Update failing at unpacking "essentials.pkg"

For the sake of thoroughness....completeion....and hopefully a sound solid resolution....I must unfortunately include this addendum to the situation.

vetusvates

vetusvatesNov 11, 2014 9:48 PM Re: Can't install Yosemite - failing packages
Re: Can't install Yosemite - failing packages

in response to MotasR

I spoke too soon.

Problem(s) remain unresolved.

I was very disappointed this morning to wake up to this.

Yosemite was not stable--had to revert to Mavericks :

OK, I tolerated the occasional (more than rare) Safari crashes with Yosemite on my i5 quadcore.

But this morning, that iMac did not even power up at designated time. Would not power up. Many times I tried--would not complete boot and come on.

In the back of my mind I had been thinking about a likely distant (now not so distant) outcome of having to go back to Mavericks on this particular iMac, while the older Core 2 Duo upgraded and runs like a charm. (My ESP regarding the i5 seems to be working just fine, too.) 😉 😎

So. I first tried reboot from earlier time machine Yosemite backups, to be thorough. It would not work.

So. I rebooted from a recent good sound Mavericks time machine back up. And here I am.

Cleaned everything up, disk warrior, onyx (sparingly...carefully), and native "disk utility" app.

Looks like I'll be enjoying Mavericks for a while on the nice i5 quadcore.

All of this is for the sake of thoroughness and completion.

I am not boasting.

Complaining....?....a little....maybe more than a little.

MotasR -- I feel your pain, and sympathize.

Sincerely.

I hate to rain into everybody´s parade, but installing with original RAM and then installing back the third party RAM has proved unsuccessful for us around here.

I did what suggested, and after replacing the third party RAM with the Apple original, we finally were able to install. THEN we installed the third party RAM back, and at first it was working ok. Then after a few restart cycles, we started to see some kernel panics. Decided to repair permissions, do another PRAM reset, etc etc.... And it APPEARED to be ok, but after one day of use, we began to see plenty of kernel panics up to the point where the computer (MBPro) didn´t start at all...

Installed Mavericks and everything started to work fine.

We replicated this problem with three different computers (2 iMacs and 1 MBPro).

The only solution so far is to keep Mavericks... or revert to original RAM (not an option for us since we upgraded the RAM for a reason.)

Same problem for me. Updating MacBook Pro 6,2 with 2 x 2 GB Corsair Ram to Yosemite stopped with the "Essentials.pkg" error. Retrying several times could also end with error in other packages. Changing RAM solved the problem.

Same problem here with a 27" iMac late 2009, 2,66 Ghz Core i5 and 16 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 3rd party memory which has been working fine from Snow Leopard until Mavericks. Tried new Yosemite version downloads several times since October to no avail. No help is in sight !

Since I do not have original memory chips anymore, I have to keep Mavericks now. Which is also not a real option either, since my MacBook under Yosemite changed iCloud to new version and my iOS 8 devices also use that. Plus all iWork Apps have been rendered incompatible. So, Apple has in fact turned my less than 5 year old iMac into hardware crap.

I ended up installing memtest to find that I had a bad memory module. After I replaced it, then I was able to successfully install Yosemite on my 2009 iMac.

http://www.memtestosx.org/

I had the same problem: 3rd Party RAM .. Yosemite install failing at Essentials.pkg

I threw away my original RAM so couldn't simply replace.

After a lot of messing around, I finally solved the issue by temporarily removing 1 of the 2 3rd party RAM sticks for the duration of the install.

YES!!! I have been wrestling with this for the last 3 days. My old hard drive crapped out on me; that's why I was trying to install the operating system. I sold the OEM ram on eBay after I upgraded it (I went from 2x2 to 4x4). Since I didn't have the OEM ram, I took out 3 of the 4 sticks, leaving 1 4gb stick in the Imac. Yosemite installed in 10 minutes (from a Yosemite bootable usb I created yesterday). after Yosemite installed I reinstalled the other 3 sticks of ram. Everything works.

