Ventura broke a couple of apps I rely on, and I am not able to downgrade back to Monterrey. I could not restore from a Time Machine back-up, and even when I made a bootable USB, wiped the disk clean, and transferred everything back from Migration Assistant, my M2 MBA automatically updated back to Ventura again. Is there any way to go back to Monterrey? This is going to absolutely screw me over if I don't.
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Downgrading from Ventura to Monterrey?
- Thread starter Calenhir
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My first thought is that lots of Developers don't release Ventura compatible updates until Apple releases the OS. Have you asked the Developers?
If they are not going to do a Ventura compatible version, my next thought would be to find alternative apps...or you will be stuck on Monterey for ever.
If you really need to rollback it sounds like you successfully installed Monterey from a bootable USB and migrated your data from TM, but then it automatically updated to Ventura. What is your setting here:
You could try repeating the process after turning the above setting to OFF, and making sure you have a TM backup made with it off and you are restoring from that.
I am surprised if this is the explanation because my experience of Automatic updates is that they are not that quick.
If they are not going to do a Ventura compatible version, my next thought would be to find alternative apps...or you will be stuck on Monterey for ever.
If you really need to rollback it sounds like you successfully installed Monterey from a bootable USB and migrated your data from TM, but then it automatically updated to Ventura. What is your setting here:
You could try repeating the process after turning the above setting to OFF, and making sure you have a TM backup made with it off and you are restoring from that.
I am surprised if this is the explanation because my experience of Automatic updates is that they are not that quick.
Not sure this is going to work, as you need to use a TM backup made while machine was still on Monterey.
Maybe try doing that and going quickly to the above setting...or turning off internet. Though as I said I would be surprised if the automatic OS upgrade kicked in that quickly
How to Downgrade macOS Ventura Beta to macOS Monterey
The link is for Ventura Beta but should be same for Ventura release.
Yes it is. Once the machine has had Ventura installed the firmware is Ventura firmware and Recovery will only give you Ventura. The only way round this is to completely restore it from another Mac using Apple Configurator 2, which will put original firmware back on.
The alternative is to use a bootable Monterey installer which I thought you said you had used, so I am puzzled. A bootable Monterey USB installer will not change the Ventura firmware or that Recovery will download Ventura, but it will install Monterey which will run quite happily with the Ventura firmware.
This.
Also to add... Time Machine no longer backs up the OS, it only backs up your data. It has been this way for quite a few years now, ever since Apple split the OS and Data into two separate volumes. To downgrade, you need to reinstall the OS yourself first, then restore your data from Time Machine.
NEVER EVER EVER DOWNLOAD the first version of a new operating system.
I have been sufficiently uncertain about this issue to just try doing it myself.
Answer: you do NOT need a TM backup made on Monterey to migrate from....which the link above says you do.
I just installed Monterey onto an external Samsung T5 (using a bootable USB installer) and migrated everything form the latest Time Machine backup of the main internal Ventura drive. It went perfectly.
So rolling back Ventura to Monterey is quite straightforward, including migrating all data. Of course the internal firmware is still Ventura, but Monterey works fine.
The other surprising thing about what I did is that I have the machine (M1 MBA) on Full Startup Security. According to this article, I should have needed to have Reduced Security to install an older (hence less secure) OS.
There are few things worth mentioning:
Mail in Ventura is a higher version than in Monterey, and when I first opened Mail in the new Monterey it went through an importing period. It did not import my on-my-mac mailboxes, which also happened on another Mac when migrating into Ventura from Monterey.
Photos will give a message that Library is "unsupported update to newer OS". New in Ventura is that you can repair a Ventura Photos Library (opt+cmd+open) to make it compatible with Monterey.
Music and TV Libraries were straightforward.
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