The Frustrating World of Downloading: A Personal Saga of Tech Agony

I stared at my computer screen, willing it to magically fix itself and download El Capitan in a fraction of the time it had taken me so far. It was now 28 hours and 47 minutes into what promised to be an epic battle with Apple's update process, and I was starting to lose hope. The cursor on the screen seemed to mock me, taunting me with its slow progress as it crawled along at a snail's pace.

As I sat there, sipping on my Bloody Mary Mix and vodka-infused water (yes, you read that right), I couldn't help but wonder what was going on. Why was this download taking forever? Was it something to do with the software itself, or was it a result of some underlying issue with the computer's hardware? The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. This was like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces – and those pieces were apparently hidden in a parallel universe.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and called AppleCare. After what felt like an eternity, someone finally answered on the other end of the line. "Hello?" they said, sounding puzzled. I explained my situation, and after a few minutes of confused silence, they offered to reinstall the OS. But there was a catch – it turned out that the recovery mode was from 2014, which meant that it wouldn't work at all. The poor guy on the other end of the line seemed just as flummoxed as I was.

The conversation with AppleCare was like trying to solve a math problem while blindfolded and being attacked by bees – I had no idea what was happening or why things weren't working out in my favor. They offered to send someone over, but that would take a few days, which meant that I'd have to wait even longer for the download to finish. The estimated time was now up to 59 hours, and I was starting to lose my will to live.

As I sat there, trying to calm myself down with cold water and hot sauce (yes, hot sauce – it's a thing), I couldn't help but think about how this had become one of those situations where you just have to sit back, relax, and hope for the best. It was like trying to solve a mystery novel while blindfolded – sometimes, things just don't add up.

I decided to try something different and started downloading 10.10 Yosemite (the operating system I'm supposed to be installing) again. This time, I noticed that the download button was stuck on "36 megabytes" for some reason. It seemed like a joke, but it was also kind of... normal? I mean, what other operating systems require 36 megabytes as an initial download size? But then, something strange happened – the estimated time started going up, and the cursor began to move at a slightly faster pace.

The poor guy on the phone with AppleCare was still trying to figure out what was going on. "Uh, I don't know what's happening," he said, sounding just as baffled as I did. "We're not getting any information from our end." It was like we were both trapped in some kind of tech-induced Groundhog Day – stuck reliving the same conversation over and over again.

As the hours ticked by (and they did, oh boy), I found myself wondering if this was just one of those things that Apple wouldn't fix. Maybe it was a bug that only affected me, or maybe it was something more sinister – like a plot to drive tech enthusiasts slowly mad with frustration. The not knowing was killing me.

At this point, the download had been going on for two days, and I was still stuck in a state of limbo. It was like being trapped in some kind of digital purgatory – forever doomed to sit at my computer screen, waiting for something that might never happen. But then, just as I was about to give up hope, I had an idea.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and try some unconventional methods to speed up the download process. DNS servers, resetting the router, even trying to contact the Clinton Foundation (just kidding – kind of) – all were attempts to find a solution that would allow me to finally escape this tech-induced nightmare.

The results? Well, they were mixed, but at least I was having fun. Who knew that downloading an operating system could become such a thrill ride?

And so, as I sit here waiting for the download to finish (or not), I'm reminded of something important – sometimes, when life gives you lemons, you just have to make lemonade out of them. Or in this case, maybe we'll just stick with Bloody Mary Mix and vodka-infused water. After all, at least that way, I know exactly what's going on.

