Xcode 4.1 Not Installing? Try This.
Apple released OSX Lion earlier today, but Xcode 4.0.2 is not compatible with it. Later in the day, they released Xcode 4.1 for Lion through the Mac App Store. I saw some comments from people saying that at about 80% of the way through the installation, they got a popup telling them they needed to quit iTunes in order to continue, but iTunes wasn’t running. They were unable to continue. Here’s what they missed: iTunesHelper. This is an additional iTunes process that is running, even when iTunes proper is not. It’s there so that when you attach an iOS device, it can fire up iTunes for you. Go into Activity Monitor and find iTunesHelper. Select it, and then kill it. After a second or two, the “you need to quit iTunes” dialog will go away, and the installation will complete.
Legacy Comments
Radu — July 21, 2011 at 3:13 AM
Thanks, saved my day! I wouldn’t have thought about iTunesHelper :)
Keith — July 21, 2011 at 4:24 AM
Thanks, Joey! This blog post saved me. I had shut down everything I could think of, tried restarting iTunes and shutting it down or killing it in various ways, but nothing worked until I saw your helpful solution.
Jason — July 21, 2011 at 8:48 AM
One problem I didn’t have ;) But the 4.1 installed “updated” my 4.2 beta install which was interesting. I don’t like the fact that the installer from the app store doesn’t give you the option of where to install the damned software.
had to run the uninstallers for 4.02 and 4.2 beta and then things went swimmingly ;)
Michael — July 21, 2011 at 10:57 AM
Thank you! My installer was stuck right there. Google + your blog saved a lot of gnashing of teeth.
Hakan — July 21, 2011 at 11:04 AM
Wow. Thanks.
Totiz — July 21, 2011 at 2:24 PM
Thank you, the solution’s been very helpful. I struck on installing process for this kind of error. try many way before I red this article. this solution, “it’s just work”.
Simon — August 4, 2011 at 1:52 PM
Great bit of advice - really helped - cheers!
Malachi ( NERD ) — October 24, 2011 at 4:52 PM
does it work with snow leopard??
Joey Gibson — October 24, 2011 at 5:32 PM
I don’t have any idea. All I have are Lion machines.
Garrett Bluma — January 2, 2012 at 4:53 PM
Xcode 4 isn’t available for Snow Leopard, but Xcode 3.2.6 (current at the time of this writing) has the same problem.
Luckily the same solution (quitting iTunesHelper) fixes the issue and got me rolling again. Thanks!