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Sketchmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2020
6
0
Installed from latest Catalina beta and now stuck in boot with progression bar not moving. Will boot to safe but when I login it kicks right back out to login. Cant reinstall now because it tells me there isn’t enough space available. Help
 

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,745
2,087
I had the same thing happen to me.

Just wait. Big Sur took upwards of three hours to completely install.

There was one point where it really wasn't moving, and I hard powered it off and tried again, and it eventually went through the second time. I'm not entirely sure if the hard powering off was needed or not. Regardless, the point is it takes an inordinate amount of time, and nothing is necessarily wrong.
 
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Earl Urley

macrumors 6502a
Nov 10, 2014
793
438
I just wiped the Apple SSD clean in HFS+ Journaled format and installed from the USB.
 

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,745
2,087
Oh, I should mention, I actually was doing a clean install from a USB drive! It still took absolutely forever on my 2015 MBA, with many moments like what the OP is describing where I was sure it was stuck.
 

Sketchmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2020
6
0
I’ll let it sit. I did the hard power off and back on too. The progression bar goes almost all the way, cursor shows up and the progression bar starts all over again with the bar barely started. We will see what happens.
 

hellfried

macrumors regular
May 3, 2008
127
14
Penang, Malaysia
My problem is slightly different. I installed Big Sur on an external SSD and it went smoothly albeit it took a long time to download. I was able to boot into the external drive using my 2017 Macbook Air. However when I tried to boot using my 2019 Macbook Pro it throws up an error message along the line of 'start up disk needs to be updated'. T2 chip causing problems again? I have all the security measures turned off in the T2 chip.
 

Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
I just wiped the Apple SSD clean in HFS+ Journaled format and installed from the USB.

I am curious about something here. When I clean installed Catalina, I formatted the drive as APFS and proceeded to install Catalina. It installed without any issue. Is there a reason why people are erasing the drive to HFS+ before installing MacOS and let it convert the drive to APFS?
 

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,745
2,087
I am curious about something here. When I clean installed Catalina, I formatted the drive as APFS and proceeded to install Catalina. It installed without any issue. Is there a reason why people are erasing the drive to HFS+ before installing MacOS and let it convert the drive to APFS?

I formatted mine to APFS. I'm going to guess GP is just a creature of habit. Nothing wrong with that! ;)

Interestingly though, Apple does suggest USB Installers are formatted to HFS Plus before you run createinstallmedia, no idea why that is. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
 

Sketchmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2020
6
0
967F6553-79D1-47FD-A45B-76EFF4321846.jpeg
8 hours later and still at this point. Trying to avoid formatting the HD. Any suggestions?
 

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,745
2,087
View attachment 927484 8 hours later and still at this point. Trying to avoid formatting the HD. Any suggestions?

And, you did try hard-powering it off and trying again, right? As I mentioned above, I did do that once. At exactly this step too, I think—at least, the progress bar was stopped in the same spot.
 
Last edited:

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,745
2,087
Is the consensus that it gets passed this spot when loading, it just takes a very long time?

There doesn't seem to be a consensus.

For me: it eventually got passed there, after an inordinate amount of time, after I hard powered it off and tried again once. I'm not sure if the hard power off was necessary on my end, but I did do it.

That didn't work for Sketchmac, who appears to be truly stuck!

I was also doing a clean install from a bootable USB on a freshly formatted drive; I don't know if that had an impact.

(As an annoying aside, if you do a verbose boot, it will go out of verbose mode and show the graphical screen before the stuck point, so you can't even see where it's stopping!)
 

appleguy123

macrumors 604
Apr 1, 2009
6,867
2,555
15 minutes in the future
There doesn't seem to be a consensus.

For me: it eventually got passed there, after an inordinate amount of time, after I hard powered it off and tried again once. I'm not sure if the hard power off was necessary on my end, but I did do it.

That didn't work for Sketchmac, who appears to be truly stuck!

I was also doing a clean install from a bootable USB on a freshly formatted drive; I don't know if that had an impact.

(As an annoying aside, if you do a verbose boot, it will go out of verbose mode and show the graphical screen before the stuck point, so you can't even see where it's stopping!)
Yes. I tried verbose boot and it displayed the same behavior. I wish I knew what was causing it. The machine will boot up into Mac OS 11 in safe mode but trying to boot normally it’s stuck at this screen.
 
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Sketchmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2020
6
0
Yes. I tried verbose boot and it displayed the same behavior. I wish I knew what was causing it. The machine will boot up into Mac OS 11 in safe mode but trying to boot normally it’s stuck at this screen.
Well, I was able to boot to safe mode also but still locks up when trying to boot normally. Has anyone figured this issue out or have suggestions? I’m trying to not format the HD. Thanks
 

JohnLietzke

macrumors newbie
Jun 26, 2020
5
0
I am am experiencing the issue of being stuck. I am just letting
It sit for a couple of hours. I’ll do a hard power off late tonight and post the results if I’d does not work it’s way through.
MacBook Retina 2012 mid.
 

JohnLietzke

macrumors newbie
Jun 26, 2020
5
0
I tried a power restart with verbose boot. Once the installer relaunched verbose boot terminated and it get stops with the bar at the same spot as before.
 

JohnLietzke

macrumors newbie
Jun 26, 2020
5
0
Same here. It is nice to occasionally do a clean build. iCloud and Time Machine are great for doing that. It is amazing how much junk build up.
 

Sketchmac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 24, 2020
6
0
Same here. It is nice to occasionally do a clean build. iCloud and Time Machine are great for doing that. It is amazing how much junk build up.
unfortunately I am still having no luck. the reason im not wanting to format the drive is because the drive that I use for back up failed and I haven't had a chance to replace it. I know, my fault for upgrading before getting a new backup but it would be nice to just be able to get this to boot normally. I can boot into safe mode but its not stable.
 
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