Migration Assistant Hangs at End?

I'm also using a Time Machine backup, albeit with an Ethernet cable which is what I had at hand. Not using the Migration Assistent application but the initial setup of a new Retina 5k iMac. It's stuck for twelve hours so far, copying everything but applications which is about 250GB. I have passed the countdown and it only says "Transferring your information - This Mac".

I have read several threads like this one. Interesting how some say the solution is to pull the cable and reattach it while others say that if you pull the cable everything is lost. It's like asking people for dietary advice.

Annoying to just wait. Especially since this Sunday is all I have. Tomorrow it's back to the old computer for work and this will have to wait until next Sunday. At least if everything goes wrong I can simply return the entire computer for a full refund.

Isn't that the same? The Migration Assistent and the setup you get on a new Mac? Anyway, that is what I used, the setup on a new Mac. It asked me to point at a backup or other Mac.

Just do Command-Q when you run out of time at the stage of "Transferring your information - This Mac". Then all works fine but apparently some of your personal data is still missing. That is the price you pay. Immediately check if all your crucial data is there.

It is still a mystery to me what happened and why. I also don't know which data I lost (if any at all) and why.

It may very well be the same yes. Someone said, either here or in another thread that if you used Setup Assistant as opposed to Migration Assistant then this bug won't appear. So if it's the same or not it doesn't matter. It doesn't work. it doesn't matter what you copy from either. The end result is the same. And there are no way (at least on my Mac) to pause it with a force close or a Cmnd+L to bring up a log window.

So.... to wait or not to wait. No point in aborting if all data is lost. No point in aborting if a tiny bit of data is lost either. I need all of my data. 🙂

Some also report that if you abort and nothing is seemingly copied then lots of actual drive space is lost to some temporary files somewhere. No point in that either.

the actual choices then seem to be: Wait for a day or two more or abort and reformat/recover and copy files manually after a clean new install. I will wait first and if needed restore everything (if it's even true that this is possible on a new Mac that hasn't been set up yet). And like I said... if all goes wrong I will return it and get my $4000+ back and buy something that actually works.

it's absurd. I'm sure you could get a slightly used Space Shuttle for that amount of money.

Just to say thanks to you for the post about getting stuck on the "starting up" screen. I waited for hours for something to happen and kept on trying to restart the computer but it wouldn't let me. Maybe Apple told us this stuff somewhere but I obviously missed it!

So... I got tired of waiting. Noticed that even though the migration screen was still on, the new computer was up on my network. I figuered maybe it was all finished after all since my screen didn't say one minute left or anything like that. It just lingered after the countdown.

Well anyway, everything appears to be here. Hope so since even though I changed my computer name (It logically retained the name of the old one), both my cloud backups service and the Time Machine sees it as the same old machine and just continued backing up. Would have preferred to retain the old one indefinately as a cloud backup. And to have the new one separate. But oh well. Just can't sell the old Mac for a while now as it is the only untouched copy of how everything was.

I ran into this problem this week. For me the problem turned out to be File Vault. I was installing the OS, turning on File Vault, and then attempting to migrate my Apps and User data back onto the drive from my Time Machine backup. Doing so would cause the migration to hang.

When I ran the migration before turning on File Vault, everything worked perfectly.

FIle Vault was NOT turned on when I used the Migration Tool, but it still hung for 48 hours at the end.

Happened to me while trying to set up a brand new Macbook 12" today. It ran for 2 1/2 hrs only to hang with less than a minute left for another hour. I killed it and now I'm resorting to rsync and manual setup.

Come on Apple! This bug has been here for years! Figure it out.

I said that everything was there when I got tired of waiting and cancelled but I later noticed that several folders on the desktop were not copied. Only two of a ton of desktop files where transferred. Is this where it goes wrong perhaps? The desktop. I actually had a couple of gigs on mine.

Well, I have to save the old computer now in case of missing file discoveries in the future. both of my backups of it has been overwritten by the new Mac. Other than this I am happy with the migration and my new iMac.

Experienced the same problem migrating from MacBook Pro 2012 to a new MacBook air. After attempting this a few times, I decided to do it from a time machine back up. It took a couple of hours, and then the expected time to completion started to increase on the status window. I left it overnight. The following day It was all transferred and working.

The interminable hang hit me this morning - MA had

been running all night. Another poster shared the

welcome news that Cmd-Q quits on both computers

(am going from 2006 MacBook to 2012 MBP). Another

poster reported that his culprit was an incompatible

app - this struck a note here as we know Yosemite

requires new apps in more than a few cases. So,

quitting MA I was able to re-initiate the process and

this time choose to transfer only my files and settings

(which took Ethernet a couple hours for some 200GB)

and finally received a satisfying Transfer Complete. I'm

now just dragging my apps across - if incompatible

they just bounce back to source folders so I go to the

developer's site for directions and links to re-download

in a migrating situation. Found them very cooperative.

I am migrating 10.7 to 10.10... just user data not system or apps... and I have been stuck on less than a minute remaining for the passed hour... I am thinking of cancelling soon.

Frustrated...

You can leave it running, it'll finish eventually. May take more than a day, though.

A manual upgrade also takes forever, finding out where the data you need are hidden (esp. the crucial stuff like mail settings, contacts).

I cancelled, did a TM backup, then did a migration from the backup. In total that took about 2 hours as opposed to the hour I was waiting and who knows how much longer it would have taken.

I had this less-than-a-minute-left freeze problem twice, while migrating over wired network or thunderbolt cable.

The solution was to follow the instructions from here:

http://www.carolinemaryan.com/technology-tips/mac-migration-made-easy/

In summary, you need to boot the old machine in target disk mode (restart and hold T), which makes it behave as an external hard drive. You will need a thunderbolt cable. Then just fire Migration Assistant from the new machine and this time it should work (and much faster too, from 2 hours down to 30 minutes in my case).