In the end, I might never figure out why El Capitan was taking so long to download – but who knows? Maybe one day, someone will come along and explain it all in a nice, simple way. Until then, I'll just sit here and enjoy my drink, hoping that someday soon, this ordeal will be over.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey Firefox how you doing anyway let's check in on our installation this is where that IT degree pays off that's not what I wanted to happen the 90s called they want their dial-up speed back what 12 and a half hours hey guys crazy ken here and oh my gosh that three part series on the SSD failure complete and utter waste have you noticed that in the title I always put a question mark next to SSD failure that's because I wasn't really sure if this was SSD failure or not I'll sum it up quick for those who did not see the trilogy but I recommend seeing it anyway just because I'm an insane mother trucker so my computer was having constant freezing issues I already ruled out the possibility of it being a software issue or so I thought so I brought it to Apple saying the SSD is most likely bad they replaced the logic board instead of the SSD the problem still persists so I bring it back and then they replace the SSD all of this for free mind you because of Apple care ding about three weeks to a month later the issue happened again so I was doing some research I checked out several different websites and I don't know why I didn't really Google this earlier and I found some reasons as to why things may freeze but the mouse cursor still moves however I also found quite a few related search results connecting to Safari and the Safari web content process so I started monitoring those processes in the Activity Monitor for a couple days and then the issue happened again but I didn't find anything super suspicious now earlier I already tried reinstalling the operating system from the recovery partition and that did jack-shit but that was when El Capitan was younger or as I like to call it el crappy time so we're gonna try it again with the newer dot update of the OS however there's another thing I want to try the reinstall will reinstall Safari but this time I want a complete reinstallation which means I'm going to delete all of the Safari data off the computer and try to delete the Safari app itself the permissions are a bit of a but I might be able to find workaround so let's start by sapping the library oh yeah so here is the Safari folder inside of the library and what I'll do is I'll just make a copy of this to the desktop or actually just move it to the desktop you know let's do this I will actually make a copy and then I'm just going to leave that in there for now so now I have a backup of this on the desktop in case I need to get to it my most important information is stored on the iCloud but to prevent any syncing issues I'm actually going to turn off the Safari iCloud syncing so now I'm going to use app cleaner and just totally erase Safari now I have a feeling that okay I can't remove protected apps we'll go to preferences okay so now app cleaner is going to find every file related to Safari and I really do mean every single file related to Safari but I know for a fact the system is going to fight back and it will not allow a third-party app to remove the app file itself so I'm going to uncheck that we'll try to deal with that later all right so I'm gonna hit remove all that is in the trash now hi trash by trash and it's gone okay so now we're deleting like 70,000 items okay I just realized that Sierra has little fade animations for the folders in the finder okay doesn't work so well for that one but still isn't that crazy now you're probably wondering Ken what are you doing in Sierra well I'm gonna try to use a different operating system to delete Safari from the other partition that probably won't work but we're gonna try anyway this is where that IT degree pays off Who am I kidding I never went to Castleton so I'm going to try to do this sudo RM - RF and I'm gonna plop Safari right into there and see what happens all right oh and it even faded away the Safari icon you didn't see that but I did a nice little animation touch in Sierra we are now reloading El Capitan to see if my crazy scheme worked chug along almost there I believe in you yeah so now if my calculations are correct the library for Safari should be gone there should be no Safari data on here anywhere the system we used app cleaner to get rid of it and Safari should not be in the apps folder so Safari is now 100 percent off of this operating system so now we are going to attempt a reinstall of El Capitan that's not what I wanted to happen a bunch of like log information popped up on the screen and then it kernel pant whoa whoa okay that was weird that I've never actually seen a kernel panic like that happened on boot up I was pressing buttons that I pressed the wrong button that I just like nuked somebody all right hang on red hit restart here now the recovery partition should be built in and that's a feature I really like but I was actually noticing hang on the boot picker is not showing up for me one sec let's try that again I was noticing the recovery partition actually doesn't show up it just gives me OS 10 and Windows now recently a new SSD was put into here and Apple restored the Mac side but did that cause a problem because isn't there usually a recovery thing there but regardless of that there should be a command R option and now it's starting Internet recovery so it's pulling a recovery operating system from the cloud and throwing it onto this