WiFi: No Hardware Installed after Mojave upgrade

I just shut my computer down and restarted while pressing Command R. That then gave me the option to restore from a TM backup. It also asked where I would like to install it. I picked my internal HD where Mojave was and went to bed. Checked back in the morning and High Sierra was back along with my WI-FI 😁

Not being a Mac tech, just a user, I had to go to the apple store to have HS reinstalled. We tried reloading Mohave first. that worked until I did my time machine reload. I have no idea where to get HS other than there.

I had B/U on my TM before the upgrade so I did just a backup recovery. No need to install anything.

1. Start the computer in Recovery mode: Command-R after you hit the power button and hold it until the Apple logo shows up (I kept holding until it completed the boot up)

2. You will see a screen with options: Select first option is Recover from Time Machine Backup

3. You will see your various backups: select one that was before you upgraded to Mojave

4. Follow to next screens and you will be told that the disk will be erased and you will lose all info. Accept/OK and continue. The recovery will bring everything back: data, files, folders, MacOS, ...

5. Your disk will be erased (reformatted I think) in about 3-4 min. Then recovery will start.

6. I have a 512GB disk so it took about 10 hours to recover all.

That's all! Good luck.

APFS came with High Sierra. As previous posts indicated, booting to recovery and restoring a backup from Time Machine will erase your drive and restall the backup. Once you get this process started it’s hands off until it’s done. This can take a number of hours.

Follow-up question for the group:

If Apple releases, say, 10.14.1, and saying that the release notes state "fixes problems where some users experienced loss of network and slow machines" (or whatever), is it then safe to download and install 10.14 from the App Store?

Put another way, once 10.14.1 is released, is the Mojave download on the App Store 10.14.1, or still 10.14? Because if it's 10.14, and they expect users to install it then take the second step of updating to 10.14.1... And 10.14 turns off the network, we're all still stuck.

Once bitten, twice shy!

Frankly I would not even touch the 10.14.1 or 10.14.1000 ...

I am creating an external startup disk with Mojave on it (USB 32GB stick).

My plan is to boot from it, leaving my internal drive intact, so I can see if Mojave runs on my MBP.

If it does then I "might" try 10.14.1 if it ever shows up but I will keep my Time Machine B/U going as insurance.

Making a bootable drive is easy.

1. Download Mojave from App Store. When it goes into install mode just quit.

2. Mojave Installer will show up in your Applications Folder.

3. You have to make sure your external drive (USB or whatever) is formatted as APFS which can be done using Disk Utility (Applications: Utilities:Disk Utility).

4. Run Mojave Installer from within Applications.

5. Select "Show All Disks" and select your external drive (USB stick)

6. Install. It should take about 10 min or less.

I'll provide feedback when I am done.

Installed Mojave (and nothing else) on an external 32GB USB drive and set it up as the startup drive.

My MBP started fine, got WiFi, connected to the router and worked fine BUT response to movements is slow- maybe it was still configuring the user parameters. But overall it works.

I wonder if all these issues might have to do with the file system on older Macs.

In any case something for Apple Engineers to think about.

Brilliant find... The Mac I'm working with has that file. I renamed it per your instructions, but am still reluctant to try Mojave again until I'm closer by. Doing computer support from hundreds of miles away is a pain sometimes! But I'm excited to give it a go when I get there, knowing that this probably did the trick.

How does this get communicated to Apple now, so that they can stop making people go through recovery processes, reinstaleations, and all that, and just kill this file?

I had the same issue with my MBP mid 2012. I did and upgrade, clean install with a migrate during the process and finally a clean install and when it was stable I migrated my files. With all three I either had no ethernet/wifi, very, very slow or a flat gray screen with the login icons, which didn't allow me to log in. I finally just restored back to High Sierra. It works just fine that way.

Another happy customer!!

I had the same sysctl.conf file. Renamed it, installed Mojave and all's good.

It's a pity that Apple support did not flag this when they released Mojave.

Thanks to all and Quirkz for posting the fix.

This is unbelievable. IT WORKS! IT WORKS! IT WORKS!

Seems really odd that renaming a file that is no longer used can fix a problem, but it does.

I installed so so many betas and always failed. JoeMan71, you should get a medal!!!

I am following directions and laptop challenged. I have the /etc/... file. I’m not certain how to remove it. I typed in rm /etc/... and I am prompted to override the root/wheel...? I have answered “yes” and “y” and permission is denied. Anyone able to help me?

1. Try the original command to rename (rather than remove) the file: sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.bak

2. You can also try the -f flag with your rm command to see if it works: rm -rf /etc/sysctl.conf

3. One other option:

I had the same issue with Macbook Pro Retina Mid2012. Your recommended procedure fixed the issue. Thanks a lot! You made my day! But what poor quality Apple is delivering. I thought Apple was keen an some easy to use products....

This may have changed.

Thank you! I upgraded to Mojave about three weeks ago and had the same issues; no WiFi hardware, USB ports not working, sluggish, etc., so I went back to High Sierra. I had that file (from Migration Assistant?), followed your instruction, and Voilá, the upgrade was flawless. Apple support mentioned they had heard of this issue but they didn’t know what the cause was.

🤔

Thanks again,

Roy