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Is Your macOS Catalina Install Stuck? Here's How to Fix It

I did a fresh install of macOS Catalina yesterday, all went smooth for me thankfully on macbook pro (11,3) mid 2014.

I did get the odd beachball but seems ok for me so far, one thing that really annoyed me was i exported my reminders on macOS Mojave (.ics) but can't import into the new reminders app in macOS Catalina so had to install macOS Mojave in a VM, import the reminders.ics file then manually add reminders myself in macOS Catalina.

The (1) reminder on system preferences in dock is annoying to regarding iCloud, i don't use iCloud and not signed in except the app store but annoying seeing (1) reminder in dock.

I usually don't bother installing a new OS until around January/February as by then 2/3 supplemental updates are usually released fixing any major/annoying bugs, but decided to risk it this time, not as buggy as i first thought, i got a time machine and cccloner backup incase i need to revert back but don't think i will need to at this point.
 
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Marx55 said:
"Hold down the power button on your Mac until it turns off, and then power it back on".

Besides NOT being a reboot but a FORCED shut down and then COLD boot, that could create serious disk directory damage or corruption that Apple Disk Utility cannot repair on APFS volumes.
Click to expand...

It’s possible, but unlikely. There just aren’t that many files open during post-install, especially not user files.

Marx55 said:
Other applications like DiskWarrior, TechTool Pro and Drive Genius cannot be released to rebuild directory of APFS disks (compulsory for booting disks since macOS 10.13 High Sierra, which was released by September 2017), because Apple has not yet released documentation about how to write to such disks more than two years latter, as Alsoft states:
Click to expand...

I do hope Apple eventually documents read/write access, but at this point, it’s probably not gonna happen.

Luckily, it’s also far less needed. Aside from the severe bug that sparse disk images had their volumes truncated, I haven’t read any actual reports of any APFS data loss. None. Which makes sense, since compared to HFS+, the design is just far more robust.

Marx55 said:
Stuck on Sierra here, until Apple releases such documentation and DiskWarrior 6 is released to rebuild directory of damaged APFS disks. Then --and only then-- will upgrade to Catalina or newer (safety net).
Click to expand...

Rebuilding the directory was (occasionally) necessary as the result of design weaknesses in HFS. No such need exists in APFS.
 
My 2019 MacBook Air froze during install at the “Turn on Find My” screen both with the GM seed and the final release from the Mac App Store. Had to power cycle in both cases.
 
machpost said:
Nope. This is all I needed to see to decide that it's going to be a long time before I upgrade to Catalina.
Click to expand...
Hate to burst your bubble but this issue isn't unique to macOS Catalina. In fact it happened to me with one of macOS Mojave's point updates. Not that it's a big deal.
 
I've been a Mac user for about 20 years and upgrading to Catalina was disastrous! It's similar to the problems that some people had in 2007 with the release of Leopard.

So Catalina seemed to install fine on my MacBook Pro, but when the welcome screen came, it froze for almost an hour, so I had to force a restart. When turning back on it seemed to be fine, but I noticed that there were system files that were on show, and that cannot be deleted. So I wondered about a fresh install would be best. Knowing that I backup everything with Time Machine then I formatted my Mac and installed Catalina fresh... everything worked fine... then it came to restoring my files from my Time Machine backup. Catalina changed this file and now it seems like it is corrupt!!! I now cannot access my backed up files (Time Machine backups have been modified in Catalina and renaming the file to .sparsebundle does not work!)

I'm really disappointed with Apple, whom I trusted with my files for the last 20 years!
 
I'm using an external SSD for my main boot drive and had some problems with updating to Catalina through the standard upgrade process. Things worked normally up until the restart and finish of the install. I kept getting a message that the install had failed due to the "opt" file not being able to be copied into the data folder and the recommendation to restart the computer to try again. This happened several times, so I ended up going the clean install route by erasing the SSD, installing Catalina, and then migrating everything into Catalina from a Time Machine backup.
 
Did the force restart after mine was stuck for almost an hour, hoping that nothing would crash. My Mac booted as normal as if the setup assistant worked as expected.
 
Ashwee said:
Knowing that I backup everything with Time Machine then I formatted my Mac and installed Catalina fresh... everything worked fine... then it came to restoring my files from my Time Machine backup. Catalina changed this file and now it seems like it is corrupt!!! I now cannot access my backed up files (Time Machine backups have been modified in Catalina and renaming the file to .sparsebundle does not work!)
Click to expand...

Just boot from Recovery and restore the Time Machine backup from there. No need to install macOS first.
 
chucker23n1 said:
Just boot from Recovery and restore the Time Machine backup from there. No need to install macOS first.
Click to expand...
This does not work, as when Catalina was working, it did a "first backup" again, and this changed the backup structure of the file. The backup file on my NAS can no longer be read, and will not open.
 
chucker23n1 said:
I do hope Apple eventually documents read/write access, but at this point, it’s probably not gonna happen.
Rebuilding the directory was (occasionally) necessary as the result of design weaknesses in HFS. No such need exists in APFS.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. Why did you say that "at this point, it’s probably not gonna happen"? APFS was released by September 2017. More than two years ago. Is that not enough time for Apple to release such documentation? How much time they will need?

