OS cannot be installed (?)

Had a fright this evening with my MPB 10.13.6

This morning there was an update for Safari, which I duly installed. Safari is now telling me that it's on 12.0.3. I presume this is the latest version.

I seem to remember that a restart was required and that the MPB did take a bit longer than usual to come back on. I was going out for the day and so I shut down.

When I switched on some hours later, the start up was slow and then all of a sudden, I got a screen message saying that Mac OS could not be installed. There appeared a long log, which I think that I saved but goodness knows where it is. I tried restarting and got the same result. On the third attempt, the MPB restarted and everything is OK. I have backed up all my data but dare not shut down again.

I have not installed "Moave" and neither did I attempt to do anything else other than download the new version of Safari.

Comment greatly appreciated.

M

As far as I know, the Safari 12.0.3 update is downloaded and installed along with Mojave 10.14.3. Both were made available yesterday morning and were on the update schedule listed in System Preferences, Update. Apparently the Safari update is also available to those systems running High Sierra.

Since we do not know which MacBook Pro you have (model and year) we have no idea if your machine can run Mojave. If you machine is too old to run Mojave, it would not normally be available through updates or download. Perhaps that might be why you received the error?

Mikeo1938 said:

...I got a screen message saying that Mac OS could not be installed.

Click to expand...

Maybe you clicked on install all updates...and maybe part of this was an upgrade to Mojave. Computer spec's were not provided...but it's possible (if your computer is not capable running Mojave)...that the Mojave installer was also downloaded...and when the computer tried to install Mojave...it couldn't do it (if the computer can't run Mojave).

The reason why I mention this is...I have an older MacBook Air & MacBook Pro that do not meet the requirements for Mojave...but I keep getting the daily reminder to do updates (and it seems to indicate Mojave as part of this process).

So in your case...maybe the Mojave installer was downloaded...you computer tried to install it...but couldn't. Thus you go the message you described.

HTH,

- Nick

chscag said:

Perhaps that might be why you received the error?

Click to expand...

I think you beat me to it!

- Nick

See here, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222,

Sorry did I get that right? Did you say you were waiting for the installation to complete but had to go out so you shutdown?


Sent from my iPhone

Without putting too fine a point on it can I say that it’s generally accepted that shutting down in the middle of an installation process is a bad thing to do.
However it’s done now so I think the first thing I would do is disconnect your Time Machine backup device. You don’t want to backup what you currently have, just in case you need to restore the device.
Then I would open the Disc Utility app and run First Aid on the Macintosh HD (in the side menu bar). It may be better to run it from the Restore partition but see what you get just running on the system and let us know the results.


Sent from my iPhone

Many thanks for all the helpful replies.
Yes, I may well have accidentally clicked on "install all" ... was a bit befuddled at the time otherwise I would have realised what was going on and not shut down.
Anyway, I'll do the Disk Utility run and report back.
Meanwhile my MPB details are:
15 inch, mid 2014, Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, Memory 16BG, 1600 MHz DDR3, Graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
In fact, I don't really want to upgrade to Mojave. But as a matter of interest, can someone tell me whether my MPB would take Mojave as it stands?
Many thanks in advance.
M

Further to the above, I ran Disk Utility.
The results were as follows:

Verifying file system.
Volume could not be unmounted.
Using live mode.
Performing fsck_apfs -n -l -x /dev/rdisk1s1
Checking volume.
Checking the container superblock.
Checking the EFI jumpstart record.
Checking the space manager.
Checking the object map.
Checking the APFS volume superblock.
Checking the object map.
Checking the fsroot tree.
error: fext_val : object (oid 0x200a65b61): Bad phys_block_num+len for physical file extent record, phys_block_num 8595819947 len 4096
fsroot tree is invalid.
The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.
Operation successful.

Does this show anything significant?
Is there any way that I can see whether the Mojave installation went off at half-cock. If so, should vestiges of Mojave be removed?
So far I've not dared to shut down but do the above results give cause for concern?
Thanks in advance.

M

Mikeo1938 said:

error: fext_val : object (oid 0x200a65b61): Bad phys_block_num+len for physical file extent record, phys_block_num 8595819947 len 4096
fsroot tree is invalid.
The volume /dev/rdisk1s1 could not be verified completely.

M

Click to expand...