computer because I guess the the normal one isn't there which is weird again I didn't reinstall the operating system when I got this back from Apple Apple did it did they miss something I don't know as anyone else had this problem where the recovery partition is just gone well hopefully the cloud pulls the right thing through this is not the right L my gosh Mavericks Mavericks wait what wait wait wait the recovery thing must have been choosing the operating system that the computer came with I believe because when I bought this computer I think Mavericks was the current system yeah but that that's two generations old mate that ain't gonna work all right since the recovery partition seems to be a no-go and I don't want to mess around with it anymore I'm just going to go right back to the App Store and read download here so let's hit the button there and downloading all right that's a good sign six point two one gigabytes huh interesting number combination anyway we have it downloading now but it seems to be stuck at 30 6.5 whoo why is it going so slow hey Firefox how you doing anyway let's check in on our installation yeah why the hell is it still under 100 Meg's I just did an Oakland check I am getting sixty-two megabits per second down so it is not my internet connection whatsoever and that was on wireless mind you Apple servers must be again using the same technology that Pokemon go used when it launched cloud stuff is awesome in theory but when the connection is bad everything goes to and that is the big weakness of the cloud you know it says it's downloading but I highly doubt that is accurate all right so you're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing now Samsung is going to help save us here because apples being a pile and does not want to download the freaking operating system you can't get any good help these days Kenya especially from a company you've spent probably well over ten thousand dollars on anyway let's boot up the Mac Mini that is beneath this thing buttons on the other side you go and let's turn this sucker on so what I'm going to attempt to do is load up the recovery partition on this computer hook up the laptop via target disk mode and install that way so let's try doing command R and see if that works that probably won't because I don't see the options showing up and now the spinning things stopped moving okay so far the plan is crashing you Apple you with a salad fork seriously ok it's been running for what 10 minutes and we're only at 62 Meg's that's a little insane hey my plan might not be crazy that's the El Capitan logo I'm on the Mac Mini I'll just choose reinstall OS 10 here Hey look at that flickery goodness that's what I wanted to see ok I got to grab a Thunderbolt cable I'll be right back ok so the setup here is getting a bit yet - there's the Mac Mini and an extremely short Thunderbolt cable because it was for that a lossy Drive that you see under there so that's hooked up here and I have the laptop sitting on a chair so it can reach yeah this is a really professional setup do not try this at home mmm-hmm all right we're gonna hold down tea and boot this sucker up into house fast Wow geez this thing is faster than me in bed all right deal with the flicker suck it up all right so we're going to hit the continue button here with my awesome Pro Mouse there we go okay so it's connected externally that means target disc mode is working that is a good sign all right let's hit install signing into the App Store all right so now it's downloading additional components how long will it take about an hour three minutes what the hell is anyone else oh now it's two hours and 20 minutes are you are you like for real now are you serious you can't you got to be joking is anyone else having problems with Apple servers being so slow two different computers trying to download the same operating system you know what ah geez I really don't have to like pirate it because I don't want to get some on the computer so but a torrent overall would be a million times faster than this garbage seriously Apple this is your best this is what you're doing oh my gosh it's not three hours and 27 minutes it's like any time I tilt the camera away it changes let's try it again nope then do it that time whoa really eight hours and 53 minutes I'm sorry the 90s called they want their dial-up speed back what twelve and a half hours when did I step back into the 90s here man am i on like dial-up am I using like AOL I get thirty minutes free what is this guy's I've never seen such ridiculously long download speeds from anything from Apple it's usually like boom done quick what is this what are they doing you know what I figured it out I know what's going on Tim Cook and his employees are spending too much time on the Hillary Clinton fundraiser so for anyone who knows me you probably know that I have some buddies that like to help me out at like this hang on a second we got a Bloody Mary Mix all right that's a start and maybe some cold water vodka this is the only way we're gonna get through the night especially at this rate I'm gonna need more bottles hang on we find something else here hey I got yet ah I got you we can just fill this thing up yep there we go oh wait this is my hot sauce jug well hey we can still fill that up it can work uh happy day 28 hours and 47 minutes well the good news is it's about 28 hours so it could be wrong give or take ten hours oh I am so close to popping a cap in this computer's ass yeah and I'll do it - I'll do it thirty hours what the hell let's call AppleCare yeah let's see what they have to say dialing