Migration assistant stuck

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Level 1

8 points

Migration assistant stuck

It consistently gets stuck at "Updating your system settings...".

I've tried doing the migration directly from the old MBP using a firewire cable, and also (as in the screenshot) from a recent Time Machine backup. It goes fairly fast (about an hour for 500 GB of data) for a while, then hangs (I've waited for 4 hours). I've tried several times cancelling and attempting again.

sshing into the machine shows 0 disk activity (from iostat) and only incidental CPU activity (WindowServer using a few percent).

The new machine is a MBP M1 Max just out of the box, and the old machine is a MBP 16" 2019 running Catalina.

I've also tried it with "system settings" deselected in the list of things to migrate, but it doesn't help (in fact, the screenshot below is with it deselected, so it seems to want to do something with settings anyway.)

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Nov 22, 2021 5:06 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

PRP_53

Level 10

91,183 points

Nov 22, 2021 10:01 AM in response to tlbtlbtlb

Is one Migrating Everything from Old to New M1 Apple Silicon computer ? Personally would suggest not doing this for the reasons below;

1 - Any, already existing issues present on the Old and on the Backup Drive may well be Migrated onto the New computer. This will effectively Negate an otherwise Pristine and Virginal Installation of Monterey.

2 - Application from Old to New may not be Monterey macOS 12 Compatible especially since the New Computer runs on the ARMs based CPU and does not support anything 32 Bit.

3 - Would suggest only Migrating the User Account and nothing more. Personal documents etc can be moved over later.

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Answer 2

tlbtlbtlb Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 22, 2021 7:34 AM in response to lllaass

It also stalls in with the same status ("Updating your system settings") when I only select my home directory.

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Answer 3

tlbtlbtlb Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 22, 2021 5:12 AM in response to tlbtlbtlb

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Answer 4

Nov 22, 2021 8:33 AM in response to tlbtlbtlb

You can also use the Migration Assistant to migrate directly from one machine to another without using a Time Machine backup. It may be worth a try to see if the behaviour is the same.

- Pie Lover

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Answer 5

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Nov 22, 2021 5:40 AM in response to tlbtlbtlb

What are you trying to migrate?

Maybe try migrating less.to help determine if it is something specific item it is hanging up on.

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Migration assistant stuck

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