So.

Now my question is : How stable is Safari?

Does it never crash or close?

Does it ever?...How often?

Safari crashing (and running at high computer temperature), and slow app's like Contacts (address book).......was the major sad point even when I DID successfully install Yosemite using a flash drive and original ram. Meaning on my newer i5 iMac.

[Yosemite is still running fine on older Core 2 Duo : Installed first time, with 3rd party upgraded ram on board. What an enigma...]

I feel and share your pain.

New(ish) iMac core i5.....and is stale-mated at Mavericks.

Update: after I installed Yosemite, and then reinstalled the rest of my aftermarket ram, it started crashing from time to time. It didn't seem to be specific to a certain activity, or any specific software. I booted it up with the apple hardware check (Option+D when you hear the chimes) And it found an error with my ram. After pulling my ram sticks one at a time and booting up each time with the apple hardware check, I finally figured out which stick was causing it to fail. I then switched the ram sticks around in different slots to make sure the error was because of a bad ram stick and not a bad slot. Computer has been running stable now for 2 days with zero crashes.

Hi,

I bought an used MBP (Mid 2009) and tried updating from snow leopard to Yosemite but got an error saying update can't be installed. Then using OS DVD that came with MBP box I did clean install of snow leopard and then tried updating to Yosemite but got the essential.pkg unpacking error. I tried multiple times but without luck.

I looked into this thread as well as similar other threads and the problem was pointed towards 3rd party RAM. Yes my MBP has 2x2 GB of 3rd party RAMs and I don't have original Apple RAM. So I removed one RAM and tried to update but got same error. Then I swapped the other RAM and tried and again same error. Then I ran the Apple Hardware test and found no troubles in the 3rd party RAM.

Next I did restart and pressed Option key and it showed two drives: OS X install (which is trying to update to Yosemite) and Recovery HD. I selected Recovery HD and with further steps it showed downloading additional OS X components from Internet and then started installation and finally Yosemite was installed!!!

Now I installed another RAM and everything is working fine now.

I don't know how Recovery HD was created and Yosemite was re-installed from it without installing Yosemite for even once before!

As recommended by gkraft4 I installed memtest and found memory errors on my machine. It seems like a miracle, it's been running stable all the time. So in preparation of Yosemite upgrade I partially removed the memory modules to identify the faulty one. Unfortunately, after that even Mavericks wouldn't start anymore. Putting back the same modules exactly in the same slots didn't help either. So I got stuck.

Had the machine checked at the local Apple authorized dealer and the diagnosis is the RAM is o.k. but the controller on the mainboard is defect. So that's it for my 2010 iMac.

Looking back, I would recommend to anyone with the "essentials.pkg error at Yosemite install" to test their memory first with memtest. If it shows errors, be aware you are having serious memory hardware problems unrelated to Yosemite itself ! That is also the reason why the strategy proposed in this thread and others, of removing 3rd party memory modules, reinserting Apple RAM, installing Yosemite and putting the 3rd party modules back, has been unsuccessful.

i solved it finally

just copy a usb drive image of Yosemite installation to main hard drive on your mac then make it startup disk and .....bingo.... let is to install it smoothly....

Even if you are using original Apple provided RAM this problem is most probably caused by a defected RAM.

I have successfully fixed this problem on replacing RAM on at least 6 older Macs and counting.

If you have this problem consider replacing RAM memory and it should be fixed 🙂

I'm also having thisnproblem since yesterday. All of a sudden my MacBook late 2008 showed the frobidden sign istead of the apple logo, so i used recovery to reinstall OSX10.10.5. I'm trying now my 10th attempt for reinstall but the installer allways aborts with this **** essential.pkg. Switching back to the original Apple memory is no option for me since it's a long time ago. There is a time machine backup which i can put back, but after each restart my MacBook shows then the forbidden sign again. Why haven't Apple solved this problem by now, since it seem's to be a long well known issue. Any ideas what to do?