now you're gonna be recorded for quality assurance yes I will my name is John Cena they reinstalled the OS but there is no recovery mode so it goes to Internet yeah it goes to Internet recovery but it never which is like three years old now yeah this is probably like the fifth time I've tried it and it wasn't all today I tried it yesterday too and now it's up to 59 hours remaining okay so that was about a 45-minute phone call and I could say a lot of things about what happened but ultimately Apple isn't even sure as to why the download is taking forever so they might get back to me they might not maybe it's just one of those things and I have to wait for the download to start going faster even though this has already been something I checked yesterday and it was still slow just as slow as it is today but now here's an even weirder thing check this out so with downloading 10.10 Yosemite we have about 22 minutes remaining for the download time this one right here okay so this is the download button yeah for El Cap all right so see that thirty-six minutes it gets to thirty six megabytes it's always at thirty six and now the estimated time starts going up so why would this be the case why would you a seminal mode fast and elcapitan download slow I don't know why is it always at thirty six point six megabytes where it starts going slow I don't know and apparently neither do the Apple guys because I just had that phone call with them and they're just as flummoxed as I am so now as you can see we are already at two days in four hours for the estimated download time for one installer yet the other one was at twenty two minutes with no problems so in all honesty this is just one of those things where I'm probably just gonna have to wait oh my gosh six days okay back to two days well still both of those suck so anyway I'm probably just gonna have to sit this one out for a while and wait until the download speeds improve and then get back to you guys and I know people are probably gonna comment about me trying other things but I tried a bunch of different ideas with DNS servers resetting the router all that stuff and our speeds are still good this is something on Apple's and it just has to be I don't know what else it could be so I'll update you when I can but for now I'm just gonna be sitting down for a bit anyway that is all for crazy Ken for now if you liked the video feel free to leave a like down below maybe I can use the likes to fight off the evil forces that are sending me these ginormous mysterious curses I don't have a lot of lot do I anyway I appreciate you sticking with me and I will report back once I do more testing so stay in touch for that alright guys we'll see you in the not-too-distant future oh but it might be a very distant future Oh hey guys if you want to get some more laughs out of us I recommend Ken's cinema of shenanigans just click here but I also recommend one of our great cosplay music videos to watch one just click herehey Firefox how you doing anyway let's check in on our installation this is where that IT degree pays off that's not what I wanted to happen the 90s called they want their dial-up speed back what 12 and a half hours hey guys crazy ken here and oh my gosh that three part series on the SSD failure complete and utter waste have you noticed that in the title I always put a question mark next to SSD failure that's because I wasn't really sure if this was SSD failure or not I'll sum it up quick for those who did not see the trilogy but I recommend seeing it anyway just because I'm an insane mother trucker so my computer was having constant freezing issues I already ruled out the possibility of it being a software issue or so I thought so I brought it to Apple saying the SSD is most likely bad they replaced the logic board instead of the SSD the problem still persists so I bring it back and then they replace the SSD all of this for free mind you because of Apple care ding about three weeks to a month later the issue happened again so I was doing some research I checked out several different websites and I don't know why I didn't really Google this earlier and I found some reasons as to why things may freeze but the mouse cursor still moves however I also found quite a few related search results connecting to Safari and the Safari web content process so I started monitoring those processes in the Activity Monitor for a couple days and then the issue happened again but I didn't find anything super suspicious now earlier I already tried reinstalling the operating system from the recovery partition and that did jack-shit but that was when El Capitan was younger or as I like to call it el crappy time so we're gonna try it again with the newer dot update of the OS however there's another thing I want to try the reinstall will reinstall Safari but this time I want a complete reinstallation which means I'm going to delete all of the Safari data off the computer and try to delete the Safari app itself the permissions are a bit of a but I might be able to find workaround so let's start by sapping the library oh yeah so here is the Safari folder inside of the library and what I'll do is I'll just make a copy of this to the desktop or actually just move it to the desktop you know let's do this I will actually make a copy and then I'm just going to leave that in there for now so now I have a backup of this on the desktop in case I need to get to it my most important information is stored on the iCloud but to prevent any syncing issues I'm actually going to turn off the Safari iCloud syncing so now I'm going to use app cleaner