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mucsnarb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 7, 2024
4
1
Louisville, KY
First, I've probed around a bit and didn't find my particular scenario. Although, I will admit I don't know much about the forum world and this is the first time I've ever posted in one. I've used this site looking for information in the past but it was usually from a Google search leading me here. I decided to join because this seems like the best place to gain the knowledge I seek.

I'll try to keep this brief but want to make sure I cover everything.

I bought a factory refurbished M1 Ultra, 1TB storage, 64GB memory not quite a year ago and migrated (I believe, can't be 100% sure it's been too long) from a 2015 iMac. I had issues on the old mac of different variants; kernel panics, permission errors, can't remember everything. A lot of it was probably my fault for not understanding what I was doing and playing with Terminal using my admin account and I broke a lot of s#@!. Just to be clear I have only a small amount of knowledge that I learned from the internet on using Terminal and programming. I know enough to f$#$ s#%! up and that's it.

The mac hadn't been used much until here recently because of moving, etc. I use it for music production, image-editng, lightweight video editing. One major problem is when using a DAW my audio output is garbled, glitched, noise and general problems of high CPU usage, kernel panics, 3rd party kexts, apps crashing including Console, UTI issues (opens with, under Finder Get Info is not default), System/Library/Extensions/ contains 604 files mainly kext, this goes on and on. My main fear, concern, whatever, is that I'm pretty sure the issues I'm currently having are from how I brought my data in from my iMac and I don't want to re-introduce this $%$##$ again.

I've researched online and found a lot of information so much in fact, its difficult to process it all.

I gave up on trying to "fix" my mac and just reinstall the damn OS. I will be using Carbon Copy Cloner (I be hatin' Time Machine), still a bit confused about the CCC process, nothing can be simple, at least for me. I'm seeking guidance on the best approach, are my concerns legitimate, suggested CCC settings.

I have already installed CCC and made a "standard" backup on an external drive (it's just a USB 3.0) that was just erased and formatted to APFS, GUID Partition Map with snapshot support enabled (not sure if this was right decision), and I disabled the SafeNet feature "SafetyNet Off" from the SafetyNet submenu. I don't plan on using it as a bootable drive, I believe it's way to slow for that anway. CCC is currently verifying all my files.

ANY help, suggestions, comments, anything would GREATLY appreciated!!! Please and Thank you.
 

Bigwaff

Contributor
Sep 20, 2013
2,735
1,830
I be hatin' Time Machine
I’ve used Time Machine and Migration Assistant to set up new Macs or reinstall from scratch for a little over a decade now without any issues. Nothing against CCC, it’s awesome and I own a license. I lean towards Time Machine back up and Migration Assistant being the simplest approach.
 
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mucsnarb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 7, 2024
4
1
Louisville, KY
Cool, thanks for the response. I decided to go with CCC because of the exellent reviews but all the options got me confus-i-cated. Do you know anything about the possibility of bringing problems with me if I choose to use Migration Assistant? I can't remember how I did this a year ago but I"ve got serious issues...Thanks ye.
 

Barbabenno

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2021
12
14
When I moved to my Mac M1 I chose to do a fresh install. I was afraid that I'd carry over problems if the old settings files were copied. AFAIK tools like Migration Assistant usually copy those files over. So I simply installed all my apps fresh, and manually chose the correct settings, and copied over the data files from the old backup. This is more work, and I'm not sure whether it is really necessary, but in your case I'd be seriously tempted to do this.

Or if this sounds too much work, you could simply do this only with the app you have problems with. Save a copy of the app and its data somewhere else, delete the app itself and the settings files (somewhere in ~/Library/Application Support probably, but I usually look for info on the Internet where the files are, but beware that some apps save the data also in that directory, so keep a copy of this directory as well). This should remove all traces of the app so you can start from scratch. Then reinstall the app, and copy over/import the old data.

ALWAYS keep backups of your old system and all data when you do this, and CHECK whether the backup is really correct (you didn't forget files/directories, the copy process finished o.k.). So you can always go back to the old set up if you screw up the process.
 
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mucsnarb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 7, 2024
4
1
Louisville, KY
When I moved to my Mac M1 I chose to do a fresh install. I was afraid that I'd carry over problems if the old settings files were copied. AFAIK tools like Migration Assistant usually copy those files over. So I simply installed all my apps fresh, and manually chose the correct settings, and copied over the data files from the old backup. This is more work, and I'm not sure whether it is really necessary, but in your case I'd be seriously tempted to do this.

Or if this sounds too much work, you could simply do this only with the app you have problems with. Save a copy of the app and its data somewhere else, delete the app itself and the settings files (somewhere in ~/Library/Application Support probably, but I usually look for info on the Internet where the files are, but beware that some apps save the data also in that directory, so keep a copy of this directory as well). This should remove all traces of the app so you can start from scratch. Then reinstall the app, and copy over/import the old data.

ALWAYS keep backups of your old system and all data when you do this, and CHECK whether the backup is really correct (you didn't forget files/directories, the copy process finished o.k.). So you can always go back to the old set up if you screw up the process.
Thanks for the reply, it has shed light on what I'm trying to do. Man this is making my head hurt. I just want software that I paid for to work on a computer that I PAID for. I appreciate your detailed, clear response. It's hard to find suggestions like this. Thank you again!
 
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