Setup Stuck At Creating User Account Screen

I'm having exactly the same problem on a 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13. Gets stuck, no way out. I'm going to try again, this time without any additional settings (i.e., no AppleID, no location setting time, and see what happens). Anyone with any ideas, would be great to know.

OK, this is what I did. I did not enable WiFi, I then did not sign in to AppleID, and I did not set timezone automatically with location. When I did all that, I got through the create account screen instantly, and it took me to choose a timezone. At this point, I rebooted and tried a clean install (since this was with a "bad" account name). I'll report back if this totally fixed it, and then others may want to try different combinations. I suspect it is the timezone code.

I confirm this works. If you get stuck creating the user account, do not login to AppleID and do not select the automatic timezone detection, and it will proceed to the next screen in 2-3 seconds. I am now sitting on the desktop, all good.

groberts1980 wrote:

I created a Mavericks USB flash drive and booted from it, wiped the hard drive and am doing a fresh install. Everything goes fine until I set up the first user account. Once I click "Continue" it just hangs there.

I've tried this three times now. Second attempt I rebooted and it recovered to that screen, but it made me enter different information because the original acount had been created, but it never got past the "creating..." screen.

The third attempt I reformatted and reinstalled the OS, but still got stuck at that screen.

Any ideas?

How did you reformat again after getting hung up on the "Creating Account"? I could never get back to the (or a) screen to reformat... I just took that advice and created yet another account and bypassed the login, etc. and then once at the desktop, I rebooted holding down Option/Alt so that I could start over. I even tried booting from my 'old faithful' GParted disc, but no joy, no matter what I did, I was presented with the Welcome screen for account setup.

I am currently installing Mavericks after my second reformat and will report back how it goes. I would have liked to been able to avoid going all the way through the setup just so that I could reboot into setup...

Gary

See my reply, you MUST NOT enter your iCloud data and DO NOT select to choose the timezone automatically.

R-Sal wrote:

See my reply, you MUST NOT enter your iCloud data and DO NOT select to choose the timezone automatically.

yes, and thank your for the solution, that is what I did to fix it, my question was, once you find yourself stuck on the "Create Account" how do you get back to the initial setup, I see that the in previous post from groberts1980 he states that he was able to reboot holding down the Option key, I could not find a way to reboot, all I could do was press and hold the Power button to shutdown, then power up. However, even with the USB still plugged in, and the Option key pressed and held, it still immediately went to the Welcome screen.

At any rate, it is fixed, I was just really puzzled by why restarting while holding the Option key did not get me into the scren where you can choose your startup disk, etc. Perhaps only a reboot will do it and not a power up?

Thanks so much for the help,

Gary

You must have been doing something wrong... I had no problem at all, and I restarted and reformatted three times (yes, yes...) and each time it worked. Sorry, don't know what would have stopped it...

groberts1980 wrote:

Holding down Option key with another option to boot from should definitely bring up that boot choosing screen.

I certainly agree... this is the only time I can remember that it did not work. I tried shutting down and moving the USB stick to the other port but that didn't work so I shutdown again and moved it back to the original port but nothing worked except allowing it to finish up the account creation, then rebooting with the Option key; after that, it behaved as usual. And since I had left the USB plugged in it is obvious that it was not some kind of poor connection in the USB, it took off just fine when only moments before allowing it to complete the account creation the OS seemed to completely ignore it.

I'm having the same odd behaviour from my mid 2010 MBP. Will try the good advice here from R-Sal and hold my thumbs. But it is strange, shouldn't it "just work..."?😕