and just totally erase Safari now I have a feeling that okay I can't remove protected apps we'll go to preferences okay so now app cleaner is going to find every file related to Safari and I really do mean every single file related to Safari but I know for a fact the system is going to fight back and it will not allow a third-party app to remove the app file itself so I'm going to uncheck that we'll try to deal with that later all right so I'm gonna hit remove all that is in the trash now hi trash by trash and it's gone okay so now we're deleting like 70,000 items okay I just realized that Sierra has little fade animations for the folders in the finder okay doesn't work so well for that one but still isn't that crazy now you're probably wondering Ken what are you doing in Sierra well I'm gonna try to use a different operating system to delete Safari from the other partition that probably won't work but we're gonna try anyway this is where that IT degree pays off Who am I kidding I never went to Castleton so I'm going to try to do this sudo RM - RF and I'm gonna plop Safari right into there and see what happens all right oh and it even faded away the Safari icon you didn't see that but I did a nice little animation touch in Sierra we are now reloading El Capitan to see if my crazy scheme worked chug along almost there I believe in you yeah so now if my calculations are correct the library for Safari should be gone there should be no Safari data on here anywhere the system we used app cleaner to get rid of it and Safari should not be in the apps folder so Safari is now 100 percent off of this operating system so now we are going to attempt a reinstall of El Capitan that's not what I wanted to happen a bunch of like log information popped up on the screen and then it kernel pant whoa whoa okay that was weird that I've never actually seen a kernel panic like that happened on boot up I was pressing buttons that I pressed the wrong button that I just like nuked somebody all right hang on red hit restart here now the recovery partition should be built in and that's a feature I really like but I was actually noticing hang on the boot picker is not showing up for me one sec let's try that again I was noticing the recovery partition actually doesn't show up it just gives me OS 10 and Windows now recently a new SSD was put into here and Apple restored the Mac side but did that cause a problem because isn't there usually a recovery thing there but regardless of that there should be a command R option and now it's starting Internet recovery so it's pulling a recovery operating system from the cloud and throwing it onto this computer because I guess the the normal one isn't there which is weird again I didn't reinstall the operating system when I got this back from Apple Apple did it did they miss something I don't know as anyone else had this problem where the recovery partition is just gone well hopefully the cloud pulls the right thing through this is not the right L my gosh Mavericks Mavericks wait what wait wait wait the recovery thing must have been choosing the operating system that the computer came with I believe because when I bought this computer I think Mavericks was the current system yeah but that that's two generations old mate that ain't gonna work all right since the recovery partition seems to be a no-go and I don't want to mess around with it anymore I'm just going to go right back to the App Store and read download here so let's hit the button there and downloading all right that's a good sign six point two one gigabytes huh interesting number combination anyway we have it downloading now but it seems to be stuck at 30 6.5 whoo why is it going so slow hey Firefox how you doing anyway let's check in on our installation yeah why the hell is it still under 100 Meg's I just did an Oakland check I am getting sixty-two megabits per second down so it is not my internet connection whatsoever and that was on wireless mind you Apple servers must be again using the same technology that Pokemon go used when it launched cloud stuff is awesome in theory but when the connection is bad everything goes to and that is the big weakness of the cloud you know it says it's downloading but I highly doubt that is accurate all right so you're probably wondering what the hell I'm doing now Samsung is going to help save us here because apples being a pile and does not want to download the freaking operating system you can't get any good help these days Kenya especially from a company you've spent probably well over ten thousand dollars on anyway let's boot up the Mac Mini that is beneath this thing buttons on the other side you go and let's turn this sucker on so what I'm going to attempt to do is load up the recovery partition on this computer hook up the laptop via target disk mode and install that way so let's try doing command R and see if that works that probably won't because I don't see the options showing up and now the spinning things stopped moving okay so far the plan is crashing you Apple you with a salad fork seriously ok it's been running for what 10 minutes and we're only at 62 Meg's that's a little insane hey my plan might not be crazy that's the El Capitan logo I'm on the Mac Mini I'll just choose reinstall OS 10 here Hey look at that flickery goodness that's what I wanted to see ok I got to grab a Thunderbolt cable I'll be right back ok so the setup here is getting a bit yet - there's the Mac Mini and an extremely short Thunderbolt cable because it was for that a lossy Drive that you see under there so that's hooked up here and I have the