Yosemite Upgrade from Maverick Fails

Question

Level 1

0 points

Yosemite Upgrade from Maverick Fails

Recently attempted to upgrade my MacBook Pro 17" w/Retina from OS X Mavericks to OS X Yosemite. All components downloaded successfully and MacBook Pro was then restarted.

Upon power up, I'm presented with the grey Apple screen, and then immediately I see tiny Linux script fill the upper-left portion of the screen. The screen clears too quickly for me to read the text, and it takes me to the "Your computer failed to start properly, please press a button or wait a few seconds for your computer to restart" screen. Restart, or even powering down and restarting does not resolve this issue.

Rebooted into Recovery mode (Power button, then hold CMD-R until Apple appears), and launched the Repair utility. I verified permissions, and noted several problems. I repaired permissions. I then ran Verify Disk, and it found several errors and corruption. I ran Repair Disk, which repaired and verified the repairs were successful.

Restarted my machine...same gray screen and error loop as before.

I again booted into Recovery mode and selected "Reinstall OS X". This loaded a clean copy of OS X Mavericks.

Macbook Pro now starts as before the upgrade.

Opened App Store and download OS X Yosemite again.

OS X Yosemite downloaded, and installer launched.

Installer runs (very quickly now), and system is restarted.

SAME PROBLEM.

Back to Recovery Mode

Restored to OS X Mavericks.

Any ideas?

.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 5:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2014 5:46 AM in response to B0uNc3r

Sorry...this is my MBP 15" Retina.

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 17, 2014 6:05 AM in response to B0uNc3r

You were lucky, happened to me as well but it didn't recognise my HD anymore while trying to repair it.. Had to reinstall my entire computer in order to go back to Mavericks. Had a backup but lost a week worth of files and all my bookmarks and software. Gonna have to spend another week reinstalling all of my stuff..

Reply

Answer 3

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2014 8:09 AM in response to shankdown

Welp...I called Apple Support...had me go through all the steps I just went through. No joy.

Transferred me to a 'Senior technician' who told me that the only options I really have are to stay on Mavericks, or wipe the hard drive, reload Mavericks, then try to upgrade to Yosemite. 😐

Since HD checked out in the diagnostics, he believes there's software on my computer that is causing the Kernel Panic.

Oh Joy. HD wiped, Mavericks installing now. Stand by for update.

Reply

Answer 4

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2014 10:11 AM in response to B0uNc3r

Clean Mavericks to Yosemite upgrade successful. Now rebuilding from backup.

Enjoy 🙂

Reply

Answer 5

tamujun

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2014 8:17 PM in response to B0uNc3r

Hi B0uNc3r,

Would you please be more specific about the steps you have taken to solve this problem? I am in the same boat now.

Do you mean I have to wipe HD and reinstall a clean copy Mavericks, and then upgrade from there??

I have Time Machine backed up all my data, but I am concerned losing some pre-isntalled apps such as Office 2011...

Any suggestions? Thanks!

Sorry - just read your previous post - you did wipe off HD, OMG - there never been such need for an upgrade before! I felt I was using Windows now.

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 18, 2014 2:38 AM in response to B0uNc3r

imac late 2013 with SSD.

the upgrade path from mavericks to yosemiti works, but it permanently screws up users and permissions - so any app with a database or files you can't use. complete and utter waste of time.

poorly packaged upgrade that it changes your user name for reasons only known to apple - it is free after all!!

will revert back to mavericks for the 2nd time and then wait until apple start charging for the software and then maybe it will work.

in the mean time

Reply

Answer 7

luxratz

Level 1

0 points

Oct 18, 2014 3:42 PM in response to B0uNc3r

did you really wipe the HD, or is reinstalling a clean Maverick from recovery mode sufficient?

After first failed attempt I have done a full recovery from backup and reinstalled Yosemite. Exactly the same problem on boot (kernel panic).

Now I have reinstalled Maverick in recovery mode and am hesitating if I should try Yosemite once more--or just stick with Maverick.

Thanks for any insights.

