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Unable to use Migration Assistant to set up new MacBook Pro

Benito

Benito

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 5, 2010
660
355
Toronto, Canada
I have an old early 2011 MBP and just got my new 2017 MBP last night. I also have the Elgato TB3 dock and was planning to set up my new MBP via gigabit ethernet from old to new via the dock. No matter what I tried I could not get it to work. I turned off wifi even to the point of deleting my password for the wifi network to try to force it to migrate over ethernet. It would just not work. So I turned wifi back on and tried to migrate via wifi, that also did not work.

I then started to wonder if the fact that my old MBP's SSD is encrypted with FileVault was causing the problem. I'm now decrypting the SDD but that will take at least overnight.

Any ideas, is the encryption the problem?
 
I don't think BrianBaughn is correct... encryption should not be a problem. The old Mac needs to be booted up and you need

You need to start up the Migration Assistant app on the old Mac (just search for it in Spotlight). Only then will you be able to transfer your data to the new Mac. You're already logged in at this point so the hard drive is unlocked.
 
I definitely was logged in to my old Mac and started Migration Assistant, it was running and set to be the source. The new Mac on Migration Assistant set to be the target Mac. On the new Mac I could see the Old Mac, but when clicking on continue or whatever the button was kept giving me an error message saying that my new Mac couldn't connect to the old one.
 
The old Mac is now decrypted and still migration assistant does nothing......I am sad.

I am now moving my music and photo libraries after connecting both macs by Ethernet cables to my router. Foruntately this is working and fast so far. Music is done and photos happening now.
 
Everything is on my new MacBook Pro that I need. Once both macs were on a wired network things moved very quickly. I still have no idea what went wrong with migration assistant, but in the end I have a clean install which is probably for the best.
 
Perhaps the documentation that suggests that connecting both macs via an Ethernet cable is incorrect. When I did that and tried migration assistant I got error messages saying to ensure that both macs were on the same network. I think that the documentation needs to be more clear and say that they need to be connected by Ethernet to the same network and not to each other.
 
Benito said:
Perhaps the documentation that suggests that connecting both macs via an Ethernet cable is incorrect. When I did that and tried migration assistant I got error messages saying to ensure that both macs were on the same network. I think that the documentation needs to be more clear and say that they need to be connected by Ethernet to the same network and not to each other.
Click to expand...
No... it will definitely work connected directly. Myself and others on here have done it. You had something else going on.
 
Weaselboy said:
No... it will definitely work connected directly. Myself and others on here have done it. You had something else going on.
Click to expand...

I would love to know that something else is then. I was able to transfer data via file sharing on the wired network so I isn't my file sharing settings. What other factors am I missing? It really confused me since I have been able to use Migration Assistant in the past and in fact my old MacBook Pro was set up using Migration Assistant back in 2011.
 
Benito said:
I would love to know that something else is then. I was able to transfer data via file sharing on the wired network so I isn't my file sharing settings. What other factors am I missing? It really confused me since I have been able to use Migration Assistant in the past and in fact my old MacBook Pro was set up using Migration Assistant back in 2011.
Click to expand...

So you had (old MBP)----- ethernet cable ------- (TB3 dock) --- (new MBP) ??

My guess is Migration Assistant did not like going through that dock. That's all I can think of.

MA also will work with FileVault on, so that was not your issue.
 
Weaselboy said:
So you had (old MBP)----- ethernet cable ------- (TB3 dock) --- (new MBP) ??

My guess is Migration Assistant did not like going through that dock. That's all I can think of.

MA also will work with FileVault on, so that was not your issue.
Click to expand...

I suppose that could be the problem, so essentially for any new portable Macs, ethernet connection Mac to Mac is no longer possible if one doesn't have an ethernet port which none of the newest portable Macs have. I wonder if an ethernet adaptor to USB-C would have worked. It is hard to understand why ethernet through the dock doesn't work though when I can file share using the dock and ethernet to the router.
 
I know it works using the USB-C to ethernet adaptor, because I have seen people on here mention it.

What I usually suggest it make a Time Machine backup to an external drive, then use that for the MA import. It is usually faster because you don't have the network overhead.
 
I don't have the correct cable to connect my backup external drive to my new MacBook Pro. The cable I have is firewire and the Elgato dock doesn't have that port otherwise that would have been what I would have tried next. Good to know others have been able to do this with an adaptor, however, given that I had a Thunderbolt 3 dock, there was no way I was going to buy an ethernet adaptor to use Migration Assistant.

I would if anyone else here has had any luck using ethernet direct connection between Macs via a Thunderbolt 3 dock.
 
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