Left laptop in the 'setting up your mac' screen and went to bed. Got up at 3 a.m. to check - no change. Switched off laptop and then switched on. Immediately set up completed. Screen had been stuck for 5 hours. Result - stress and lack of sleep. Apple certainly forgot a piece of software!
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Catalina Stuck on Setting Up Your Mac...
- Thread starter Robdmb
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2016 MacBook Pro. I waited 2.5 hours then pressed the off button, waited then pressed the on button. The MBP booted to Catalina, A window popped up that said I shut down the computer because of a problem and offered me the Open option to open applications that had been open. I did nothing and let it count down 60 seconds, then it booted up fine. Several windows/notifications popped up asking me to give various apps permissions. All seems fine now. (Love that my Apple Watch allowed me to enter the "password" with a double click -- Catalina works).
i thought i was the only one with this.. mac was stuck on set up and had to do a hard shut off.. turned it back on and like everyone else .. i was good.
wondering if this was some ota updates as well like the iPhone 11.. i had the same issue took 2 hrs to complete setup
wondering if this was some ota updates as well like the iPhone 11.. i had the same issue took 2 hrs to complete setup
Phew, ok - mine has literally been stuck on this screen for a full day and I was scared to reset it for fear of bricking it, but now that I know it has worked for others I'll give it a shot...
Restart worked for me too, but I gotta say, it's pretty disappointing that Apple has been releasing such buggy software this year... so much for "it just works." As an aside I use Windows 10 at work and the last few updates to Windows 10 have been riddled with problems so this appears to be an issue with the entire industry at the moment.
Although now I'm being asked to update my Apple ID settings over and over. Oh Apple... disappointing release all around.
I had the same issue with upgrading my Late 2013 15" MBP. Restart did allow me to complete upgrade, however, now when I go to restart my computer it stays on a black screen for a long time (couple of minutes), changes to a black screen with white text saying something about an error, and finally restarts. After the restart I get a message saying there was an issue with the restart and an error report to send to Apple.
Went to reinstall Catalina, but got errors regarding unable to create prefolders. Wound up setting it up to restore from my last Time machine backup from High Sierra this morning and will start again. Thinking about doing a clean install of Catalina this time. Luckily I have good Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner backups of my entire MBP and data.
This was the first time since I bought this machine in 2013 that the upgrade process did not go well. I am versed enough in Macs having d a clean install is not tragic, but it is rather disappointing. For someone that does not have that kind of knowledge this upgrade failure would have been catastrophic.
Went to reinstall Catalina, but got errors regarding unable to create prefolders. Wound up setting it up to restore from my last Time machine backup from High Sierra this morning and will start again. Thinking about doing a clean install of Catalina this time. Luckily I have good Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner backups of my entire MBP and data.
This was the first time since I bought this machine in 2013 that the upgrade process did not go well. I am versed enough in Macs having d a clean install is not tragic, but it is rather disappointing. For someone that does not have that kind of knowledge this upgrade failure would have been catastrophic.
I'll give this a shot (backup and then delete). Mine were just 6-7 levels deep of a folder within a folder, and then the last folder was locked and said "you don't have access to this folder" which was super weird.
Mine is “stuck” as well. But I logged into my iMac remotely and it’s busy analyzing my photos and media. So the suggestions to reboot seem to be an okay idea for the impatient. But it will probably finish “installing” eventually. I don’t need to use my iMac for a while so I’ll see how long this takes. (@Apple on screen feedback would be welcome)
After the photo and media analysis finished (~90 minutes) I ended up having to reboot my iMac anyway.
I ended up rebooting, but I have a theory.
I keep most of my media on an external Drobo USB drive array, including my photo library. I noticed that while it was hanging, the external drive was very active. My Mac has solid state drives, so I can't tell if the internal drive was active but that external drive was moving quite a bit.
Anyhow, about an hour after I rebooted, I decided to launch the new Photos App to see what it was like and the system started to update my library... and about 5 hours later, it's still updating it... and once again, I can hear the drive do it's thing.
My media libraries are HUGE... tens of thousands of photos and videos. I think it's possible Apple started re-organizing the media in the installer making the assumption that the time spent organizing media is generally short.
If I'm right, I'm guessing many of the people who experienced the same problem also have large media libraries.
I keep most of my media on an external Drobo USB drive array, including my photo library. I noticed that while it was hanging, the external drive was very active. My Mac has solid state drives, so I can't tell if the internal drive was active but that external drive was moving quite a bit.
Anyhow, about an hour after I rebooted, I decided to launch the new Photos App to see what it was like and the system started to update my library... and about 5 hours later, it's still updating it... and once again, I can hear the drive do it's thing.
My media libraries are HUGE... tens of thousands of photos and videos. I think it's possible Apple started re-organizing the media in the installer making the assumption that the time spent organizing media is generally short.
If I'm right, I'm guessing many of the people who experienced the same problem also have large media libraries.
NOT WORKING to a) power down, b) follow the information here, c) hard (power removal). Have done all of these. After the last reboot (power button hold to screen off, then repower), am right back where I was hours ago, and the install has cycled through Est time- 9 min, Est time- 18 Min, Est time- 25 min to "Estimating time remaining" which is what it has shown for the last 15 minutes while I worked through the sign up to be on this forum.
What is being suggested, over and over here is not working on the MacMini (previously easily running Mojave).
What is being suggested, over and over here is not working on the MacMini (previously easily running Mojave).
I had this issue on my mid-2014 MacBook Pro AND my 2017 iMac. This is yet another sign that Apple is living off who they USED to be. It's sad, but Apple died with Steve- we're just watching it dwindle into nothing. This is what I expect from MS, not Apple