Catalina installation stuck

After about two hours of seemingly no progress, I restarted. I don't really consider this a good thing to do during a system installation but this seemed to get things going. At least a message came up saying 32 minutes remaining – although it still took over an hour after that.

I think Apple needs to put a more senior developer on the install process to reassure the user that things are working and give progress.

I started the install on my iMac 5k at 09:38 it is now 18:30 and the bar has only just started moving - from about 10% to 75% in the last 30minutes.. My MacBook pro took about an hour..

I suspect (with no evidence at all) that this is the crappy fusion drive in the iMac..

Just to report my experience -- after leaving my Mac at "calculating time remaining" for 5 hours, i went to bed. Woke up 7 hours later to find a nice, happy Catalina login screen. So be patient and your upgrade will probably go OK.

And to answer my own question, hopefully without angering Allan Eckert, when the upgrader appears to be stuck for hours and Control + L doesn't work, it doesn't necessarily mean that it has hung. I couldn't get supplemental info on the upgrade by doing Control + L but the upgrade still completed. Hopefully that is useful yo people in their long wait for the upgrade to complete.

**** Allen your a Jack-*** too just like another dude I had to check like I’m doing to you now. Loose the I am superior to all attitude and instead of waisting time heckling folks for asking a simple any one out there have knowledge and can give insight attitude ya got bud. How bout being nice and help cause we all know dam well no apple solution person will jump in and help that’s why this is called COMMUNITY SUPPORT.

iMac 27in

I pressed the power button, and immediately the 'estimating time' label changed to something like

• this mac will reboot when the installation is finished

then

• 9 minutes remaining

then

• 18 mins..

then

• back to the 'estimating time remaining'

It does at least show me that something is still working, and the process is responsive. It may be that some subprocess is completely stuck though. The 18mins was completely wrong!

Hey i m stuck after installing catalina. Now i m unable to proceed to my homepage. on switching on my macbook pro , just page for password entry appears nd than processing signs appear for few minutes nd than shutdown itself. What shall i do?

Currently having same problem and about 90mins into watching “estimating time remaining....” with the progress bar on about 10%.

question for others stuck like this: should control + L show me what it’s working on if it is still working, or does no response to Control +L mean that it is hung?

thanks.

Didn’t think I was hijacking - I appear to have the same problem. Just trying to get someone knowledgeable to add insight that might be helpful for others, inc me, seemingly having the same problem as the original poster. He waited for 3 hours and problem resolved itself. Curious if ctrl + L would be expected to work during his 3 hour wait and my 2 hour (so far...) wait. Surely better if comments on same problem are all in the same thread?

I went to download Catalina yesterday morning and today it’s stuck on the installation screen. When I try to force quit or reboot. I get the boot up screen. Not sure what to do. Shutting it down is not a fix it goes right back to boot up screen saying estimated 9 minuets. Does anybody have an answer?

I'm having the same issue, I have been staring at a "setting up your mac' screen for close to 24 hours now. I tried shutting down and opening, no luck.

not looking to get scolded either, should I be posting this in a different thread?

@ Confused- I just pressed and held the power button, it blipped, powered down and then when I hit it again I am getting the progress bar, which compared to what I've been seeing since yesterday morning, this looks like a good sign. (Hopefully I didn't jinx myself)

don't worry just let it load mine took close to 24 hours but it finally loaded. And still I hope there is an update because I have a few issues. But over all Catalina is nice. Just let it load be patient.

Stuck on estimating time remaining as well. Upgrading a Mojave VMware Fusion virtual machine, which I know from others ultimately works. Mojave was working fine on the VM. Main Mac OS is Mojave. Putting this early Catalina on a VM because I have 32 bit apps I can't give up quite yet. Have read on the web NUMEROUS people get stuck at this point and also at another point. Some have forced it down and upon restarting it picked up better, and moved on... so it seems like it really is stuck, though I read here where others say they waited it out for 8 hours or whatever.. I'm tempted to force it down, but I dont know for sure yet what I'll do. Apple needs to address this.

Restarted the virtual machine after taking a snapshot for safety, and it went through the progress bar and is stuck at the same place again.. so at least it knows how to recover itself even through a restart.. I've read and been told to just wait, that this installation takes anywhere from 3 to 8 to 24 hours to install, fortunately computers can just be left on to do their thing, I imagine Apple will fix this, as it doesn't need that much time, it's definitely a loop, oh mine just changed, restarting may have helped, I'm up to the password login window... yay... I didn't have to wait it out, restarting is the thing.