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What's the trick to get Migration Assistant to actually work?

pinkoos

pinkoos

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 15, 2005
597
66
Texas
Trying to migrate from an iMac to Macbook Pro and MA keeps hanging at some point, sometimes saying 3 minutes to go but that goes on for half an hour before I cancel the migration. Sometimes, 8 minutes to go, sometimes 11 minutes to go. Both computers are running latest versions of High Sierra.

I've searched and tried some recommendations, such as not selecting Applications to migrate, not selecting Computer Settings to migrate, etc, but no luck.

I'm running MA over wifi but may consider buying a thunderbolt cable and seeing if that helps.

I can't do a Time Machine restore b/c I'm migrating from a 512GB SSD in the iMac to a 128GB SSD in the Macbook Pro and, so, need to use MA so I can pick and choose what to exclude (ie, Photos, Music, etc.) to trim the size down.

BTW, the 128GB SSD is just temporary - I plan on swapping that out with a larger capacity SSD once I figure out what I need to buy and what's compatible with my MBP.

Thanks.
 
Personally when I think of time machine migration assistant, I think of those videos people make where its like "The right way to cook a vegan burger" and someone takes it out of the freezer then just throws it directly in the trash. If you're having trouble I would say make your backup on an external hard drive then drag and drop content and reinstall programs fresh.

That being said, if you are going directly from one Mac to another, one of the main things that will get you hung up is some type of filesystem error. Basically, your computer gets to a file that it expects to be in a certain place then it just isn't there. On the old machine, try booting to recovery and running disk utility and make sure it comes up clean.
 
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Good point about running disk utility on the old machine. I'll give that a shot.
 
I would seriously recommend that. Wifi migration is probably slower than wired migration. Overnight should be plenty of time. If that fails to finish, then go looking for deeper reasons.
 
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I just did a Restore over Ethernet from Time Capsule to a new SSD in a Mini. It took about 10 hours for the full operation of about 400GB of data. MA is typically as slow if not slower as it is selective in what it is restoring.

So, in short, the "Trick" is patience. Run it overnight, let it do it's thing. If you watch, the estimated time will vary all over the board, it is a poor measure of progress. Perhaps if they used a % completed instead of time estimate, it might be less confusing?
 
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Wow! 10 hours, that's crazy. I guess one issue is that the whole time MA is in use, the old computer can't be used, so overnight is the only way to go.
 
MA is but one way to migrate from one system to another. (I used to work for a large company with 10s of 1000s of Macs, and MA was their "preferred" way to move from one machine to another.) Time Machine and utilities like Carbon Copy Cloner also work. There are a number of variables, including link speed. 400GB over USB2, for example will take a long time. But 10 hours doesn't sound out of line for 400GB. As suggested above, patience.
 
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I like the idea of trying CCC but I'm guessing I would need to wait until I get the larger size SSD unless CCC has a way of selectively omitting items when restoring the clone.
 
With Migration Assistant, it's pretty much "all or nothing" when migrating a user account.

You can't "pick and choose" folders WITHIN the home folder.
The option just "isn't there".
That's "the way it is" and nothing can change it.

Which means -- if you're trying to migrate from a larger drive to a smaller one -- that you have to "do it by hand" -- i.e., "manually".

I will offer suggestions if you want to hear them.
But my prediction is that you'll proclaim "that's too much trouble" if I do so.
 
Of course you can "pick and choose". I'm guessing you haven't "used" MA in a while. I was able to "exclude" things like my Photo libary (~50GB), my Music folder (~260GB), etc. Can "even" exclude my documents "folder" if I wish.

And, no, no real "need" for you to "offer" suggestions as I have no "real" desire to spend my "time" correcting "you."

Have a "great" day.
 
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As others said let it run overnight. Giving it only half an hour when it says three minutes left makes sense only if the three minute estimate is correct. It isn’t and even if it was giving a process lots of time is often what you need to do.

As for issues I can say I had a problem migrating a family member’s older iMac to a newer one due to old ktexts. My problem was the Time Machine migration would fail. The computer to computer migration worked. But the fact the Time Machine would fail due to ktexts tells me there is a problem there. If so maybe removing them from the old machine would help.
 
So I tried again last night, again over wifi, and let it run overnight.

I didn't uncheck anything from the options of stuff to exclude, except for my photos and music library.

When I went to bed, it said 11 minutes remaining.

When I woke up this morning, it said 11 minutes remaining.

When I was preparing to leave for work, it had changed to 2 hours 20 minutes remaining and there was a note below saying something to the effect that the transfer would go faster if I connect either a Thunderbolt cable or Ethernet cable.

So, I was hopeful that it was, in fact, not stuck but just going to take a while.

However, one last check before I left for work still showed the same time remaining, but the connection type on the MBP said "none" and on the iMac said "ethernet." Whatever.

So, I'm not so hopeful now, though I'll see what it says when I get home from work tonight and report back.
 
pinkoos said:
When I was preparing to leave for work, it had changed to 2 hours 20 minutes remaining and there was a note below saying something to the effect that the transfer would go faster if I connect either a Thunderbolt cable or Ethernet cable.

So, I was hopeful that it was, in fact, not stuck but just going to take a while.

However, one last check before I left for work still showed the same time remaining, but the connection type on the MBP said "none" and on the iMac said "ethernet." Whatever.

So, I'm not so hopeful now, though I'll see what it says when I get home from work tonight and report back.
Click to expand...

Why on earth are you trying to accomplish this over wifi? If you'd connected with Thunderbolt or Ethernet cable, you would have been done Monday morning.
 
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MSastre said:
Why on earth are you trying to accomplish this over wifi? If you'd connected with Thunderbolt or Ethernet cable, you would have been done Monday morning.
Click to expand...
I don't have a Thunderbolt cable nor an ethernet adapter, required for the MBP that lacks an ethernet port.
 
pinkoos said:
I don't have a Thunderbolt cable nor an ethernet adapter, required for the MBP that lacks an ethernet port.
Click to expand...
I've only ever done this by restoring from a Time Machine backup on an external drive and it's been nowhere near that kind of ordeal you're going through. Do you not have an external drive around? If not, how are you backing up regularly? Sorry to be "that guy" but that's realy the obvious answer here.
 
I have both a CCC backup and TM backups. However, I'm going from a 512GB backup to a 128GB drive, so I need to have the option to pick and choose what I want to restore to the new drive. Hence, the use of MA where I can exclude my photos and music libraries.

I haven't really looked into whether I can exclude stuff from a CCC backup when restoring or exclude stuff from a TM backup when restoring. It may be possible, but I haven't explored those options yet.
 
Definitely, just haven't had the chance to go buy one/order one and I'm traveling soon
 
pinkoos said:
Thanks, yeah, maybe I'll try letting it run overnight and see what happens.
Click to expand...
I didn't have a thunderbolt cable or Ethernet to thunderbolt adapter for my last migration from 2011 MBP to 2015 and it took days over wifi. Get the cable.
 
pinkoos said:
I haven't really looked into whether I can exclude stuff from a CCC backup when restoring or exclude stuff from a TM backup when restoring.
Click to expand...
MA with a TM backup or CCC clone works exactly the same way it does as you doing it Mac to Mac like you are now. The only difference is you just choose one of those drives as the source instead of another Mac. Then you will get the exact same screen where you can exclude Photos or whatever.

This be approximately 90 billion times faster then doing it over wifi. :)
 
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