Upgrade to macOS 11.2.3 to 11.3.1 repeatedly lands in Recovery Boot

This afternoon I innocently asked my MacMini (anno 2019, I think) to upgrade from MacOS 11.2.3 to 11.3.1.

Around the time where I would have expected 11.3.1 to triumphally boot for the first time, I was greeted with the Recovery Boot window and was subsequently informed that

Your computer started up in Recovery because a failure occurred during installation.

An error occurred migrating user data during an installation. Reinstall MacOS to resolve the issue.

Sadly, reinstalling MacOS does not resolve the issue... I eventually end up back in Recovery. I have repeated this loop two or three times now. I have managed to save the Recovery log and Recovery also gives access to SSH.

So, any tips on how to recover from this situation?

I should add that I had problems in the initial upgrade from Catalina to Big Sur, so I guess this is an extension of that, though all the previous upgrades of Big Sur to 11.2.3 have been unproblematic.

Steve

Mac mini, macOS 11.2

Posted on May 6, 2021 9:16 AM

Top-ranking reply

Stephen Winnall Author

Level 1

19 points

Posted on May 6, 2021 6:17 PM

In the absence of any alternative suggestions, I used Terminal to back up to a USB stick what I needed to save and then completely erased the disk, after which I did a clean install.

But the combination of this Mac mini and macOS 11 has caused me more than the usual amount of grief.

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Upgrade to macOS 11.2.3 to 11.3.1 repeatedly lands in Recovery Boot

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