Mac migration assistant frozen

[jsf23]

I received my new MBA M2 today and started the Migration Assistant from my old MacBook, running over wifi. Everything started fine, but after a certain point only a few minutes in (1105 files transferred), it seemed to freeze. Now the time remaining keeps ticking up, and the file counter stays at 1105. It’s been this way for 3 1/2 hours now, and the time remaining is up to 56 hours.

I know that wifi is the slowest method and maybe it’s just stuck on a massive file, but this seems too long.

Can I cancel this and go back to the start, and setup the new MBA like a new machine still? At this point I’d just assume do that and order a Thunderbolt to USB-C cable and manually move the files I want in another day or 2.

 

[Fishrrman]

Do you have a backup (of the old MacBook) on an external drive?

If so, forget the direct connection, and try migrating using that method, instead.

If you don't have an external backup, but you DO have an external drive you could use to make one, I'd suggest downloading SuperDuper (free to download and use for 30 days) and create a backup that way.

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If setup assistant isn't working, you should be able to cancel the "failed attempt" at migration and finish setup by creating a NEW user account.

However, now you are faced with "bringing over" your data and apps "by hand".

This isn't impossible, just takes more time and extra care so as to eliminate permissions problems.

But again, the best way to do the migration is by using an external backup drive.
And the best kind of external backup from which to migrate is a cloned backup created by (either) SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.