Leaving Monterey and turning back to Big Sur

[Lukeit]

Hi all guys.
I have tried Monterey and I don't feel like it's my cup of tea at the moment.
I know it's already been asked gazillion times in the past, but what is the best way to backup critical settings and and files being on Mac OS 12 and reinstall Big Sur and being able to restore apps and files to the previous state?

Thanks all for your patience and support.

 

[Fishrrman]

You should have thought of such things BEFORE you "took the leap".

This is why I NEVER "upgrade" to anything new right-off-the-bat.
I install new OS releases on an external drive first, for purposes of experimentation, before I "commit".

"Getting back to where you once belonged" took forethought even in the days before the m-series CPUs. I understand it's become even more difficult now.

Having said that, looks like to "get back" from OS 12, you're gonna have to erase the internal drive and start over again. Hope you have a good backup.

 

[Apple_Robert]

If you have an Intel Mac, follow the instructions at the link below and that should get you back to Big Sur.

How to downgrade macOS Monterey beta to macOS Big Sur - iGeeksBlog

What to know before downgrading from macOS Monterey Beta Downgrading involves backup (optional but recommended) → Erase macOS Monterey → reinstall macOS Big Sur → restore Time Machine backup. You can reinstall macOS Big Sur through the internet or a bootable USB drive. Keep your Mac plugged in...

www.igeeksblog.com

 

[cfm56d7b]

Even when the new OS is installed on an external drive, the OS update may contain firmware updates as well. So the system may not be identical when the original OS has been reinstalled.

 

[gilby101]

If you don't have a backup, copy your documents, photos, etc (but not your Photo Library or Music Library if they have been upgraded) to an external disk. Don't attempt to copy settings (your ~/Library folder). Then use recovery to erase your internal disk, reinstall BS, reinstall all your apps and copy back your documents.

Another thread indicates that it is more difficultl if you have an M1 Mac - needs DFU mode.

 

[gilby101]

Another thread indicates that it is more difficultl if you have an M1 Mac - needs DFU mode.

Wrong. You don't need DFU mode. Can do it with a USB bootable BS installer.

 

[Applescrumpy]

Wrong. You don't need DFU mode. Can do it with a USB bootable BS installer.

Indeed you can. I used a bootable stick just a few days ago to downgrade 11.5 beta to 11.4 on my M1 Mac.

 

[Macdctr]

It is good to have multiple laptops so you can use one of them to do new MacOS installs and see how it goes... this is how I test out new MacOS as they come out

 

[mdgm]

Even when the new OS is installed on an external drive, the OS update may contain firmware updates as well. So the system may not be identical when the original OS has been reinstalled.

That's true, but eventually firmware updates for Intel Macs tend to find their way into security updates for the two previous macOS releases so at the very least one would expect some testing of running the two previous macOS releases with a firmware update. So probably a firmware update for Monterey would still mean Big Sur would run well.

I'm running High Sierra on a Mac that only officially supports up to Big Sur and a firmware update that wasn't available in High Sierra has fixed a hibernation crash with 3rd party SSDs so High Sierra actually runs better for me because of that firmware update.

 

[Lukeit]

Thanks guys for the discussion and the support... at the end of the day I was a bit emotional in wanting to revert back... the more I am on Monterey, the more I'm used to it and basically I even find it more stable than previous OS betas after all. I'm gonna stick with it with your suggestions on how to go back just in case! Thanks all!

 

[Johnnyangel]

I decided to try Monterey on my M1 MacBook Pro and wish I could get back the day that it cost me. When it was on the machine, most things worked -- with some exceptions that have been discussed in other threads -- but I decided that I'd be better off reverting to Big Sur.

Right before installing Monterey I had made a Time Machine backup on an external drive, telling myself "I could always revert quickly -- what could go wrong?" To make a long story short, I was unable to use Migration Assistant to restore from my Time Machine backup, because the Assistant for some reason decided that my backup was over 650GB in size .... odd since this was the sole backup that had ever been run and my SSD is only 250GB.

I wound up having to reinstall Big Sur from a bootable USB stick (created via MDS running on another machine). I tried to install three times and each time it would hang at the user account creation screen. Googling that problem, I was reminded that you not only have to erase the SSD using Disk Utility, you also have to "erase computer" using another menu in the Recovery environment, and you have to make sure that the M1 MacBook has been removed from your Apple account before you continue. Yes, I "should have known" all this, but it's a horrible process.

Once the MacBook was booted into the fresh Big Sur install, with the same account name as I'd used previously, I was able to browse the problematic Time Machine backup using the Finder and did get back all my applications, data, a Parallels Windows VM, etc. I also copied various extensions, etc., hoping that I wouldn't have to reactivate all my software.

Unfortunately almost everything had to be reactivated; email accounts had to be recreated; and so on. It's a good thing I'm retired, because this took hours (admittedly, my records regarding license keys should be a lot more centralized).

In conclusion, would-be beta testers beware. I've heard people say that a Time Machine backup will preserve all your settings, but that obviously didn't work out for me.

