How come the past 2 macOS updates have resulted in my computer booting into recovery mode?
How come the past 2 macOS updates have resulted in my computer booting into recovery mode? Wait let me explain and wait for the kicker...
Over a month ago I Was on the phone with Apple regarding an issue of my Notes not syncing on my iphone and/or iMac desktop. Apple pointed out that my OS wasnt up to date and suggested that I do a backup of my computer and then update to the latest OS. So I did a time machine backup and updated to the latest OS and when I came back to the computer it was on the "MacOS recovery" screen. I chose the 'install from the time machine backup' option in recovery mode. I think it gave me issues and that particular backup wouldnt take. So at some point I think I hit shut down or restart and the computer booted up to the latest OS with no issue.
Fast forward to today 5/26/23. My system settings said there was a new OS to update to. So I hit update and walked away. And came back a little while later to a dark gray screen that said "MacOS recovery" again. Seemed really odd that this is the second OS Update in roughly a 2 month period where it concludes with the "MacOS Recovery" screen. The accompanying error said "Your computer started up in Recovery because a failure occurred during installation. An error occurred migrating user data during an install. Reinstall macOS to resolve the issue." I clicked ok. And I was at a screen that gives you 4 options to choose from (such as restore from time machine, reinstall ventura, something else and disk utility). I ran disk utility and it didnt find anything. So I chose the reinstall ventura option. After it had concluded it's reinstall I think I got this same error again. Now here's the kicker.....I ignored the error this time and chose "shut down". And when the computer booted back up, it booted to my normal computer (not recovery mode) as if nothing had gone wrong at all. and it's now on the latest operating system Ventura 13.4, so its almost as if that recovery notice was a total fluke. Like why tell me it cant reinstall Ventura OS when the os is already installed and working fine if you just hit shut down?
I called Apple and asked to speak with a senior advisor (Robert). He agreed that it sounded extremely odd. He vaguely looked at some logs but told me theres no way to figure out whats going on without replicating the issue. And insisted that I go visit the Apple discussions website. He wasnt much help. I'd really like to know whats causing this and how to fix it so that I dont get a recovery screen the next time I do an OS update.
MY COMPUTER SPECS NOW:
- iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020
- Processor 3.6 GHz 10-Core Intel i9
- Memory: 64gb
- macOS: Ventura 13.4
