Upgrade from Yosemite to Big Sur, Macbook Pro early 2015

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Upgrade from Yosemite to Big Sur, Macbook Pro early 2015

I had to reinstall the original OS Yosemite on a 2015 Macbook Pro 13, after replacing a cable to fix the loss of trackpad and keyboard function. I'm trying to upgrade to Big Sur through the App Store, but I keep getting an error alert, "The server gave an error during download: 500 Internal Server Error." I'm on 10.10.5 (14F2511), which is compatible with the upgrade. I get the same error from safe boot, too. Ideas?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.10

Posted on Jul 3, 2021 4:40 AM

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Answer 1

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Owl-53

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102,475 points

Jul 3, 2021 6:51 AM in response to svilenST

Strongly suggest upgrading to at least High Sierra as it will better position the computer for the eventual leap to Big Sur. Reason, the internal drive is back to HFS and running Yosemite. The direct upgrade to Big Sur requires the drive already be converted from HFS to APFS before it will install. Big Sur, from reading on these ASC Forums, is not offering the conversion. High Sierra just may offer during the installation to do exactly that - convert HFS to APFS.

How to get old versions of macOS - Use Only Safari as Others may not work.

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Answer 2

svilenST Author

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5 points

Jul 3, 2021 9:52 AM in response to Owl-53

P. Phillips, thanks for your comments.

I downloaded the Big Sur installer on a newer Mac, made a bootable drive and upgraded the 2015 MacBook that way. I checked after the upgrade - my file system is APFS. I cannot be sure if it was converted during this latest upgrade, or during some previous one - this computer has been through the gradual upgrade cycle from Yosemite all the way to Big Sur. I didn't reformat the hard disk when I reverted back to Yosemite last week, but from what I'm reading, Yosemite cannot run on APFS. Anyhow, I'm in business now, on the latest version of Big Sur.

I would have appreciated some more technical info during my failed attempts to download Big Sur from Yosemite. Or maybe Apple's thinking is that those who are technically proficient will figure it out anyway, while those who are not will just go buy a new computer ;)

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Answer 3

Owl-53

Level 10

102,475 points

Jul 4, 2021 2:02 AM in response to svilenST

Just a technical point - to have reverted to Yosemite via what means ? In order for Yosemite to install and function the Drive would have had to be in the older HFS Journaled format. None of the macOS Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra would install on a drive formatted as APFS. APFS filing system did not exist to the public at the time those versions of macOS were released. Even if it did, the operating system could not understand the the filing system. Starting in High Sierra and only apple SSD drives was support for APFS available.

To that, suggest opening the Terminal application and copy and paste this command " diskutil list " without quotation marks Would be instructed what the output looks like. If as mentioned - the drive was not formatted when reverting to Yosemite. Concerned there is an extra Volume on drive where Yosemite might be occupying space.

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Answer 4

svilenST Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 4, 2021 9:38 AM in response to Owl-53

I reinstalled Yosemite through MacOS Recovery, Shift-Option-Command-R at boot, which gives you the option to install the OS the computer came with. It was actually a mistake on my part - I should have just reinstalled the latest OS with Command-R.

The diskutil report looks like this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0

1: EFI ⁨EFI⁩ 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩ 250.8 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +250.8 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume ⁨ss-mbp - Data⁩ 11.4 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩ 282.9 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩ 622.9 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩ 1.1 GB disk1s4

5: APFS Volume ⁨ss-mbp⁩ 15.3 GB disk1s5

6: APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.3 GB disk1s5s1

Thanks.

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Upgrade from Yosemite to Big Sur, Macbook Pro early 2015

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