 

[soulreaver99]

Big Sur was so awful there’s no way I’m going back 🙈

 

[Maconplasma]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Monterey just a Developer Preview right now? Why are people that are not developers installing it? How do I know they are not developers? Because a developer wouldn't install a pre-beta OS on their main drive. They generally install it on a separate partition or a separate drive to test it and code their apps for it. If they have issues they can simply delete the partition.

 

[Johnnyangel]

Grumpy much? (If you're living with Western heat today, I don't blame you ... )

Personally I've been a tech journalist and testing previews, alphas, betas, etc. since Windows version .8. I don't expect pre-release software to be free of problems, and I have multiple machines other than the one I tried Monterey on. Anyway the comments I made about weren't about Monterey at all, but rather about the problems reverting to an earlier OS on an M1 machine -- according to other threads, it's poorly documented and even most Apple employees don't know how to do it properly. Plus, Time Machine had issues.

I posted to be helpful and, as I said, "would-be testers ... beware."

If you want to criticize, how about the many YouTubers and bloggers who have installed the Developer Preview and then posted "reviews" of it? Apple obviously doesn't care any more, but once upon a time you had to sign an NDA to get pre-release software ...

 

[Maconplasma]

Grumpy much? (If you're living with Western heat today, I don't blame you ... )

Personally I've been a tech journalist and testing previews, alphas, betas, etc. since Windows version .8. I don't expect pre-release software to be free of problems, and I have multiple machines other than the one I tried Monterey on. Anyway the comments I made about weren't about Monterey at all, but rather about the problems reverting to an earlier OS on an M1 machine -- according to other threads, it's poorly documented and even most Apple employees don't know how to do it properly. Plus, Time Machine had issues.

I posted to be helpful and, as I said, "would-be testers ... beware."

If you want to criticize, how about the many YouTubers and bloggers who have installed the Developer Preview and then posted "reviews" of it? Apple obviously doesn't care any more, but once upon a time you had to sign an NDA to get pre-release software ...

My reply wasn't even towards you. You wasted so much time writing any of that. SMH.

 

[mikecwest]

Every year it is the same thing. Some bunch of people install the new early beta, whine and complain, then want to go back....If you can't hang with the beta, wait for the final release.

 

[alisalem]

Wrong. You don't need DFU mode. Can do it with a USB bootable BS installer.

I had to resort to DFU mode on my M1 MacBook Air because I couldn't get past setting up a user in the Big Sur setup wizard. Another thing I noticed (unlike my Intel iMac) is that the recovery partition was upgraded to macOS 12. Restoring via DFU mode ensured I had a fresh start.

 

[alisalem]

Indeed you can. I used a bootable stick just a few days ago to downgrade 11.5 beta to 11.4 on my M1 Mac.

Did you not encounter an issue when setting up a user after Big Sur was installed? In my case, the setup wizard froze. Other people had the same issue before https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...ll-getting-stuck-at-create-a-computer-account

 

[shynepoe]

After downgrading I cannot open several apps and even the folders "Documents" give an error. I did the second recovery now. Problem remains:

Spoiler: Error

Process: Skype [5576]
Path: /Applications/Skype.app/Contents/MacOS/Skype
Identifier: com.skype.skype
Version: ???
Code Type: X86-64 (Translated)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Skype [5576]
User ID: 501

Date/Time: 2021-08-07 10:56:44.967 +0400
OS Version: macOS 11.5.1 (20G80)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: C7BA2416-51A1-0A2A-0260-D3A2672D9A06


Time Awake Since Boot: 30000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0

Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: EXC_ARM_BREAKPOINT at 0x00007ffdffe7ed38 (brk 1)
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Trace/BPT trap: 5
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0x5
Terminating Process: exc handler [5576]

Application Specific Information:
assertion failed [header->version <= kProjectSourceVersion]: runtime library is newer than runtime
(Library.cpp:99 init)


Thread 0 Crashed:
0 runtime 0x00007ffdffe7ed38 0x7ffdffe62000 + 118072
1 runtime 0x00007ffdffe7e720 0x7ffdffe62000 + 116512
2 runtime 0x00007ffdffe6fc7c 0x7ffdffe62000 + 56444
3 runtime 0x00007ffdffe66440 0x7ffdffe62000 + 17472
4 ??? 0x0000000000000003 0 + 3

Thread 0 crashed with ARM Thread State (64-bit):
x0: 0x0000000000000000 x1: 0x0000000000000003 x2: 0x000000000000003c x3: 0x000000000000002c
x4: 0x0000000000000303 x5: 0x0000000000000000 x6: 0x0000000000000000 x7: 0x0000000000000490
x8: 0x00007ffdffe9e000 x9: 0x0000000000000000 x10: 0x00007ffdffe9404a x11: 0x0000000000000000
x12: 0x00000000ffffffff x13: 0x0000000000000039 x14: 0x000000010aa73fe8 x15: 0x00007ffdffe85758
x16: 0xffffffffffffffe1 x17: 0x00007ffdffe8e7b6 x18: 0x0000000309775043 x19: 0x00007ffdffe93fd0
x20: 0x00007ffdffe8dba9 x21: 0x0000000000000063 x22: 0x00007ffdffe8db6d x23: 0x0000000309773fb0
x24: 0x000000010aa202e0 x25: 0x0000000202d96000 x26: 0x0000000000000009 x27: 0x0000000000000248
x28: 0x0000000000000001 fp: 0x0000000309773f70 lr: 0x00007ffdffe7ed30
sp: 0x0000000309773f50 pc: 0x00007ffdffe7ed38 cpsr: 0x60000000
far: 0x00007ffdffe93fd0 esr: 0xf2000001