Did you run Disk Utility First Aid from the Recovery partition? If not, you should try that. If you get the same results, you may want to erase the drive and reinstall the OS, or recover from a backup? If you don’t already have a backup, make one before proceeding.


Bob -

Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

Mikeo1938 said:

Meanwhile my MPB details are:
15 inch, mid 2014, Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, Memory 16BG, 1600 MHz DDR3, Graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
In fact, I don't really want to upgrade to Mojave. But as a matter of interest, can someone tell me whether my MPB would take Mojave as it stands?

Click to expand...

This computer most definitely meets the minimum system requirements for Mojave...if you should at some point in the future want or need to install it.

- Nick

Actually I think you are ok. It would seem that Disk Utility’s repaired the worst of issues. I think I would just hang on to your most recent backup rather than doing another one until you are confident all is well.
To answer your other question, yes your device can run Mojave. Sooner or later you will need to upgrade so if you are considering it update anything you can first especially 3rd party apps. Some will require updates after Mojave is installed.


Sent from my iPhone

Thanks for your note.

However, I'd appreciate some additional help.

"ferrarr" asks: "Did you run Disk Utility First Aid from the Recovery partition?"
I don't think that I did this.

Sorry to be dim but I wonder whether I do have partitions.

When I open DU, I see the following:

Mount Point: - Type APFS Volume
Capacity: 250.79 GB - Owners Enabled
Available 43.28 GB (21.38 purgeable) - Connection PCI
Used: 227.14 GB - Device disk1s1

And when I click on "Partition" at the top of the above screen, I see this:

Apple File System Space Sharing

APFS volumes share [ ... ]
To add a new volume to a container [ ... ]
Would you like to add a volume to the container, or partition the device?

And below the above I see Partition - Cancel - Add Volume (the latter is highlighted in blue)
Hoping that you can kindly assist further.

M

Since Mac OS X Lion (10.7), Apple has created a hidden Recovery partition. To startup in Recovery, see this, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314.

Verifying file system.
Volume could not be unmounted.

Click to expand...

The reason the volume could not be unmounted is that you were running Disk Utility live from the volume which you're booted from. An unmounted volume can not be completely checked or repaired if need be.

As Bob pointed out in reply #10, you need to run Disk Utility in Recovery Mode. Follow the Apple KB article he referred you to and let us know. As for pieces of Mojave being on your system, the only thing that could be there is the installer if in fact it did not install.

I asked about this topic some time back myself; what happens to the remnants of incomplete upgrade downloads? If for instance due to poor connectivity your download drops out before completion. After no little amount of enquiry it seems the file is overwritten so no remnants remain after the successful download is eventually completed. Then as we know after the installer is used it too is deleted, leaving no leftovers at all. As for running DU from the RP, my experience is that despite being unable to unmount the drive under repair when run from the OS (something that seems to be a change in APFS) the result has always been the same for me.


Sent from my iPhone

As for running DU from the RP, my experience is that despite being unable to unmount the drive under repair when run from the OS (something that seems to be a change in APFS) the result has always been the same for me.

Click to expand...

It doesn't matter if the drive is formatted as APFS or HFS+, it's not going to unmount if you're booted from it and run disk utility. That's why DU should be run from recovery or an external booted drive.

It seems to me that DU used to be able to do this as recently as Sierra. Admittedly I usually run DU from the Recovery Partition but I was pretty sure was a change rather than a constant state of affairs.
Of course it seems pretty reasonable that a volume cant repair itself and I recall in cases where serious repairs were required DU would advise that the device be booted from the Recovery Partition and repaired from there.
In any case I'm not advising against it just saying that it will probably give the, "Seems to be okay." message.

Further to my original post, I've just spotted a folder on the HD that was created at about the time when things started to go wrong.

It's called macOSInstall Data and contains five files.

Is this a vestige of the Mojave download? Might it be an idea to delete it?

M

Well, I used Recovery and sure enough there was First Aid. I selected this and there was just a second's delay before I got an OK message. Because it went so fast I did it again and got another OK. So it would seem (touch wood) that things are OK.

Referring to my last post, do people think that the files that I found (macOSInstall Data and contains five files) are the vestige of a Mojave installation that went off at half cock?

They don't seem to be doing any harm so I'm tempted to leave well alone. On the other hand, might it be an idea to put them into Trash and see what happens?

Thanks for the advice on Disk Utility and Recovery.

M