Mac will only boot into safe mode after installing 11.3

My 2013 MacBook Air was previously running 10.14.6 and I tried to install 11.3. The installation seemed to have worked but then the progress bar got stuck at about 1/3.

I was able to boot into safe mode and from there I could complete the setup process (selecting language and region, signing into Apple ID, creating a user account). I found it odd that it asked me to create a user account. After that, it was booted up and working in safe mode.

However, when I try to boot into normal mode it still gets stuck in the same spot.

From what I’ve read, this means that there’s some third-party thing that’s messing with the boot. When I was in safe mode, I went to disable login items but there aren’t any. All of my applications are gone so I’m not sure what could be causing it.

I’m not concerned about losing data because I did a Time Machine backup before the installation.

I don’t really know what else to try. I’ve been looking around and nothing seems to work. It just gets stuck. I guess my only option is wiping it clean and trying to install again. I’ll leave a comment here if that works or doesn’t.

I just remembered that something similar happened when I tried Catalina. I think it was 10.15.3 and I had to do a clean install. Then I spent a week making a list of all the bugs I found and went back to Mojave!