Binary Images:
0x202cf2000 - 0x202d8dfff dyld (852.2) <57DB2053-BFD5-3683-97C6-F1DB2A1F1D09> /usr/lib/dyld
0x7ffdffe62000 - 0x7ffdffe91fff runtime (203.58) <52A2E5D0-FAA3-34EF-8BB7-07F73718C034> /usr/libexec/rosetta/runtime

External Modification Summary:
Calls made by other processes targeting this process:
task_for_pid: 0
thread_create: 0
thread_set_state: 0
Calls made by this process:
task_for_pid: 0
thread_create: 0
thread_set_state: 0
Calls made by all processes on this machine:
task_for_pid: 0
thread_create: 0
thread_set_state: 0

VM Region Summary:
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=1048K resident=0K(0%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=1048K(100%)
Writable regions: Total=136.3M written=0K(0%) resident=0K(0%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=136.3M(100%)

VIRTUAL REGION
REGION TYPE SIZE COUNT (non-coalesced)
=========== ======= =======
Rosetta Generic 8K 2
Rosetta IndirectBranch (reserved) 32K 1 reserved VM address space (unallocated)
Rosetta JIT 128.0M 1
STACK GUARD 56.0M 1
Stack 8176K 1
VM_ALLOCATE (reserved) 40K 3 reserved VM address space (unallocated)
__DATA 288K 4
__DATA_CONST 32K 1
__LINKEDIT 272K 4
__TEXT 816K 2
mapped file 1024K 10
=========== ======= =======
TOTAL 194.4M 30
TOTAL, minus reserved VM space 194.4M 30

Model: MacBookAir10,1, BootROM 7429.0.207.141.1, proc 8:4:4 processors, 8 GB, SMC
Graphics: kHW_AppleM1Item, Apple M1, spdisplays_builtin
Memory Module: LPDDR4
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme, wl0: Jul 7 2021 00:48:27 version 18.50.40.10.7.8.121 FWID 01-f5ad2691
Bluetooth: Version 8.0.5d7, 3 services, 25 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Wi-Fi 2, AirPort, en0
USB Device: USB 3.1 Bus
USB Device: USB3.1 Hub
USB Device: USB3.0 Card Reader
USB Device: BUP Portable
USB Device: USB2.1 Hub
USB Device: BillBoard Device
USB Device: USB 3.1 Bus
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Air, Apple Inc.
Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Air, Apple Inc.

Anybody any idea? Such a pain...

 

[pshufd]

Go and buy a backup HDD so that you don't have this problem again.

 

[shynepoe]

Go and buy a backup HDD so that you don't have this problem again.

this is a solution to which problem?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Go and buy a backup HDD so that you don't have this problem again.

That is good advice for Intel Macs, but M1 Macs will have the Monterey Recovery installed on the internal when installing Monterey even onto an external. You can still reinstall Big Sur (from a USB stick) and boot it, with Monterey Recovery on the internal, but to fully revert the machine to Big Sur you need to use Apple Configurator/DFU mode.

 

[shynepoe]

That is good advice for Intel Macs, but M1 Macs will have the Monterey Recovery installed on the internal when installing Monterey even onto an external. You can still boot boot Big Sur with Monterey Recovery on the internal, but to fully revert the machine to Big Sur you need to use Apple Configurator/DFU mode.

Understood. I have a bigger problem. I downgraded but the system does not work properly: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...not-open-some-apps-or-native-folders.2306789/

 

[pshufd]

this is a solution to which problem?

Being able to restore everything.

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

I was reminded that you not only have to erase the SSD using Disk Utility, you also have to "erase computer" using another menu in the Recovery environment, and you have to make sure that the M1 MacBook has been removed from your Apple account before you continue.

I had to resort to DFU mode on my M1 MacBook Air because I couldn't get past setting up a user in the Big Sur setup wizard. Another thing I noticed (unlike my Intel iMac) is that the recovery partition was upgraded to macOS 12. Restoring via DFU mode ensured I had a fresh start.

I have been working on reproducing the account creation issue. I've been able to reproduce it on Monterey but not Big Bur with the latest version 11.5.1.

@Johnnyangel @alisalem If you have a moment, Could you answer a few questions? What version of Monterey were you on? Beta 4? What version of Big Sur did you use to install? 11.5.1?

Could you walk me through exactly how you erased the drive? Did you click Macintosh HD and then "erase volume group" or did you just click erase only then exited out to start the installer?

Did you both use iCloud?

Also if you could, how did you create the user account? Did you first login to your AppleID and then proceeded to the next screen where your account name was already populated?

The answers that you provide could help me reproduce this on Big Sur. We could then get this fixed so others won't have the same trouble in the future.