Level 3

672 points

Mojave install a disaster

My upgrade to Mojave has been an mitigated disaster. First I could not even get past the 90% or so marker (on the little bar) after the first installation. After waiting for what I thought as an inordinate amount of time I did a hard restart. After restart the screen immediately jumped to where it left off. So I did a hard rest and went into recovery mode. selected reinstall Mojave. Did the same thing; stopped at the 90% mark. I finally let it run over night. This was yesterday. This morning I when I looked at the screen it was at the Login screen. I tried logging in but it was so slow and painful. After every letter I typed the beachball would spin. Another weird thing was the account picture was still in its original place (it happened to be on the far left) but would “inch” closer to being over the text box with every letter I typed.

I was finally able to log in. The desktop loaded by slowly. I tried selecting an applicat to get a window. Nothing. Finally I was able to get the computer to shutdown.

After looking for some help I found a message with a link to a YouTube video. There were four recommendations: 1) Hard restart, 2) boot into safe mode, 3) zap the PRAM, 4) Recovery mode. I tried all three nothing really worked. Maybe a slight, and I mean slight, increase in speed. Now I am upgrading a MacPro with 2 quad-core processors. And I am upgrading fron 10.13.X. Finally tried Recoveray mode again.

When I finally get to the desktop the strangest thing is I have no communications. Under the grayed out Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar it says “No WiFi hardware installed.” The Network pane in Systems Preferences shows nothing connected to the two Ethernet ports. I am writing this on my IPad, so I know the house network works.

I am am at my wits end. I made a backup of the drive BEFORE I started the upgrade but I have no way of “slicking” the SSD drive so I can do a clean install.

i really could use some help!

iPhone 6 Plus, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Sep 25, 2018 4:45 PM

Top-ranking reply

dmauch

Level 1

18 points

Posted on Oct 12, 2018 5:50 AM

SUCCESS! In fact the following did work and enabled me to sucessfully upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave resolving all issues. IMPORTANT: Make sure your spacing is correct when typing ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf into the Terminal.

A. 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. Simply rename the file by typing in: sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.bak

(You’ll be prompted for your 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 again.

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100 replies

Rferland

Level 1

4 points

Jan 26, 2019 1:48 AM in response to dmauch

Thank’s for sharing, it worked for me !

Sep 25, 2018 6:12 PM in response to RDustinC

I would go back to your most recent backup dude! That's why I always do a time machine backup after making any sort of change and definitely before upgrading any OS. I happen to have a 5th gen Time Capsule so I don't have to plug in a drive every time. I think doing the same thing is possible with routers with USB ports. It's a lot more convenient since I would by too lazy to plug in an external all the time.

Sep 26, 2018 6:34 PM in response to WilliamL

As described before I have EXACTLY the same problem with my late 2015 iMac, am taking then reinstall option first hoping that me interrupting the first install was part of the problem. I have successfuly upgraded to Mojave on my 2016 MacBook.

I have restored to 10.13 with the last backup before I upgraded using Time Machine, and it worked fine. I've been using Time Machine faithfully for 10+ years but this is the first time I have had to use it for a complete restore.

One likely culprit could be a non 64-Bit app, on checking my System Report on System Information I have quite a few, for me none of these were needed.

Now with the confidence that Time Machine actually worked my next step will be to do a clean install and individually reinstall (64-Bit) apps when needed.

hdkaplan

Level 1

4 points

Sep 28, 2018 8:54 PM in response to WilliamL

Same issues with 2017 iMac with 1 TB Apple SSD and two WD My Book 4 TB external USB drives. I had to revert to High Sierra, as unuseable. In addition to killing all conenctivity, it also wont mount the external drives. Lots of spinning wheels that take forever. Thx for any help.

WilliamL Author

Level 3

672 points

Oct 1, 2018 12:08 PM in response to WilliamL

I think my problem had to do with SoftRAID drivers that were mot Mojave compatible. I have moved back to High Sierra and have tried to update everything I could. I am not brave enough to try Mojave just yet.

I am really disappointed with the Apple news sites. Usually they are all over something like this but they seem to be more interested in a small problem that the new iPhones are experiencing.

dmauch

Level 1

18 points

Oct 18, 2018 12:13 PM in response to Lawrence Perry

Quite likely that all files and previous operating system has been lost. Key cardinal rule BEFORE installing any new OS is to BACK-UP!!!! Without a back-up, a clean install of a new operating system is probably the only option available which is like beginning all over again with a new computer. I’ll defer giving any concrete advice here as it would probably be best to take the computer into an Apple Store and let them confirm one way or another if there are any other alternatives.

TLGin315

Level 1

8 points

Oct 23, 2018 9:04 AM in response to dmauch

Thank you for the quick reply. I did check the terminal app already to see if that sysctl.conf file was there in hope for a quick fix, but I got the "command not found" message. I'm not sure if it will make a difference to check it again once I revert back to High Sierra and reload a back up. Suffice it to say, I am not going to try to reinstall mojave anytime soon! Thanks again for your help dmauch!

Oct 28, 2018 5:41 PM in response to WilliamL

Horrible. I too interrupted the install on my iMac because it was so slow. Rebooted. Restarted the install. Watched the log files and things were happening but incredibly slow and the estimated time never moved. What finally worked ( after following advice on this thread ) was

Shift-Option-⌘-R

Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

which tried to install Mountain Lion but the target disk could not be found. Then I went to disk utilities and erased the whole disk. At that point ( not sure of the order here... ) was able to install Mountain Lion and then restored from backup. The whole system came back up again.

Bit slow.

My iMac always has had slow so I run this script everyday which prevents those slowdowns.

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force

So after being down for 24 hours, back up and running. Will the Mojave update ever be safe to use?

raddeo

Level 1

4 points

Nov 17, 2018 3:30 PM in response to WilliamL

I found out the hard way (4 days long) That the above article has a typographical error. Funny thing is that 4 Apple Agents didn't catch it...

2. Check if the file exists, by typing

ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf

SHOULD BE...

2. Check if the file exists, by typing

ls -1 /etc/sysctl.conf

The L should be a 1....The last Agent was a 9 year veteran to Apple....Thanks Eric.....

Oct 24, 2018 8:20 AM in response to dmauch

I’ve tried doing that about ten times this morning. It always reverts to the Apple boot screen. How do I get out of this endless loop? I can’t seem to get into macOS recovery.

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Mojave install a disaster