Reply

Answer 8

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 18, 2014 4:19 PM in response to tamujun

Hahaha. Yeah, I can't believe I had to wipe everything and start over. Thank goodness for Time Machine.

Reply

Answer 9

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 18, 2014 4:23 PM in response to luxratz

Reinstalling Maverick reintroduces whatever software is causing conflict with the Yosemite upgrade.

Make sure you have a Time Machine (or other) backup, then wipe the HD (using the Disk Utilities), do a clean reinstall of OS X Maverick, then do an upgrade to Yosemite (before restoring anything from your backup).

Reply

Answer 10

Oct 19, 2014 3:34 AM in response to B0uNc3r

sorry for being stupid, but I assume you have a CD copy of mavericks to enable loading from scratch rather than from backup.

sounds like a lot of effort to me to get a few tweaks on the look and feel of the OS. i know i will have to upgrade at some point.

logically, it seems apple only test the upgrade against an untouched copy of mavericks - hardly instills confidence.

thanks for the suggestion.

Reply

Answer 11

Oct 19, 2014 9:02 AM in response to marinko70

There are no Mavericks CD's. It either comes with it's own partition on a new machine, or, if you upgraded, it had instructions on how to prep a backup hard drive. Otherwise, you have to download it all over again.

Reply

Answer 12

B0uNc3r Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 19, 2014 10:02 AM in response to bartzkrieg

Correct.

When you wipe the "data" partition with the Disk Utility, the OS partition remains. After your wipe... reboot holding the CMD-R buttons, and install the OS again (see the available option). If it isn't available, Internet-based OS X install should kick in. (Requires available wi-fi or physical network connection). OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple

Reply

Answer 13

kahjot

Level 4

2,462 points

Oct 19, 2014 10:31 AM in response to B0uNc3r

A 17" Retina model would be awesome…

Reply

Answer 14

kahjot

Level 4

2,462 points

Oct 19, 2014 10:47 AM in response to marinko70

marinko70 wrote:

imac late 2013 with SSD.

the upgrade path from mavericks to yosemiti works, but it permanently screws up users and permissions - so any app with a database or files you can't use. complete and utter waste of time.

poorly packaged upgrade that it changes your user name for reasons only known to apple - it is free after all!!

It sounds like something was not quite right with your Mavericks system before you tried to upgrade. I have a spare HD that I use as a guinea pig for new OS versions. This drive had Mavericks on it and a few apps (Little Snitch, Firefox, Pages, Pixelmator, CCC, Super Duper, Disk Warrior, etc.). Last night I installed Yosemite without any issues. No problems with permissions, and it certainly didn't arbitrarily change my user name. I was pleasantly surprised at how painless the process was. Internet settings worked fine, associated updates worked as expected, mouse settings were retained, etc.

However, there is no way that I can stomach using the wretched mess that is iTunes 12, except perhaps for syncing an iOS 8 device at some point in the future. What's been done with iTunes will keep me using Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion and iTunes 10.7 to manage my music collection.

Reply

Answer 15

Oct 24, 2014 1:36 PM in response to B0uNc3r

Same issue here, newest 15" rMBP (stock, 6 weeks old) and the Yosemite upgrade bricks the machine. If I can get the install routine to run at all it does a loop of kernel panics and restarts multiple times then ending with the prohibitory symbol. Doesn't matter when I've tried to upgrade from Mavericks or if I do a clean install from a USB drive or even the internet recovery. The one time it installed to the SSD it appeared to be fine but upon first reboot it went straight back to the prohibitory symbol.

The ONLY way it'll run Yosemite is straight from a USB 3.0 flash drive or SD card instead of the SSD. Apple Store has verified this twice now and on both occasions told me to just restore from my Mavericks time machine backup and sit tight. Based on the numerous reports of this same issue with other MBPs I'd say Apple didn't QA the firmware or drivers or something very well. Genius Bar folks told me they're getting these reports in a lot.

When even 2 different Apple Stores tell me not to upgrade to Yosemite because of this issue then I'd say don't go near it until Apple acknowledges this officially and provides a fix.

Reply