Can't install Yosemite - failing packages

Hello everybody.

I've been trying to install Yosemite for 4-5 hours without success. Here's how it went:

I have 2014 rMBP 15" running on Mavericks (duh). I downloaded the Yosemite install from App Store and started it. Everything went ok, computer restarted and status bar with '18 minutes remaining' under it appeared. However after few minutes of no activity I got error message saying that file system verification failed. Alright, I restarted the installer and..same thing happened again. After at least 8 restarts I decided to just go back to Mavericks via startup disk. And it wasn't there. Same with safe mode. Only two drives of Yosemite install appear - that's it. I tried to repair the hard disk with no success - it said that it can't be done and I should back up as many files as possible and erase it. I didn't' want to do that since not all my files are backed up. So I went back to restarting. After few more tries I just sacrificed my unbacked up files and erased the hard drive following with network (?) install of Mavericks. Everything went flawless and I'm back.

Then I decided to try installing again since hard drive is verified, fixed and erased. This time it was better - I got to '9 minutes remaining' and then it crashed - the installer couldn't load essentials.pkg. Restarted it. Got to 14 minutes - speech recognition, or something similar, package crashed. Then again. After 3-4 tries I just gave up and reinstalled Mavericks again (I was unable to boot startup disk once again) and now I'm writing here.

Does anyone have any idea what could it be? This is the first time Apple failed something for me - been using its products for 6 years now without any disappointment whatsoever and now this. I can't imagine anything that I've done wrong - I just downloaded the install and launched it.

Also it would be great if your suggestions would stay away from booting from USB stick since I would like to be able not to buy it just for updating my OS.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Oct 16, 2014 7:42 PM

17 replies

Oct 10, 2015 5:04 PM in response to MotasR

Circuitously back at "update failing at 'unpacking essentials.pkg' "...

I thought I'd post this for the record.

This year was an identical duplication of last year.

I have two 21-inch iMacs running side by side.

The oldest is a Late 2009 intel core2duo processor, with 16gb of ram I bought and installed/upgraded myself soon after purchase. It seamlessly upgraded to Yosemite last year and seamlessly upgraded to El Capitan on this last Sept 30 or Oct 1. First try, no hesitations, no flinching at new/non-native 16gb of ram.

Then there is my newest one, a Mid 2011 intel quadcore-i5 processor, with 16gb of ram I bought and installed/upgraded myself soon after purchase. It would not upgrade to Yosemite last year. I scrambled and scrounged around and found the original two 2gb sticks of ram, removed the new 4 x 4gb, and put in the old 2 x 2gb sticks of ram. Yosemite installed. IMac ran exceeding hot. Safari crashed, not-infrequently then increased to very-frequently, before I replaced the 2x2gb ram and after I replaced with the 4 x 4gb. Went back to Mavericks...and ran like a top. That was a year ago.

So this year I had high hopes for my newer iMac, Apple-Inc, apple products in general, and apple employees and R&D in general.

Mid 2011 hung up installing El Capitan at precisely the same point. Precisely the same code mentioned in this thread, ad infinitum.

I'm not getting any younger nor any less grey.....so back to earlier time machine version of Mavericks. My more expensive, higher spec, newer iMac...is yes,...running cool and stable on Mavericks...yet again.

I don't mean to sound defeated or settling with "less". That is so absolutely not the person I am.

So...here we are again...circuitously back at "update failing at 'unpacking essentials.pkg' "...

Oct 10, 2015 5:41 PM in response to MotasR

Link to reddit conversation on same phenomenon :

https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/396cwx/help_cant_install_el_cap_due_to_err or_extracting/

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Can't install Yosemite - failing packages