Apple Intelligence stuck on "Preparing" status for more than 10 hours

None of the remedies in this thread have worked for me. Still stuck preparing.

So, called Apple Support last night regarding this and it was a waste of time. Took my MacBook Pro M3 to the Apple Store today and spent an hour and a half with an Apple Genius. After telling me there wasn’t a problem they reloaded the System software under a test account on the MBP and still nothing. She went in the back told me that they just got an alert that this is known bug on some iPad’s and Mac’s. She didn’t really know much more than that but told me she hoped there would be a resolution soon. She said the rebooting, network connections, changing regions, etc. should really not impact it and if it worked for you then you were one of the lucky ones. I hope this helps.

For everyone here looking for answers, I stumbled onto a possible solution here.

First and foremost, as in my first suggestion, you must verify (establish) your connection to a WiFi network 🛜, not simply a mobile hotspot (my apologies for not being more precise in my first response).

If Apple Intelligence is stuck on your iPhone:

1. Open Settings ➢ General ➢ iPhone Storage.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap ⚙️ iOS.
3. Apple Intelligence should be fully downloaded if it reads: 2.56 GB.

If Apple Intelligence is stuck on your Mac:

1. Open Settings ➢ General ➢ Storage.
2. Scroll to the bottom and double-click ⚙️ macOS.
3. Apple Intelligence should be fully downloaded if it reads: 4.94 GB.

Now, go directly to Settings ➢ Apple Intelligence & Siri and you should find the prompt or switch to toggle on Apple Intelligence.

Please provide any feedback if this has helped so we can all learn from this.

Good Luck! 👋🏼😉

Nothing works for me. It takes for 2 days already( Iphone 15 pro

Same issue even after rebooting and verifying network connection.

Verify your network connection and restart it if it fails to establish.

I can’t get this to work after rebooting a few times. It still says it’s “Preparing” after about 15 hours. What do you mean by “verifying network connection?”. I have internet, obviously. Lol

Since posting yesterday I have rebooted multiple times, turned Siri on and off, change regions, etc. This morning after rebooting a couple of times, I turned Siri on and off several times, changed the language to English UK, and then back again, and the notification popped up that it was "Ready". Obviously if this a bug it will depend on your machine, and any number of things to determine what might work for you. I would imagine a small update will be coming soon to address this for everyone. I hope this helps. Thanks

Om my M2 MacBook Air it was stuck for over a couple of days at "Preparing". Rebooting several times over that time frame did nothing. What DID work was switching Siri Language to something else. I tried Cantonese. First it gave an error dialog with some number like -128 or something, then it switched to Cantonese but warned me that Apple Intelligence was not compatible with that language setting. I switched back to English and it worked!

If it’s not fully downloaded, then wait until it is.

Listen, the download is restricted to a WiFi connection, that much is clear.

If your connection is poor, then restart the device or network.

Also (as others have pointed out), be sure that the region is set to the United States and language is set to English U.S.

Hello,

After testing my Mac for approximately three hours while it was set to “preparing,” I have decided to restart it to ensure that any necessary prerequisite packages are loaded and to reset my internet connection.

A few minutes later, I received an Apple ID activation request and was able to turn it on.

Please try restarting your Mac or iPad and let us know if this solution works for you.

[Edited by Moderator]

A known bug would explain why rebooting sometimes helps.

That was quite helpful.

Thanks for sharing, Gary Henry! 👍🏼

Have a great day! 👋🏼😉

The publicly released version is beta.

Ffnhxxc wrote:

same suitation to me

Have you tried all the methods many of us posted within the many pages of this thread?

My M1 MacBook Pro has been Preparing for a day and a half. Seems to be reading a lot of files but I don't think it should take this long. Have rebooted once. Will try doing it more to see if I get lucky.