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Heads up: currently impossible to use migration assistant to migrate a 2019 MBP case sensitive APFS formatted hard drive to M3 MBA

smileman

smileman

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 23, 2011
150
19
After spending many hours with at front line and then three Apple senior technical support staff, I was just informed of a "known issue" that prevents migration from my 2019 MBP with a case sensitive hard drive to a brand new 2024 M3 MacBook Air.

I have lost close to a day of my life troubleshooting with the following flow:

-turn off FileVault
-reformatting my new M3 Air hard drive to "case sensitive"
-having to then reinstall Sonoma (and not Sequoia, even though the Air was manufactured late-October and according to one tech should offer Sequoia as the reinstall option)
-then having to upgrade back to Sequoia as you cannot migrate from a newer OS to and older OS
-only to be confronted with the same error (migration impossible because the MBP is case sensitive and the new Air won't remain case sensitive for some reason)

So, at some point during the above process, the hard drive on my new M3 Air seems to revert back to plain APFS and is no longer case sensitive.

Any thoughts on how this is happening or whether there is a way to prevent the hard drive reverting to plain APFS?

The most frustrating part about this whole experience is that apparently this is a known issue to Apple, meaning if I had been warned I wouldn't have lost a day of my life.

To Apple's credit, all the techs were wonderfully patient and really trying their best. And they offered me a free HomePod mini for my trouble.

But I'm still not sure whether I should just return the MBA while I'm in the return window through Jan 15th and hope they fix the migration at a later date? Or bite the bullet and do a fresh manual install of everything?

Both the senior tech and I already sent all of the above through Apple's formal feedback channels. No hoping someone here has a magic idea to make easy migration possible?

Before this incident, migration assistant has generally been magical and worked flawlessly for me for many years and has made upgrading much easier (and more frequent).
 
Have you tested after updating both to macOS 15.1.1, then ensuring (as @Bigwaff said) via Recovery that the MBA is still set to case-sensitive? 15.1.1 was just released yesterday.
 
Have you thought about backing up the 2019 MBP to a new external Time Machine disk and use this for migration to the 2024 MBA? Doesn't really solve your problem but the result would be identical.
 
Solution:
DO NOT USE "case sensitive" again.

First mistake was re-formatting the drive on a brand-new m-series Mac.

Can you get the drive RE-formatted to NON case sensitive?
If so, do that.

"So, at some point during the above process, the hard drive on my new M3 Air seems to revert back to plain APFS and is no longer case sensitive."

Umm... it's trying to tell you something.
DON'T FIGHT THIS.
This is the way you WANT IT TO BE.
Leave it alone, and it will work.

Can you get the M3air back to where it has an OS and will boot to the initial setup screen?

If you CAN'T...
... then take it to a brick n mortar Apple Store and see if they can "revive it" for you,
or...
Return it and then re-purchase a new one and proceed as follows.


Do you have an external backup already? If so, use that.
If not, get an external drive. USB SSD, or if not available, an HDD.

If you already have a tm backup, run it "for the last time" on the OLD Mac.

If you don't have a backup, use the external drive to create one.
I'd recommend SuperDuper, which is free to download and use for this purpose.
Get it by clicking this link:

SuperDuper is remarkably easy to use and understand.
Take the backup to the new m3.
Hopefully you still have the initial setup app available (setup assistant).

Begin setup.
When asked if you wish to migrate from another drive, YES, connect the backup.
Point the way to it and give setup assistant time to digest things.

I suggest you migrate everything.
Let SA do its job, will take a little while.

Finally, you should see your initial login screen.
So... log in and look around...

Good luck.
 
Hat Tric said:
Have you thought about backing up the 2019 MBP to a new external Time Machine disk and use this for migration to the 2024 MBA? Doesn't really solve your problem but the result would be identical.
Click to expand...
Yes, I tried this multiple times without success.

I can see the latest backup in migration assistant, but the “continue” button stays greyed out for tens of minutes of waiting and I’m never able to continue. When I hover over the backup, it also says that I can’t restore from that back up because of the same case sensitive issue.
 
FreakinEurekan said:
Have you tested after updating both to macOS 15.1.1, then ensuring (as @Bigwaff said) via Recovery that the MBA is still set to case-sensitive? 15.1.1 was just released yesterday.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I tried all this before that update. My understanding is 15.1.1 is just a security patch, but maybe it’s worth trying it again.
 
Fishrrman said:
Solution:
DO NOT USE "case sensitive" again.

First mistake was re-formatting the drive on a brand-new m-series Mac.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
well, I’d like to use case sensitive encrypted, which is actually what I thought my old machine’s drive was formatted for.

Not sure why it was just case sensitive. Maybe from when I converted at some point to APFS?
 
smileman said:
well, I’d like to use case sensitive encrypted, which is actually what I thought my old machine’s drive was formatted for.

Not sure why it was just case sensitive. Maybe from when I converted at some point to APFS?
Click to expand...
This is tangential to the problem at hand, but what’s your use case for the case sensitive filesystem?
 
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smileman said:
well, I’d like to use case sensitive encrypted, which is actually what I thought my old machine’s drive was formatted for.

Not sure why it was just case sensitive. Maybe from when I converted at some point to APFS?
Click to expand...
Unless you absolutely need case sensitive just restore to regular APFS. You can always turn on FileVault to encrypt.
 
chrfr said:
This is tangential to the problem at hand, but what’s your use case for the case sensitive filesyst
KPOM said:
Unless you absolutely need case sensitive just restore to regular APFS. You can always turn on FileVault to encrypt.
Click to expand...
I would love to do that, but you can’t migrate from a case sensitive hard drive to just a regular APS hard drive
Click to expand...
 
