Failed to upgrade to macOS Monterey

Guys i am just coming over here from another discussion about this problem and also encountered this problem on my 2019 macbook pro 16" laptop. Went to genius bar did all fresh installs for weeks, had same problems of fresh installs not going through until i finally got lucky with a Big Sur install finishing. A week later still the same error. I finally found a developer thread in my developers forums that was discussing the same problem and one of the guys was suggesting to not run the apple diagnostics, but the standard memtest86. It is a command line tool, but there is a OSX compiled easy GUI version, called "Rember", that you can freely download here: http://www.kelleycomputing.net/Rember/

Please run this test and i am 99% sure it will show up with a memory error. So did mine and so did a bunch of others who ran the test. Unfortunately my laptop is out of warranty, so I would have to do a motherboard swap and pay the 680 bucks for that, which makes no economical sense. But the i realized, that this is somewhat weird??? How come that all these 2019 macbooks have this problem and all apparently upon upgrading either to the beta version of Monterey (which is the issue that came up in the developer forums) or upon upgrading to the release version of Monterey (if you are a regular customer). There has to be some sort of low level firmware that has to have triggered something within our machines, since it seems to only happen upon upgrading to Monterey. I feel there are probably some batches of faulty Memory chips soldered onto our Motherboards, which were fine under Catalina or even Big Sur, but once Monterey went onto our laptops, something triggered these to encounter the error we all encounter. Honestly i am more than mad that Apple seriously is not starting to acknowledge this and offers free repair. I can just smell a class action suit coming on and for my part i will not buy anymore of the soldered RAM or SSD laptops from them. Its a disgrace to go back and have these often failing RAM chips not replaceable, putting huge burden on environment and consumers pockets (and absolutely unnecessary). Please email to apple and complain. If enough people will do so, they will change their products. Thanks

The Age of this computer will Govern what newer version of macOS it will Qualify to install. Use About this Mac from the Apple Icon on Desktop - the required Information will be there.

With the above information in-hand - follow this How to get old versions of macOS and verify what version this computer Qualifies to install.  For Best results use Safari to commence the download as Others may not work.

Safari will open a redirect and open the Apple Store where the download can commence.

Computer Qualify for the Monterey upgrade

macOS Big Sur 11 hardware requirements

Caution - jumping over all the newer versions and directly to Big Sur  / Monterey on Qualifying computers is Technically possible - there are those who have attempted and were successful. Then there are those who attempted and had less than good results.

If this is a Production or Mission Critical Set-up - a more prudent and measure approach is suggested. 

The above is from observations on the Apple Support Community Forums and IMHO

In your specific case - If BAD RAM is the issue >> Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac may identify it.

Barring the above >>

The Age of this computer will Govern what newer version of macOS it will Qualify to install. Use About this Mac from the Apple Icon on Desktop - the required Information will be there.

With the above information in-hand - follow this How to get old versions of macOS and verify what version this computer Qualifies to install.  For Best results use Safari to commence the download as Others may not work.

Safari will open a redirect and open the Apple Store where the download can commence.

Computer Qualify for the Monterey upgrade

macOS Big Sur 11 hardware requirements

macOS Catalina 10.15 hardware requirements

Caution - jumping over all the newer versions and directly to Big Sur  / Monterey on Qualifying computers is Technically possible - there are those who have attempted and were successful. Then there are those who attempted and had less than good results.

If this is a Production or Mission Critical Set-up - a more prudent and measure approach is suggested. 

The above is from observations on the Apple Support Community Forums and IMHO

Tips Big Sir Upgrade Released Nov 2020

Tips Monterey Upgrade  Released Oct 25, 2021

Make Time Machine Backup  is very useful and can be used to Revert to Previous Working macOS

Notation - Mojave is the Last version to support 32 bit applications / extensions and Drivers. Catalina, Big Sur & Monterey supports only 64 bit and there is no workaround.

Suggest using Go64 to find 32 bit application before attempting the upGrade. Some or many of the Application already installed may required update or upGrades to 64 Bit Versions.

Yeah, thanks again for your help.

Unfortunately, this is still a bust for me. My process-

• Wiped the SSD completely and started over (again).
• Fresh install of Mojave (original OS) from Internet Recovery (because the drive is wiped).
• Made the local admin account and run through setup assistant.
• Did nothing else but open Safari and download Catalina from Apple Support via AppStore.
• Ran installer, took its time, but did upgrade to Catalina successfully.
• Log back in, do nothing but open Safai and download Big Sur from Apple Support via AppStore.
• Ran installer... goes for about 3-4 min, gets to 14 min remaining... boom. Exact error as the first post from this thread (Could not verify trust (5) using MobileSoftwareUpdate policy. Will try basic X509..... etc etc etc).

I cannot get it to boot from external USB sources with Big Sur or Monterey (briefly attempts, then quickly balks and reboots to the local drive).

At this point, I believe it's a hardware issue (or more likely firmware that is not going to be resolved without some sort of hardware replacement) and the computer appears to be "stuck" at Catalina...

Always open to more suggestions, but I don't see a straightforward path to success on this one.

Thank you!

FWIW, I'm pretty stuck on this. Not only will Monterey not install, but Big Sur won't install either -- exact same error at 14 mins remaining.

I've made a backup of my data via target disk mode, and will be taking it to the Apple store tomorrow. I did try completely wiping the machine, and even after that it still throws the error... the best I can figure is that there's some sort of firmware mismatch between the machine and the OS. But I don't know why -- It's an entirely stock machine, with entirely stock Apple parts, and all I did was try to upgrade from the latest version of Catalina to the latest version of Monterey (12.3).

