This update is not allowed on this system.

Just got my new Mac mini (M1, 2020) spun up and taking it for a test drive. I’m immediately impressed by how many apps that I use are showing up as “Apple” in the Architecture column of the Process Monitor. For apps that still required the old Intel chip, there’s Rosetta. I ran into a weird error message and didn’t find it listed anywhere on Google, yet. I opened my app and got this dialog with a pretty self explanatory, “To open “…”, you need to install Rosetta. Do you want to install it now?”. And then there’s some text explaining why this is a good thing. Then there are three buttons: ?, Not Now, and Install.

To open “…”, you will need to install Rosetta. Do you want to install it now?

I click the Install button. It searches for a bit and then I get this strange message. “This update is not allowed on this system.” How strange.

This update is not allowed on this system.

After a bit of troubleshooting I tracked my issue down. I’d been using DNSCrypt as my DNS provider. It runs locally on port 53. It was working on macOS 11 but stopped working when I updated to macOS 11.0.1. It seems I had created a Catch 22. I could not get DNS because I did not have Rosetta. And I could not get Rosetta because there was no DNS. The little updater was probably confused because I had a network connection, just no DNS. Simple fix: set the DNS to not use DNSCrypt and suddenly Rosetta is installed and happy.

This interesting lesson here is that when I upgraded from 11.0 to 11.0.1, Rosetta was no longer functional and had to be updated.

About this Mac showing macOS Big Sur version 11.0.1 running on Mac mini (M1, 2020)

6 Replies to “This update is not allowed on this system.”

  1. DNSCrypt is not part of the standard OS but something that I installed. The same symptom should have a similar solution. Check to make sure your computer is on the Internet. If you are using a VPN or otherwise blocking port 53, turn it off. If your ISP blocks DNS queries, you may be out of luck. I never recommend using your ISP’s DNS servers but instead using something like Google or OpenDNS. See Steve Gibson’s DNS Benchmark list.
    https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

  2. Change your DNS to 208.67.222.222, remove all other address. It worked for me.

  3. HI! Can you help me here. I also encounter the same issue. Can you help me with the steps? Thank you.

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