laptop sitting on a chair so it can reach yeah this is a really professional setup do not try this at home mmm-hmm all right we're gonna hold down tea and boot this sucker up into house fast Wow geez this thing is faster than me in bed all right deal with the flicker suck it up all right so we're going to hit the continue button here with my awesome Pro Mouse there we go okay so it's connected externally that means target disc mode is working that is a good sign all right let's hit install signing into the App Store all right so now it's downloading additional components how long will it take about an hour three minutes what the hell is anyone else oh now it's two hours and 20 minutes are you are you like for real now are you serious you can't you got to be joking is anyone else having problems with Apple servers being so slow two different computers trying to download the same operating system you know what ah geez I really don't have to like pirate it because I don't want to get some on the computer so but a torrent overall would be a million times faster than this garbage seriously Apple this is your best this is what you're doing oh my gosh it's not three hours and 27 minutes it's like any time I tilt the camera away it changes let's try it again nope then do it that time whoa really eight hours and 53 minutes I'm sorry the 90s called they want their dial-up speed back what twelve and a half hours when did I step back into the 90s here man am i on like dial-up am I using like AOL I get thirty minutes free what is this guy's I've never seen such ridiculously long download speeds from anything from Apple it's usually like boom done quick what is this what are they doing you know what I figured it out I know what's going on Tim Cook and his employees are spending too much time on the Hillary Clinton fundraiser so for anyone who knows me you probably know that I have some buddies that like to help me out at like this hang on a second we got a Bloody Mary Mix all right that's a start and maybe some cold water vodka this is the only way we're gonna get through the night especially at this rate I'm gonna need more bottles hang on we find something else here hey I got yet ah I got you we can just fill this thing up yep there we go oh wait this is my hot sauce jug well hey we can still fill that up it can work uh happy day 28 hours and 47 minutes well the good news is it's about 28 hours so it could be wrong give or take ten hours oh I am so close to popping a cap in this computer's ass yeah and I'll do it - I'll do it thirty hours what the hell let's call AppleCare yeah let's see what they have to say dialing now you're gonna be recorded for quality assurance yes I will my name is John Cena they reinstalled the OS but there is no recovery mode so it goes to Internet yeah it goes to Internet recovery but it never which is like three years old now yeah this is probably like the fifth time I've tried it and it wasn't all today I tried it yesterday too and now it's up to 59 hours remaining okay so that was about a 45-minute phone call and I could say a lot of things about what happened but ultimately Apple isn't even sure as to why the download is taking forever so they might get back to me they might not maybe it's just one of those things and I have to wait for the download to start going faster even though this has already been something I checked yesterday and it was still slow just as slow as it is today but now here's an even weirder thing check this out so with downloading 10.10 Yosemite we have about 22 minutes remaining for the download time this one right here okay so this is the download button yeah for El Cap all right so see that thirty-six minutes it gets to thirty six megabytes it's always at thirty six and now the estimated time starts going up so why would this be the case why would you a seminal mode fast and elcapitan download slow I don't know why is it always at thirty six point six megabytes where it starts going slow I don't know and apparently neither do the Apple guys because I just had that phone call with them and they're just as flummoxed as I am so now as you can see we are already at two days in four hours for the estimated download time for one installer yet the other one was at twenty two minutes with no problems so in all honesty this is just one of those things where I'm probably just gonna have to wait oh my gosh six days okay back to two days well still both of those suck so anyway I'm probably just gonna have to sit this one out for a while and wait until the download speeds improve and then get back to you guys and I know people are probably gonna comment about me trying other things but I tried a bunch of different ideas with DNS servers resetting the router all that stuff and our speeds are still good this is something on Apple's and it just has to be I don't know what else it could be so I'll update you when I can but for now I'm just gonna be sitting down for a bit anyway that is all for crazy Ken for now if you liked the video feel free to leave a like down below maybe I can use the likes to fight off the evil forces that are sending me these ginormous mysterious curses I don't have a lot of lot do I anyway I appreciate you sticking with me and I will report back once I do more testing so stay in touch for that alright guys we'll see you in the not-too-distant future oh but it might be a very distant future Oh hey guys if you want to get some more laughs out of us I recommend Ken's cinema of shenanigans just click here but I also recommend one of our great cosplay music videos to watch one just click here\n"