Wow, weird timing. I am struggling with essentially the exact same issue and behavior as initially posted here by xaxin and being seen by dodal.

I have a 2019 Retina Air 13in and it will not upgrade to... anything. I've tried all of the above. Wipe the drive completely and install Monterey- error at 14min. Big Sur download and install, same thing. I have made bootable drives of both Monterey and Big Sur, it will not boot (thinks for a second, then reboots). I have allowed for external boot devices in System Startup Utility.

In the end, the only thing I've been able to do is boot it to recovery and successfully reinstall Mojave (it's original OS).

I too saw someone suggesting a RAM issue, but the case I was reading about was discussing an older MacBook Pro with removable RAM, this Air's RAM is soldered, so... no "swapping RAM modules" is going to fix this.

Anyway, very interested to hear any thoughts or luck on this, as I'm beginning to go in circles and basically have an Air that now appears to be stuck at Mojave with no upgrade path...

Thanks for the reply.

Tried Apple Diagnostics first - "No issues."

Again, I've been trying all of this from a completely Zeroed SSD, not upgrading OS's or any other software installed etc. That said, I know that the Firmware updates are now embedded in the OS updates rather than the older EFI updaters, but I've never run into issues installing latest OS's to completely Zeroed drives.

I am now starting this process over again... have just erased and reformatted fresh to APFS and am reinstalling the original Mojave install from Internet Recovery. From there, without installing anything else, I will try and upgrade to Catalina via the AppStore installer. If that works, I'll try Big Sur and so on.

In the past, while I have been able to get it to restore to Mojave, it has not been happy with any updates past that. We'll see if this time yields different results. Personally... I think this may be some sort of firmware mismatch and without the individual EFI updaters like years ago, unsure it will "self resolve." I'll be happy though to find otherwise.

Thanks.

Very much with most was what has been written.

The issue as I have observed, the moving up the Apple Food-Chain of newer version of macOS has become a bit more complicated and not nearly as straight forwards as in the " Good Old Days ".

Yes the standalone EFI updates are not longer and do not expect seeing then again.

Doing a measured upgrade through several versions to eventually Monterey does better prepare the computer with any Embedded EFIs in each newer version. The mismatch one refers to earlier, is eliminated by moving from Mojave to Catalina to Big Sur and then Monterey. Each previous version will or should update the EFI until the Monterey EFi and presto - should work fine.

Notation: Does this machine have an After Market Internal Drive installed. This Will be a thorn in your side if so. Monterey will verify if the Internal Drive is an Original Apple Drive. If not, Monterey will balk and fail to install with a error message

To get around this - replace the After Market Drive with the Apple Original and Install Monterey. The reverse this action and use the After Market drive and insatall Monterey to that Drive.

It, Monterey will need to Flash the Computer with the New EFI Boot ROM and thereafter all sould be good.

Quick update on my machine. Apple Store techs tried for three days to get it to work -- they could get Catalina on it, but neither Big Sur nor Monterey would install. They tried recovery mode, Apple Configurator, and a USB installer... no joy.

The self-diagnostic and the basic in store diagnostic turned up no problems, but eventually they ran a more intensive overnight memory diagnostic -- and that did turn up a problem with the RAM. So the computer is going to Texas for repair.

Given that all three of us happened to have this same problem the same week, all after upgrading from Catalina to Monterey, I'm less than convinced this is really a RAM issue, but I guess if I get it back and it works, I won't worry about it too much. I suspect there's a firmware upgrade that isn't being properly applied, but I'm not really sure.

Hope you gents also have AppleCare -- I'm not sure there's anything that can be done here other than a board swap.

Thanks dordal for the update. As you can see from my last post to P. Phillips, it sounds like you an I are in the exact same boat... and this Air will likely be going into Apple as well.

I do find it odd (or quite a coincidence) that there are three (at least) reports of essentially the exact same thing in a relatively recent and short period of time that is apparently damaging (or at least partially damaging) these computers, but stranger things have happened.

We shall see.

Out of curiosity, did any of you install the Catalina security update from a few weeks ago? 2022-03 https://www.macworld.com/article/623104/macos-big-sur-catalina-security-updates.html

I noticed that did a firmware update, and that's when my problems with kernel panics started (and when I first tried upgrading to Monterey). I suspect that may be the source of the problem... wondering if anybody else installed it.

Machine is finally back from the Apple Store -- two weeks of them trying to fix it, and then finally sending it out to the repair center in Texas. $678 'Flat Rate' repair, although covered by AppleCare.

Monterey is working fine now, and (knock on wood) no crashes so far.

Glad to hear yours is back and working as it should.

As an update here, mine is actually undergoing a similar process. In full disclosure, I work in IT and have a close relationship with our local Apple Authorized Service Center, and they are great. It turns out the afore mentioned Air that's trapped at Catalina actually has AppleCare+ so it is still under warranty. I sent it to my AASC with an in-depth description of everything. As we have seen, while the computer passes Apple Diagnostics, a more in-depth (Apple only) diagnostic tool/run fails with a "memory error - memory test failed." As has also been noted, since the RAM is integrated, the only fix is a logic board replacement. This is what mine is undergoing now.

Again, had there not been AppleCare+ on this machine, it would have been a tough call on this repair out-of-pocket, especially since it technically works, just will never be able to use any OS later than Catalina. I should have it back in a few days and hopefully running Monterey as well.

Thanks for the help here, and to anyone else out there that comes across this similar error/issue... the hard truth is that while it appears to be software, it's really most likely a hardware/RAM issue (and hope you have AppleCare+).

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