Xcode components download stuck

Additional Information: Further Troubleshooting and Resolution

I have now resolved the Xcode Component download problem after carrying out extensive troubleshooting and several system restorations. I would like to provide the following additional information, as the troubleshooting process revealed some useful observations.

1. Erasing the internal disk and reinstalling macOS did not by itself resolve the problem

I first erased the internal disk completely and reinstalled macOS Tahoe 26.7. Immediately after the clean installation, I restored the entire system/environment from my Time Machine backup. I then launched Xcode 27.0. The original Xcode Component download problem was still present. In other words, simply erasing the internal disk, reinstalling macOS, and then restoring the previous environment did not resolve the problem.

1. A clean system with a minimally restored user account worked correctly

I subsequently erased the internal disk and reinstalled macOS Tahoe 26.7 again. This time, instead of restoring the entire previous environment, I restored only a minimally used user account from the Time Machine backup. This user account had rarely been used in the past and had never been used with Xcode. I then installed Xcode 27.0 as a fresh installation. In this configuration, the Xcode Components downloaded successfully. The previous problem with Developer Documentation and the Metal Toolchain did not occur. This was an important indication that the problem was related in some way to the previously restored environment, although I was unable to identify the specific file, setting, or local state responsible.

1. I then restored the previous environment incrementally

Starting from the known-good configuration, I restored the following items from the Time Machine backup:

• User data
• Applications
• Privacy & Security settings
• System & Network settings
• Other Files & Folders

I checked Xcode after the restoration process, and Xcode Components continued to work normally. Thus, in the final configuration, the necessary user data, applications, system settings, and other files had been restored, while Xcode Component downloads remained functional. The specific cause of the original problem could therefore not be isolated to any particular category of restored data.

1. Keychain and development certificate recovery

During the restoration process, the state of Keychain Access also became unstable. As a result, I had to perform additional recovery work:

• Reset the affected keychain state
• Download the required G3 certificate again
• Add the required certificates back to Xcode

This added another significant amount of work to the recovery of the development environment.

1. Final result

The problem is now resolved. After rebuilding the system and selectively restoring the necessary environment from Time Machine, Xcode 27.0 is now able to download and use its Components normally. However, I was not able to determine exactly which local state or file originally caused the Component download subsystem to become stuck.

Request for Improvement This experience suggests an important area for improvement in Xcode. The Xcode Component management subsystem appears to maintain local state related to Component installation and download status. If that local state becomes corrupted or otherwise enters an inconsistent state, there does not appear to be a straightforward user-accessible way to reset the Component management subsystem to a known-good initial state. In my case, I was unable to repair the problem using the normal Xcode or command-line mechanisms. Ultimately, resolving the problem required extensive system recovery work, including:

• Erasing the internal disk
• Reinstalling macOS
• Restoring the system from Time Machine multiple times
• Reinstalling Xcode
• Recovering the keychain state
• Re-downloading certificates
• Re-adding certificates to Xcode
• Gradually restoring the previous environment and testing Xcode

This is a very large amount of work for what appears to have been a problem with the local state of the Xcode Component management subsystem.

I strongly request that Xcode provide a supported mechanism to reset the Component management subsystem to a clean, known-good initial state.

Ideally, this mechanism would safely clear or rebuild the local Component-management state, including any relevant download, installation, cache, or metadata state, without requiring the user to reinstall macOS or reconstruct the entire development environment. If such a reset mechanism already exists but is not documented or exposed to users, please consider documenting it clearly. A reliable reset mechanism would make this type of failure much easier to recover from and could prevent users from having to perform the kind of extensive system restoration that was necessary in my case.

• Restart Mac
• Open Xcode
• Go to Xcode->Settings->Components

All OS and Simulators including Toolchains can be downloaded by pressing the button if available.

I had the same problem today. Xcode was stuck at “Preparing to download” for components, and xcodebuild -downloadPlatform iOS was stuck at the same stage.

I was using my phone’s hotspot. After switching to another Wi-Fi network, the download started working normally.

So at least in my case, it was a network/CDN issue rather than an Xcode installation problem. If you’re seeing this, try another network before reinstalling Xcode.