed ( I finished all that 2 hours ago)
...and still I'm waiting ...this is the craziest slowest thing to download and install.

almenke OP

Dec ’20

This is moronic. If the installs take this long year after year after year then what is the issue? Come clean Apple engineers. I have the latest and greatest from Apple. Brand new machine Dec 2020. New Apple chip. lots of space and RAM. Please break up your installs if you cannot figure this out. This was just supposed to be an update today. I just installed the complete Xcode two weeks ago.

evergreen12 OP

Feb ’21

Xcode is not in a normal .zip file. It is in a .xip file. They are nearly identical except for one minor detail: .xip files are signed for integrity. The advantage is you are guaranteed to be downloading Apple's Xcode and not a fraud trying to get access to your computer. This is likely the cause of part of your problems, along with Xcode's whopping 17+ GB for an app. The xip has to first verify the xip integrity which will take a minute since the xip is pretty large. Then it has to unzip. The xip is probably packed tight so it will take a while.

You can read more about the .xip file type on Wikipedia. It's interesting.

mimo dialer OP

Jul ’21

It is deteriorating day by day. XCode performance is getting slower and slower in each release. My installation took more than 3 hrs. Apple devs, why are you not focusing on the performance of the product? 5-6 years ago, it was far better, but with time using XCode has become a pain for me.

GraphicBytes OP

Sep ’21

Xcode is an absolute dog to install, it's heavy and slow regardless, but i had this exact same issue on a VirtualBox, i left it for about 4 hours and it made near zero progress.

I juiced up the VM ram from 4gb to 16gb, and it installed in about an hour for me. It seems clear RAM is the key, and with 16gb+ on a proper mac i imagine you'd get this under 30mins.

Always sucks when hardware is the issue.

SamZebrado OP

Nov ’21

[only some discussion] Hi, I just came across this when I was trying to install homebrew and it installed XCode for me. I am using the M1 MacBook Air. It cost me around one hour. So maybe a new and empty computer will do better in installing XCode?