On the other hand, rebuilding the directory of APFS disks may be necessary, among other situations, when there is a software or hardware freeze-crash-forced reboot. And even when mains fail or when people unplugs the computer from mains by accident (yes, those things happen!), or thinking that it is off, yet it is still on while shutting down. Years ago, the Mac display did not became black until the Mac was completely shut down. But now, the display goes black but the Mac is still on after selecting to shut down. When people boot from external drives, shut down the Mac and are in a hurry to unplug the external booting disk and go away, such disaster may happen, since they may unplug before the Mac is really off.
 
I had the spinning beach ball on the install process. Did the restart and all seems good. Enjoying some of the new features in Catalina.
 
My Mac mini 2018 couldn’t complete the update. No signal out of the hdmi port. I have a Genius Bar appointment for this weekend. :(
 
Marx55 said:
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. Why did you say that "at this point, it’s probably not gonna happen"? APFS was released by September 2017. More than two years ago. Is that not enough time for Apple to release such documentation? How much time they will need?
Click to expand...

I say it precisely because they haven't done it in two years. It looks like they don't see the need. (I'm not saying I agree with them. Just that it looks increasingly unlikely we'll ever see read/write documentation. That said, someone will probably manage to fully reverse-engineer the format, at least for unencrypted volumes.)

Marx55 said:
On the other hand, rebuilding the directory of APFS disks may be necessary, among other situations, when there is a software or hardware freeze-crash-forced reboot. And even when mains fail or when people unplugs the computer from mains by accident (yes, those things happen!), or thinking that it is off, yet it is still on while shutting down. Years ago, the Mac display did not became black until the Mac was completely shut down. But now, the display goes black but the Mac is still on after selecting to shut down. When people boot from external drives, shut down the Mac and are in a hurry to unplug the external booting disk and go away, such disaster may happen, since they may unplug before the Mac is really off.
Click to expand...

Well, even with HFS+, starting in Mac OS X 10.2.2, metadata journaling was typically enabled. APFS goes further by making metadata writes atomic. Both of those measures help mitigate the scenario where sudden shut downs would cause dataloss.
 
Different issue but if your Mail app stall when trying to access your Smart Mailboxes, this is also fixed with a restart. Don’t rebuild your inbox, it’s unnecessary!
 
chucker23n1 said:
I say it precisely because they haven't done it in two years. It looks like they don't see the need. (I'm not saying I agree with them. Just that it looks increasingly unlikely we'll ever see read/write documentation. That said, someone will probably manage to fully reverse-engineer the format, at least for unencrypted volumes.)
Click to expand...

Well, actually, Apple has updated such documenation three time, so it seems that is is a work in progress:

About Apple File System
Apple File System Reference
Revision History

2019-02-07
Corrected the discussion of object identifiers in j_snap_metadata_val_t. The extentref_tree_oid and sblock_oid fields contain a physical object identifier, not a virtual object identifier.

2019-01-24
Added information about software encryption on macOS in the Encryption chapter.
2018-09-17
New document that describes the data structures used for read-only access to Apple File System on unencrypted, non-Fusion storage.

PDF: https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf
Web: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/file_system/about_apple_file_system

chucker23n1 said:
Well, even with HFS+, starting in Mac OS X 10.2.2, metadata journaling was typically enabled. APFS goes further by making metadata writes atomic. Both of those measures help mitigate the scenario where sudden shut downs would cause dataloss.
Click to expand...

Sure that APFS is more robust against corruption than HFS+, but it should not be completely immune to directory corruption. So, even if rare, you may need to rebuild directory of APFS disks sometimes. How to do it now when needed?
 
Doesn't this happen with pretty much all launch day installs? I think I remember issues like this going back to Mountain Lion.
 
Marx55 said:
"Hold down the power button on your Mac until it turns off, and then power it back on".

Besides NOT being a reboot but a FORCED shut down and then COLD boot, that could create serious disk directory damage or corruption
Click to expand...

I’ve gone through all comments and I haven’t seen anyone who opted for an alternative approach that doesn’t involve a forced shut down.

Assuming that you have multiple users set up (or at least “guest”):
  1. Wait for the screen to turn off.
  2. When asked for your password to log back in, choose rather “switch user” below the password field.
  3. At that point, below the list of user icons, you’ll have a nice option to “restart”.
  4. Click on it.
  5. A warning dialog will come up telling you the other users logged in (i.e. yourself endlessly waiting for your Mac to be “set up”) might lose unsaved documents.
  6. Type your name/username and password (assuming that you are indeed an admin).
  7. The MacBook will restart nicely without pulling any plug.
In this case it was my personal MBP from 2013, next weekend I’ll upgrade my 2018 MBP I use at work (I have some critical tasks planned on Monday morning so I’m not risking it right now).

My sequence might depend on energy saving and/or security settings not applicable to everyone, but if you can go through 1 and 2 above, all the rest should be doable.

HTH, cheers,
Giovanni
 
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