WordPress & Theme updates freeze at "Unpacking the update…"

I’m running 3.4 trying to install 3.4.1 and when attempting to automatically update, the installing never progresses past the first step of “Unpacking the update…”. This is also happening when trying to install a new theme that I have just purchased.

I have searched for my .htaccess file as other forum posts have suggested editing this file but i have not been able to find it anywhere in my file manager.