At this point, if you don't have an actual need for case sensitivity, it's probably worth doing a manual migration of your documents to a non-case sensitive file system.
 
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chrfr said:
At this point, if you don't have an actual need for case sensitivity, it's probably worth doing a manual migration of your documents to a non-case sensitive file system.
Click to expand...
Or (since I'm well within the return window) I could find a another new machine that doesn't have the issue the M3 MBA has with reverting back to a non-case sensitive format, and thereby preventing the use of Migration Assistant.

I'm curious if anyone else has had this problem? If not then maybe there is something wrong with the M3 MBA I have and another machine wouldn't have this problem?

For example, I am wondering if I can find a new M3 MBA or M4 Pro that will reinstall Sequoia (and not Sonoma, like my M3 MBA does) and that would prevent the reversion to a non-case sensitive drive?
 
chrfr said:
At this point, if you don't have an actual need for case sensitivity, it's probably worth doing a manual migration of your documents to a non-case sensitive file system.
Click to expand...
I agree with this recommendation. Go back to using non-case sensitive if you can, which has always been the default for macOS and most other operating systems.

Do you really have a need to have files/folders of the same name, but different case, in the same directory (i.e. file.jpg and File.jpg in the same folder)? With case-sensitive, this is allowed; with case-insensitive, this is not allowed...which again...is the default behavior.
 
BigBlur said:
I agree with this recommendation. Go back to using non-case sensitive if you can, which has always been the default for macOS and most other operating systems.

Do you really have a need to have files/folders of the same name, but different case, in the same directory (i.e. file.jpg and File.jpg in the same folder)? With case-sensitive, this is allowed; with case-insensitive, this is not allowed...which again...is the default behavior.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that makes sense if you were doing a clean install. But that doesn’t help me with my migration.

What do you recommend I do to make migration assistant work?

Is looking for a different machine that doesn’t force a reinstall of Sonoma but rather reinstalls Sequoia worth pursuing?

Do people think this wouldn’t happen if I were migrating to a M4 MacBook Pro instead of an M3 MBA?

Really dreading the idea of having to do a manual, fresh set up without the benefit of migration assistant.
 
smileman said:
Yeah, that makes sense if you were doing a clean install. But that doesn’t help me with my migration.

What do you recommend I do to make migration assistant work?

Is looking for a different machine that doesn’t force a reinstall of Sonoma but rather reinstalls Sequoia worth pursuing?

Do people think this wouldn’t happen if I were migrating to a M4 MacBook Pro instead of an M3 MBA?

Really dreading the idea of having to do a manual, fresh set up without the benefit of migration assistant.
Click to expand...
I think that you are going to continue to have issues trying to stay with the case sensitive file system. It's really an outlier in the Mac world and a bunch of apps (Adobe, in particular) won't even work correctly with case sensitivity enabled. Moving to a standard APFS file system would be a one-time inconvenience, by contrast, and once you switch back you won't have to deal with that again.
 
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chrfr said:
I think that you are going to continue to have issues trying to stay with the case sensitive file system. It's really an outlier in the Mac world and a bunch of apps (Adobe, in particular) won't even work correctly with case sensitivity enabled. Moving to a standard APFS file system would be a one-time inconvenience, by contrast, and once you switch back you won't have to deal with that again.
Click to expand...
I can’t recall ever running into any issues related to having a case sensitive hard drive until now.

So for me at least it doesn’t seem like a problem or limitation in anyway.

Whereas the many hours I’d have to put into migrating if I’m unable to figure out a work around here is a big problem.

So I’m still looking for suggestions on how to make migration possible. Thanks.
 
I guess one potential option is to book a Genius Bar appointment and have them do the migration on Apple‘s time and nickel, yeah?
 
smileman said:
I can’t recall ever running into any issues related to having a case sensitive hard drive until now.
Click to expand...

I agree with others about trying to use non-case sensitive on your new machine. I have little experience with it but I have read it can really cause compatibility issues with some software. You may not have experienced it yet but you may someday.

I really don't know how your old machine came to be as such, since I believe macOS in conversion to APFS would use non case-sensitive. There's specific uses for it, which you may be able to read about, yet I rarely hear of people using it. Perhaps those that need it know.

Seems you want to stick with it only to save the pain of going back. It may take some hours or even some days, but I think it's worth it. Seems others do as well. It's just a one time thing. Yet maybe your old Time Machine backup would have some issues; I don't know how restoring parts of an old backup from case-sensitive to a non case-sensitive drive work if done. Maybe you can restore to a different folder and then move if for some reason you need to restore old files currently not on your old computer.

Continuing to try the migration as such seems to be something fairly rare so you may not find users that have done it, and you may be on your own.

Perhaps you're unsure of some steps needed if you were to copy things over. Maybe others can help along the way.
 
OK, let's try something else.

You'll need an external USB drive that is large enough to hold the contents of your OLD Mac's drive. It can be either an SSD or a platter-based hard drive. SSD is better. It doesn't have to be "the same size" -- only large enough to hold the contents of the Mac drive (i.e., "used space").

Format it in disk utility as follows:
- APFS, GUID partition format
- DO NOT USE case sensitive.
- DO NOT encrypt this drive!

OK, got that?

Now, try either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Your choice -- if one doesn't work, try the other one before you give up.

Set your old Mac drive as the source.
Set the external USB drive as the target.

Will the clone "go through" now?
Do you end up with the external drive that is "mountable in the finder"?

If you try this, and IF it works, then we can "go further".

Again, give up on the idea of "case sensitive" -- FOREVER.
 
I’m just gonna take the new M3 MBA into the Genius Bar and have them set up the drive case sensitive.

I haven’t heard anyone in the forums here explain why this shouldn’t be possible.

Thank you everyone for trying to help.
 
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