Problems upgrading to macOS Mojave on MacBook Pro 2018

Finally I installed Mojave with 14.1

First I installed the security update of high Sierra with any problems, and after that I installed Mojave successfully on my MacBook Pro 15 2018.

Apple finally solved the bug

I would have to sort through the thread for the answer, but did you ever take your computer to the Apple store to let Apple try to get things installed? I remember there were a couple people here, and the Genius saw and documented the problem, or they got it installed, and the people were able to move on. Just don't remember who was who since there have been a quite a few different situations here, and I am not working with the people directly.

dmauch - Same exact issues for me on my iMac - OS Version 10.13.6, Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017, Processor 4.2 GHz Intel Core i7, Memory 24GB 2400 MHz DDR4 when upgrading to Mohave this week. Went through the same tests with the Senior Tech. Like you, after the 2nd attempt failed, I ended up reinstalling High Sierra from Time Machine backup.

DON'T UPGRADE UNTIL NEW RELEASE SPECIFICALLY ADDRESSES THESE ISSUES

iFrog41 - My apologies, I should have read the entire thread before making my post; I just noticed that dmauch had solved his issue by using the terminal app to find the sysctl.conf file and renaming it. I, too have that file and renamed it per the instructions (created back in 2010). I haven't yet tried to do the upgrade to Mohave again, but will this weekend. We'll see...

FINALLY!! The following enabled me to successfully upgrade to Mojave (10.14.1) from High Sierra and resolved all issues on my 2017 27” iMac (no WIFI hardware found, sluggish, lag, spinning beachball).

If you can log in (even if slow), or you're still on High Sierra, and have not yet upgraded, follow these instructions:

1. Start the Terminal app from Applications/Utilities

2. Check if the file exists, by typing

ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf

If this returns a result like the following, then the file exists. If it does not, then your issues are caused by something else

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 136 24 Nov 2013 /etc/sysctl.conf

3. Rename the file by typing:

sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.ba

(You’ll be promoted for your password; type in you password)

4. Restart your computer, and you should be all set, or if you've rolled back to High Sierra, you should be good to attempt the upgrade to Mohave again.

Thanks to dmauch for posting/finding the fix!

Just a couple of things to clarify regarding the fix:

1) Make sure your spacing is correct when inserting into the Terminal “ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf,” a space between ls and -l and another space between l and /etc

2) The l is a lower case ell and not an upper case eye.

One further clarification - Though I would like to take the credit for coming up with this fix, I simply reposted it from another poster who truly gets the credit! The value of these discussion forums lies with the collaborative efforts of all of us who post hereon.

dmauch, I would suggest providing a link on this thread directly pointing to the original post. That would be the easiest and best way to credit the original poster with finding the solution that has solved several people's issues.

Just a thought.

Thanks iFrog. I have done so several times in the past and quite honestly it was either somewhere within the 31 pages on this thread or another entitled something like Mojave Upgrade a Disaster. I’m quite sure that it was “rocket...something. But I’ll try and go back and find it again.

Good deal, What I am really happy about seeing is, many of the people here who were initially fuming at apple, and each other one the problems, have learned how to solve the issues, and have been able to upgrade and move on. Yes there are still one or two here that haven't resolved their issues yet, but the number of successes vs failures is growing larger. Funny, after the uproar with Robin, I've not seen him post again in here for a while.

The truth be known iFrog — The fix was first posted on a thread entiled “Mojave login UI sluggish and laggy” started by removetxtforward. When Quirkz first posted the fix and it worked, I copied and reposted to this thread. In the meantime it created a lot of chatter over on removetxtforward’s thread so much so that he requested that we take our fix elsewhere since it didn’t address his particular issue. It got to a point where he referred to me as a “dou—-bag spammer,” after I tried explaining that the fix was helping a lot of people regardless of his thread’s original subject. Apple subsequentry “unauthorized “ me from posting any further content on his thread. So be it.

So, feedback as promised.

Install stopped at around 80 percent again. Booted into Safe mode, install completed.

Switched off FileVault, boots normally 🙂 - much celebration.....until

Switched FileVault on again, reboot.....gets stuck 3/4 way into the boot sequence

Repeated the above a couple of times to verify

I suspect that I may have enable FileVault while connected to the corporate network in order for it to work properly.

Going to try that next

OK, I finally decided to give 10.14.1 a try on my 2018 13" MBP with Touch Bar.

I actually wanted to wait until Apple officially addresses this but since I wasn't even able to apply the latest security patch for 10.13.6, I did more research and found that for some on company Macs the Proxy settings mentioned here earlier might be the culprit.

Disabled "Auto Proxy Discovery" and the security patch went through, so I decided to try the Mojave upgrade as well.

Everything went really smooth with the upgrade itself, and so far after a few hours everything seems to work fine.

No issues at all but I will keep an eye on it and post an update here a little later after using it for a few days at work.

See above:

Exact same symptom when connected to corporate network (AD)

At least I appear to have narrowed it down to something to do with FileVault.

Rolling back to High Sierra now, Security Policies dictate that FileVault must be switched on.

Digging a bit further, I realised that FileVault is probably being enforced by McAfee EPO (don't ask), since I get the 'deferred enablement' message when checking via 'sudo fdesetup status' - going to try to disable that and then install again.

I finally managed to install Mojave 10.14.1. As noted before, the High Sierra security update didn't work. (Tried several times.) So I went for Mojave 10.14.1 again. At that point I had already switched to Ethernet (using the HyperDrive SLIM 8-in-1), I had run `nvram -c` and `pmset -a restoredefaults` in Recovery Mode, I had disabled Safe Boot on the T2, I had disabled FileVault, had disabled all processes that might interfere like BlockBlock, Little Snitch, XFENCE, Firewall stealth mode, even Adguard. Nothing had worked. The Mojave 10.14.1 installation didn't work either. Whether High Sierra security update or Mojave 10.14.1, always the same thing: starts installing after logging out, then, after reaching 1 or 2 percent of the installation progress bar, quick reboot back into High Sierra.

The solution (at least for me) was to boot into Internet Recovery Mode (CMD-OPTION-r). Note: write down your WiFi password beforehand, or use Ethernet. It will then download the newest macOS installable on your Mac (which is Mojave 10.14.1), and then it installed just fine. I then ran into serious boot/login problems, namely the MacBook Pro freezing & crashing on the login screen, right after login, sometimes during boot. At first I thought it was a faulty installation, but the problem remained after installing Mojave again using Internet Recovery (even in safe boot mode with SHIFT pressed), so I booted into my High Sierra clone and removed all files and folders associated with the first of the assumed culprits, namely F-Secure XFENCE, incl. the kernel extension, and voila, it worked. I guess I had forgotten to set XFENCE to learning mode again, and instead had simply disabled it, and then it re-enables itself at next boot, which you really don't want during or after a system upgrade or update. So now everything's fine: re-enabled everything incl. FileVault, and it's back to normal. (Though dark mode 5uck5.)

But why didn't it install in the first place? XFENCE was always disabled at that point. I'm not 100% sure, but whenever I ran First Aid in DiskUtility on High Sierra, I received warnings that the system couldn't be cryptographically validated (three crypto_val errors). My hunch is that some of the 2018 MacBook Pro models were shipped/sold with a wrong build of macOS 10.13.6 (or bridgeOS). This in turn led macOS installers to abort installation, because they couldn't validate it either. This won't explain all the problems people have, but it might explain, why installation didn't work on my Mac all this time. (The crypto_val errors are now gone in Mojave; FileVault etc. working fine.)