Migration assistant from High Sierra to Monterey crashes sysstem

[unclemiltie]

Started with a new install of Monterey on a 2012 27" imac using OpenCore, got everything up and running

ran migration assistant on that and my High sierra 2011 iMac, migrated a lot of stuff

rebooted the 2012 and the system gets about halfway through the progress bar and reboots, continues to do this.

Reinstalled Monterey, got it going again, ran migration assistant and told it NOT to copy the applications folder since I thought there might be something that is trying to start that is a 32-bit only app or something like that.

Same results


Any ideas what is causing this?


thx

 

[unclemiltie]

I tried it again today on a different system with a different backup of another High Sierra system

Ventura, 12.7 update, 2011 iMac 27" using Opencore 1.01
backup from 2011 iMac 27" High Sierra, directly from the SSD taken out of that system and plugged in via USB

Same results, two tries one with and one without the Applications folder being copied.

I also can't seem to get the system to boot into safe mode. The progress bar gets about half way and it just stays there.

 

[Fishrrman]

Looks like that opencore is throwing a wrench into things.

You may have to give up on migration assistant, and do a "completely manual" migration "by hand".

The best way to accomplish this would be to work from a CLONED backup created with either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.

Then you could move stuff "a little at a time", testing with each move.
Long and complex...?
Yes.

A quote from Churchill:
“Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”

 

[unclemiltie]

Yea, I figured I was going to have to brute force it....

I'm not sure how opencore could impact this, all that does is allow the machine to boot pretending to be something that it's not. Once Monterey is up and running, there's not much going on.

Maybe the difference from High Sierra to Monterey is just too great and since HS is no longer supported that means "no longer tested"

 

[theorist9]

I used Migration Assistant to move from a 2014 15" MBP running High Sierra 10.13.6 to a 2019 27" i9 iMac running Monterey 12.4, and it worked beautifully. So I don't believe that going from HS⟶Monterey is the issue. It could be, as Fishrrman said, OpenCore.

Thus, if you want to use Migration Assistant, I'd recommend trying the following:

1) Install the most recent officially-supported OS onto your destination Mac (2012 iMac = Catalina).
2) Use Migration Assistant to move from your source Mac to your destination Mac.
3) Use OpenCore to upgrade your destination Mac to Monterey.

 

[less500]

Looks like that opencore is throwing a wrench into things.

You may have to give up on migration assistant, and do a "completely manual" migration "by hand".

The best way to accomplish this would be to work from a CLONED backup created with either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.

Then you could move stuff "a little at a time", testing with each move.
Long and complex...?
Yes.

A quote from Churchill:
“Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”

I had no problem with opencore thet recorded a fresh install but I also think back up to iCloud

 

[reppresident]

Install the new os to a new volume and do the migration before the root patches on the final steps of the install process. It will work as ot should. Then, root patch and enjoy!

 

[unclemiltie]

Install the new os to a new volume and do the migration before the root patches on the final steps of the install process. It will work as ot should. Then, root patch and enjoy!

Well, that didn't work

started new, installed Monterey and ran the migration assistant as part of the install process before the patches were installed on the boot disk.

Same result, about 40% through the boot process the machine quits and restarts. rinse, repeat.

At this point I'm giving up, I'll just move the data and then reinstall applications, etc.

 

[wmorrison1967]

I had the very same issue moving Mojave to Monterery after open core had done its patching. Not sure if the open core team has any ideas...

 

[unclemiltie]

I finally got back to doing this, lots of other things going on in life

What I ended up doing was what was suggested by theorist. That is installing High Sierra on the 2012 iMac, doing all of its upgrades via software update and then doing the migration.


That worked perfectly. Then I installed opencore and upgraded to Monterey and all was good.

one other oddity, the install of High Sierra on the 2012 iMac would not find my apple wireless mouse or a wireless trackpad. I had to go to the basement to find a wired mouse to plug in to do the install.

 

[unclemiltie]

FWIW this happened again to me on another, similar system.

installed Monterey 12.7.5 clean, tried to migrate from a very different El Capitan setup that was my son's. and it crashed the system just like mine.

erased, installed High Sierra on the imac, did themigration and then upgraded to Monterey, all was good.

 

[gilby101]

I'm not sure how opencore could impact this, all that does is allow the machine to boot pretending to be something that it's not. Once Monterey is up and running, there's not much going on.

That's not quite true. Part of the pretending is to inject software into the kernel (mostly to support old hardware that is no longer supported). That software is then very much in use whenever you do anything or when macOS is doing things in the background. Lots of opportunities for issues.

erased, installed High Sierra on the imac, did themigration and then upgraded to Monterey, all was good.

All good (for now). Seriously, any migration between different versions of macOS can cause problems - even different supported versions.