Oh boy, setup issue on my MBP '18 15"...

[Sackofnickels]

my guess is something was corrupted during the transfer after you hit cancel. I am no expert, but I would think 900GB of data would take longer than 20 minutes to transfer. When doing updates I often see the progress bar get to 99%, and then sit there for a long time before finishing up. Hope you get it figured out. You say the Genius Bar can't help or figure it out?

 

[donawalt]

Yeah everything transferred correctly, sorry you haven't been able to get it working. Hope you can figure it out.

Thanks - one other question if I may - my old laptop and backup are both encrypted (FileVault on startup disk) - is yours the same setup? I suspect the encryption/T2 somehow is messing this up. Thanks for your reply!

 

[lovejimbo]

I had FileVault on mine at both ends :/

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

If you're still getting nowhere, I'll try to help.
Not sure if you'll be interested in "doing things my way" or not.

Two questions first:
1. Do you still have the OLD Mac available?
if so...
2. Do you have an extra hard drive lying around?

After you answer, we can go on from there.

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Thanks - one other question if I may - my old laptop and backup are both encrypted (FileVault on startup disk) - is yours the same setup? I suspect the encryption/T2 somehow is messing this up. Thanks for your reply!

Yes, mine is encrypted as well.

 

[donawalt]

OP:

If you're still getting nowhere, I'll try to help.
Not sure if you'll be interested in "doing things my way" or not.

Two questions first:
1. Do you still have the OLD Mac available?
if so...
2. Do you have an extra hard drive lying around?

After you answer, we can go on from there.

Thanks @Fishrrman, I went ahead and set it up the rest of the way manually since it didn't seem I was getting anywhere. I am about 95% there in settings etc. I don't have an old drive or an old Mac in any case...but thanks so much for your offer to help!

 

[duervo]

I’d verify that the TM backups are valid, just to rule that out as a cause.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25629

 

[Fishrrman]

The OP wrote:
"I went ahead and set it up the rest of the way manually since it didn't seem I was getting anywhere. I am about 95% there in settings etc."

Good enough.
When things don't go as planned "doing it the official way", then try to find any way that works.
It looks like you've already done this.

If things pretty much "look ok now", just run with things as they are, and don't worry about it. You'll get it worked out in time.

 

[donawalt]

I’d verify that the TM backups are valid, just to rule that out as a cause.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25629

Thanks for the tip! I checked it, and when I use the Option key "Verify backups" continues to be greyed out - I tried ejecting/powering off/re powering on/plugging in drive, I made sure it was not in backup, preparing, or cleaning up or anything...see below.

 

[duervo]

Will need to use Terminal to verify then, as your Time Machine disk is not mounted in a Time Capsule or on a NAS. Can only verify using GUI if drive is network-attached.

Before doing that, turn off Time Machine and use Disk Utility to run First Aid on the drive. Then, if everything comes back ok, turn Time Machine back on, and then run this in Terminal:

sudo tmutil verifychecksums /Volumes/Name_of_Time_Machine_Drive

- Replace “Name_of_Time_Machine_Drive” with the actual name of your TM drive.

Note: It will take a long time, so just let it run.

 

[donawalt]

Will need to use Terminal to verify then, as your Time Machine disk is not mounted in a Time Capsule or on a NAS. Can only verify using GUI if drive is network-attached.

Before doing that, turn off Time Machine and use Disk Utility to run First Aid on the drive. Then, if everything comes back ok, turn Time Machine back on, and then run this in Terminal:

sudo tmutil verifychecksums /Volumes/Name_of_Time_Machine_Drive

- Replace “Name_of_Time_Machine_Drive” with the actual name of your TM drive.

Note: It will take a long time, so just let it run.

Well I think you hit the nail on the head @duervo, the First Aid finished fine, albeit took a long time...but the verify checksum has reported all kinds of errors. It's been running since last night, so I decided, since my new mbp is now up (3 days after it arrived lol), and since I still have my old mbp with everything properly installed and data intact, to just erase/reformat and start over with the time machine disk on the new mbp.

I am thinking now that even though I was doing new backups it wasn't doing full backups of course, I think it links to original files if they haven't changed, and that must have been what's hosed further back in time.

I may, once I am sure the new mbp is ok and I don't need anything on the old mbp in a couple of weeks, erase it and try setting up new with a backup from the new mbp - while the old mbp doesn't have a T2 chip if that's the culprit, it will be nice to see the mbp come up ready to go in minutes instead of days!

Thanks for your help - I think you nailed the issue.

 

[duervo]

Well I think you hit the nail on the head @duervo, the First Aid finished fine, albeit took a long time...but the verify checksum has reported all kinds of errors. It's been running since last night, so I decided, since my new mbp is now up (3 days after it arrived lol), and since I still have my old mbp with everything properly installed and data intact, to just erase/reformat and start over with the time machine disk on the new mbp.

I am thinking now that even though I was doing new backups it wasn't doing full backups of course, I think it links to original files if they haven't changed, and that must have been what's hosed further back in time.

I may, once I am sure the new mbp is ok and I don't need anything on the old mbp in a couple of weeks, erase it and try setting up new with a backup from the new mbp - while the old mbp doesn't have a T2 chip if that's the culprit, it will be nice to see the mbp come up ready to go in minutes instead of days!

Thanks for your help - I think you nailed the issue.

That’s about the only option you have . Start fresh.

If it were me, I’d run a verify on your TM drive once a month to make sure you have valid backups going forward.

You could either:

1. manually run that command once a month and examine the output, or
2. write a script that will run the command and email the output to you when it finishes. Then, configure a cron job to run that script once a month for you automatically.

For option 2, you might need further assistance in this forum:

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/mac-programming.73/

 

[donawalt]

Good advice, I had thought too about checking it once/month. I was trying to think how it happened, it may have been careless unplugging of the backup drive when taking the mbp out, not in the habit of properly ejecting it. I will be more careful about that to be sure.