Mac OS Catalina install failure (starting from Mojave version)

Somehow it magically worked. I erased Macintosh HD and just kept it as containerdisk2 and that's it. I didn't touch anything!!! Better safe than sorry!!!

Even before trying something as drastic as upgrading to a major version you should have already had two external drives, at least as big as your hard drive. One for Time Machine, and one for a clone, e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner.

I know iCloud is the new thing but I wouldn't trust it to backup and restore hundreds of GB of my data.

I'm having the Same issue on a MacBook Pro (13-inch 2017) running (Mojave 10.14.6) that will not install MacOS Catalina.

I have Mojave 10.14.6 running on my Mac Book pro and looks like it is downloading then nothing except upgrade icon in SP Software update showing a upgrade available reappears ..

I installed Catalina on a 2015 iMac last night with on issues but the MacBook Pro has rejected it three times now.it

Same issue and same MacBook... I started from scratch by Internet Recovery that installed Mojave (?) not Catalina. when a download and install Catalina from Software Update I received same error.

seems that lot of people have same issue

I've tried Internet Recovery and it offered me to install Catalina which resulted with the same 69808 error.

After that (since I've wiped my hard drive) same Internet Recovery offered me Mojave. Interesting case.

For those who are suffering from the error "Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup: (-69808).

I had the same issue, MacBook Pro 13" 2018, 256GB model when updating form MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 Build 18G103 to MacOS Catalina Build 19A583. And I found out the workaround and let me provide it to you guys.

First of all, please execute “diskutil apfs list" on terminal and check if there are any negative figures (size in byte), "-69808" in every single disk volume. If you find it,  I 'm assuming it would result in the error. Actually I had "-69808" in "VM" volume.

The workaround is to format your SSD/Hard drive as physical disk format with APFS, naming such as "Macintosh HD", not to format "Macintosh HD", a logical disk volume. (Before that, please make sure to take backup!! ). It makes the entire disk formatted and Catalina installer will automatically recreate necessary disk volumes, not only the volume with "-69808" but also other volumes. I hope it will lead you to succeed in installing Catalina to your Mac. (I succeeded in installing indeed.)

Yesterday I reported the issue to Apple Support and told them the workaround. I hope Apple will address the issue.

It would be appreciated if my workaround would help you resolving the issue you're faced with!

thanks for the suggestion, I found the error on the same volume "VM", mine is Encrypted.

Please, could you post the right command to submit via Terminal to erase the entire hd/ssd? Yesterday I erased "Preboot" and "Recovery" volumes but nothing changed

thanks

All these articles don't work at all and most of these are complicated. No wonder why the majority of people in this universe LOVE Windows computers. Cheaper and bigger screens and WAY more options and gaming computers, etc. GOD BLESS WINDOWS!!!!!!

I had this problem.

I went to the "Genius Bar" in London White City and they re-installed Mojave. Now my iMac won't even re-start and Apple doesn't want to know. I've lost an iMac 4 years old and Apple has dumped me on my own because you upgrade at your won risk. BEWARE!

I am not quite sure. They just didn't offer me a repair. The model is only 4 years old and I bought it new from the Apple Store in London though it has given me lots of problems from the beginning. I always wondered if they passed me a refurbished iMac for a new one to be quite frank.

I have the same issue. I called Apple support, the rep couldn’t even find the error code on their system. I did factory reset on my MacBook Pro 2018, installed High-Sierra , then Mojave and then tried again to upgrade to Catalina and got the same error.. The rep told me that something must be wrong with my computer. Seem like many people face this problem now.

I have the same problem!My main disk volume, Macintosh HD volume has the -69808 error which has all my important data on it. I can not erase it without backup the data but right now I don't have access to the disk. It is a disaster!!!

I haven't find any solutions at all.

This right here.

This fixed the -69808 install error for me.

Really appreciate the simple step by step details that (after multiple tries with different methods found here) finally got me to Catalina land on my new 2019 MBP.

Thank you @dbchest!