Michael Levin
Level 2 (184 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Does the Migration Assistant write to any log?

When you migrate data, does the migration assistant record anywhere (console log) how it went and whether or not it succeeded? I did a migration operation overnight and when I came in, the machine was off (had shut itself down). I need to know if it did that after the migration was finished, or if the migration never completed. Does it leave a log? I can't find it.

Posted on Dec 9, 2015 3:52 AM

by judysings,Solvedanswer
judysings judysings
Community Specialists
A:

Michael,

 

 

My apologies for misunderstanding! In 10.9 Migration Assistant writes to /var/log/install.log (available on the left side of Console by expanding the '/var/log' category), and you can use the strings "Setup Assistant" and "safecp" (again, no quotes) to isolate messages written by Migration Assistant.

 

 

Cheers.

Posted on Dec 14, 2015 8:48 AM

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Michael Levin

Q: Does the Migration Assistant write to any log?

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  • by Allen A,

    Allen A Allen A Dec 10, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Michael Levin
    Community Specialists
    Dec 10, 2015 12:27 PM in response to Michael Levin

    Hey Michael,

     

     

    I understand that you're looking to verify successful migration of your information after installing OS X 10.11 on your Mac. Migration Assistant does, indeed, log information, and does so to system.log (easily accessible via the Console utility in /Applications/Utilities) as opposed to its own log file.

     

    In the Console utility you can use the search box at the top right to search for "Migration Assistant" (without the quotes) to view only messages from Migration Assistant. If you don't see anything definitive via that means, search for "systemmigrationd" (again, without quotes) to look for any failures on the part of the process itself.

     

     

    Regards!

  • by Michael Levin,

    Michael Levin Michael Levin Dec 10, 2015 12:32 PM in response to Allen A
    Level 2 (184 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 10, 2015 12:32 PM in response to Allen A

    > I understand that you're looking to verify successful migration of your information after installing OS X 10.11


       nope, I didn't install 10.11 - I merely migrated data from one machine to another (to a 10.9.5 Mac Pro) from a clone disk (of a 10.8.5 system).


    > Migration Assistant does, indeed, log information, and does so to system.log (easily accessible via the Console utility in /Applications/Utilities) as opposed to its own log file. In the Console utility you can use the search box at the top right to search for "Migration Assistant" (without the quotes) to view only messages from Migration Assistant. If you don't see anything definitive via that means, search for "systemmigrationd" (again, without quotes) to look for any failures on the part of the process itself.


       yep, tried that, no sign of "Migration Assistant" or "systemmigrationd" at all - not even that the process began!

  • by judysings,Solvedanswer

    judysings judysings Dec 14, 2015 8:48 AM in response to Michael Levin
    Community Specialists
    Dec 14, 2015 8:48 AM in response to Michael Levin

    Michael,

     

     

    My apologies for misunderstanding! In 10.9 Migration Assistant writes to /var/log/install.log (available on the left side of Console by expanding the '/var/log' category), and you can use the strings "Setup Assistant" and "safecp" (again, no quotes) to isolate messages written by Migration Assistant.

     

     

    Cheers.

  • by kennethmac2000,

    kennethmac2000 kennethmac2000 Aug 22, 2016 7:46 PM in response to judysings
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 22, 2016 7:46 PM in response to judysings

    install.log is still the correct file in El Capitan (OS X 10.11), but I had more luck searching for "systemmigrationd" or "SMMigrate". If you're primarily interested in a list of the files/folders that were copied, the best thing to search for in install.log is the string "Copy:".