catalina install takes forever

Has anyone else had a problem installing Catalina (not the beta)? It took nearly two hours (so far) on the “Setting Up Your Mac” screen. I see a spinning icon next to “setting up...” but there doesn’t seem to be any progress. Should this take hours? Any suggestions on what to do if it doesn’t finish after an over-night (8 hours)?

Posted on Oct 7, 2019 6:28 PM

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Posted on Oct 8, 2019 6:00 AM

I was on the phone with Apple Support and they helped me get it to work. Here's how:


1) Restart Mac (since we're in "Setting Up" mode, Catalina was installed so there was no worry about restarting during installation)


2) Zap P-RAM (he had me reboot a few times with some special instructions to zap the PRAM and a one other setting


3) Disconnect external devices (I had a few items on my USB-C chain)


After rebooting again, it worked and didn't take much time!


Good luck!!

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Oct 8, 2019 6:00 AM in response to buckwheat

I was on the phone with Apple Support and they helped me get it to work. Here's how:


1) Restart Mac (since we're in "Setting Up" mode, Catalina was installed so there was no worry about restarting during installation)


2) Zap P-RAM (he had me reboot a few times with some special instructions to zap the PRAM and a one other setting


3) Disconnect external devices (I had a few items on my USB-C chain)


After rebooting again, it worked and didn't take much time!


Good luck!!

Oct 14, 2019 5:42 AM in response to David Gertler

It took 6.5 hours for me to load Catalina. 4 hours waiting for it to finish copying my files to Archive. In the end no files were copied and I lost every document on my MacBook. Fortunately, had back ups. Not impressed with Catalina. Confusing instructions and so far can't see any improvement on Mojave or Sierra. I have spent all day trying to reload all my data.

Wish I hadn't loaded it!


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catalina install takes forever

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