Q: El Capitan installation failed (error related to essentials.pkg)

even I am getting the same issue I am in a continuous loop of restarting my laptop!!  Nothing is helping out!!  And sadly I even forgot to make a back up.. I am a new user!!  Please help!!

if the re-download did not work did you look into the issue that popped up with that package and Yosemite on systems with non-Apple factory-installed RAM?

No I haven't take the RAM out. However, I did do an installation on a different, older iMac and everything worked fine. I've ran out of ideas?

same image or different download? If it's the same I'd try the RAM solution. It appeared to have worked for some.

You have the 29" iMac? There's your problem right there! 

Did Sanjay's answer work? Silence leaves us dangling.

Replacing the memory might not be necessary, and it's always advisable to only change one variable at a time. I have the same 32GB Crucial, and prior to installation tested it with AHT and DiskToolsPro. No issues. Reverting the memory could help, but it could also introduce issues (lower overhead, static). Be sure to use a grounding strap if you swap it.

I have a somewhat different problem. I was able to download El Capitan and when it went to reboot to finish the install it hung up saying "Installing: About 30 minutes remaining". The thermometer gauge hasn't budged for at least 30 minutes now. What's the best next step at this point?

Good afternoon,

so I tried the command-R and it brought me to the utility screen and I chose to reinstall the OS X, it took me to another screen to download and reinstall and then it tries to and gives me a pop up stating there was an error in the application and retry again.  I'm stuck there, how do I just go back to where I was, my imac now is a fancy paper weight.

any help would be appreciated.  this is just bumming me out.  I bought an external hard-drive to back everything up on Wednesday off of ebay and it hasn't arrived yet and couldn't wait to install and never had problems with updating before and figured, I don't need to back it up for this and now I'm paying the price

Patience, it takes longer than 30 minutes IME. However, I do hope you don't end up in the loop I'm in. When it's almost finished installing you get an error, and it restarts, then sends you back to this screen again to start the whole process again.

You are correct, Ryan. About 20 minutes after posting there was signs of progress. It took another hour+ but it finally installed. I have to admit I'm a bit anxious about the upgrade because I tried doing the same on another Mac yesterday and it totally blew up on me, going into what the Genius Bar techie described as "kernel panic." He had to wipe my SSD and I've spent the better part of today reinstalling and reconfiguring. Quite a headache.

Are you past the point you can attempt an install from a USB drive?

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/09/how-to-make-your-own-bootable-os-x-10-11-el -capitan-usb-install-drive/

i had the same 'essentials.pkg' error mentioned here  the detailed installation log mentioned something about the color file being unparsable.

suspecting a damaged download i tried the suggested solution of using the recovery partition to re-install the system. the recovery partition had already been updated to it tried to install el capitan. this solution did not work for me, the very same 'essentials.pkg' occured again even with the freshly downloaded data.

i was 100% sure that my 3rd party RAM would not have caused this error since it was in my 27" iMac since day one and i've never had a single problem during usage or system updated. however, i can confirm that removing the 3rd party RAM (corsair vengeance) temporarily for the update to el-capitan solved the 'essentials.pkg' issue for me. i had about 20 failed tries before removing the additional RAM, and once i removed it, the first try worked.

i can

• recommend you to remove your 3rd party RAM temporarily if you see this issue and

• recommend Apple to get their stuff together - my 3rd party RAM worked fine for ages and fine for updating to yosemite - please solve this issue

I too experienced the multiple install failure loops with the "essentials.pkg" error.  Booting to CMD-R and trying the installation that way didn't work either.  The only I had was to keep clicking "Restart" to let it try to install again or to force a power off and try to restore from a Time Machine backup.  After clicking "restart" three times when the error page popped up, the install finally went to completion.  I have no idea what was different or why it took three times to get this done.

I have a late 2013 MBP with only Apple RAM.

While I'm glad I finally got it to install, I'm frustrated that it took so long and that I have no idea why it "took" on the third hit of the restart button.  I was moments away from "enjoying" a lengthy restore from Time Machine backup.

I had the essentials.pkg failure. I also tried a forced a power off and by miracle, the installation went well. This is the first time in my life that I have so much trouble installing OS X. Good luck to all!

Hello, When I use the installer it wants to install lion, however I have Yosemite installed? Thank you...

I've got a little further, I took out the third party RAM and installation went very slowly but got there in the end, much, much longer than 30 minutes. However, now my machine, on startup gets to where the progress bar is near the end and just abruptly turns off – and keeps doing it so I'm in another loop. When I press CMD R at startup the recovery window comes up and I can run disk first aid and everything is OK but when I try to startup again the same thing happens. I think I'll have to do that long, drawn out reinstallation of OSX again :-(  This is so tedious!