Migration Assistant Hangs at End?

Hi

I'm running, Mac mini 2010 10.7.5

Trying to transfer all files over using Migration Assistant. It seemed to work fine for most of the day using a thunderbolt cable. Now with 2mins left. Its ben stuck for over 2 hours.

Any ideas, I'm thinking from most of your response's its best to leave it and wait.

I don't really want to start again.

Thanks,

Mike

How exactly does this let you babysit the transfer and exclude certain files? I don't see any such option.

Hey there apple people.

I have been reading this topic with great interest since my own migration assistant was stuck when I was trying to move over files from my macbook pro, backed up on my external hard drive as a time machine backup, to my newer macbook air. Tried everything countless times but this is what the solution was for me in the end; I feel like quite the genius now. hahahaha.

1. Erase disk on target computer.

2. Use internet recovery (press cmd-alt-r in the startup) to re-install the os x (in my case i could only find lion)
3. update the os x to the most recent one, (since the external Time Machine backup i had was in yosemite, i updated to yosemite). I did not configure any iCloud

4. After then i run a disk utility check on both the target harddrive and the external one. (I used repair permissions and repair disk). Takes a little bit.

5. After that I ran migration assistant to install the latest backup again on my new macbook, and it worked, no stuck, no user conflicts, just perfect.

I hope I can help someone out with this, It was a pain in the ***. I am an absolute noob with computers just used common sense.

Isn't it a bummer when technology doesn't work as described? It'd be fine if it just didn't work, but since they're is such great promise, it's an especially big frustration.

Case in point...during migration to my new iMac 5K, "a minute remaining" held for almost 2 days. Per previous user suggestions, I waited. And waited. But in the end, all was fine (despite losing two days of work on my main machine).

Will go for a hike and dig in the dirt to counterbalance the technological off-putting.

2 Days did someone not call apple care I am not waiting 2 days I am losing my mind this is nonsense if I wanted Microsoft I would have bought pc

so can I shut down ?

You can terminate Migration Assistant using command-Q. This is a clean termination, and you can restart it later. If you know what you are doing, you can locate the files it has transferred already (they are very well hidden) and put in place yourself. That's what I did, and it worked, but it is wholly unsatisfactory.

WWhere are the files hidden?

To locate them, download OmniDiskSweeper (a generally useful and free application) from here: http://www.omnigroup.com/more

You should find a very large folder with a crazy name like /private/var/folders/zz/*00/Cleanup\ At\ Startup. There could be applications or user files inside.

IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, drag them where they belong in the Finder. The problem is that they require supporting files and folders such as Library/Frameworks and Application Support. This is risky and only as a last resort.

This worked for me, as well. I tried to use Command+Shift+Option+Escape to no avail, but when I left out the Shift key, and placed the command in the source computer, I got the Force Quit prompt. After Force Quiting, the destination computer informed me the transfer was compltee, and that the machine was ready for use.

f/w/i/w--

got a MacBook Pro 8,2 off eBay with crucial M4 500 GB SSD and it would also prolong ``less than a minute'' to forever, running Migration Assistant in Mavericks

tried using Time Machine, wired Ethernet, and Firewire: no joy

also tried just putting old Mac in Firewire target mode and booting up the Recovery installation and just ditto(1)-ing /Users directories from the old machine and it would also hang the Terminal.app with the spinning color wheel of death (and couldn't force-quit it or anything)

finally (after getting some seriously scary grub commands off the net to write into some IO registers to keep the display from going blank) booted up Ubuntu and ran badblocks on the MBP's SSD and had that error out about the time some messages appeared in syslog that seemed to implicate power management problems with the SATA link

so downloaded a firmware update from Crucial, burned it to a CD-RW (having failed utterly to figure out how to convert the isolinux .iso file to something the MBP would boot off USB), crossed my fingers, and booted and told that, ``yes'', and was surprised to see it report success, updating the firmware (from 000F to 070H)

reinstalled Mavericks (since the firmware update wipes the disk) and, upon reboot, tried using Migration Assistant via Fireware again and it worked. (i let it run overnight so i don't know how long it cut down the ``less than a minute'' to)

awesome

some diags would sure have helped out though. or even just being able to run something like Linux' badblocks(8) and having a logfile to tail -f in another Terminal window to catch any kernel diags while booted up to the Recovery installation

Same issues here.

Trying to migrate my wife's files form old imac to new, both on latest release of yosemite. After 6 hours, 2 of which said "1 minute remaining" it "finished" upon me hitting commend option escape. However, only her documents were transfered - no photos or music, which was about 200gb worth.

I ended up putting the old mac into target disk mode with a firewire connection between the 2. Should have the files transferred in about 2 hours. Migration assistant is completely broken.

Between these sorts of issues and all the forced icloud bullsh!t/trying to make my desktop into an iphone, I am getting really close to switching off mac. Apple please listen up -- your products no longer "just work."

I fully agree! ... and I have the same issues.

I definitely cannot understand why Apple does not respond to the software quality issues and provide solutions. Even very simple and nearly immediate solution approaches for the reported major issue here like telling the users to assure that any potential harddisk problems on the source volume have to be repaired at first (or even better: checking this automatically before the further migration process is started) seem to be disregarded. No option for further user information on where the process is except a time indication that is far from reality is the other thing I definitely cannot understand. This is not the art of software and user experience one could expect from a company that should have all the necessary means because we all pay more than enough for the products we would like to see and have from Apple. This kind of success focussed on the nice design and stocks market only? may fall on Apples feet on the mid term.

User feedback is one of the most precious things for a company, isn't it?

Does anybody from Apple read our feedback? and react? any communication with the customer? except iCloud big data?

SUCCESS!!!!

After having the process hang for 10 plus hours with less than 1 minute to go, I shut down both machines to try again. But I first ran the Apple Disk Utility to "Repair Permissions" on the source computer. I restarted the Migration Assistant and it worked perfectly. I am very pleased.

Now now I have to deal with Google Drive issues and other things, but the data and settings migration is done.

A call to Apple Support, after a weekend of Migration Assistant hanging up and not completing Documents transfer to my new machine, yielded the advice to "always use a Time Machine backup when setting up a new Mac". It worked perfectly the first time, in under 2 hours.

Just to follow up, I was able to transfer all the needed files in around 2 hours using target disk mode and a firewire cable. All set now.

In doing so, I had to "OK" several files that couldn't transfer due to what I assume were either corrupt files or perhaps DRM protection. It would seem like migration assistant should just skip those files and make a log or somehow transfer but quarantine them to be dealt with later. I'm sure this is how it used to or is supposed to work, but it sure didn't for me and apparently many others.

I'd use time machine, but then I'd have to buy yet another overpriced apple peripheral and based on this experience, I'm not certain it would work anyway.