Glitches on migration to M1 iMac

[AMACL]

I previously reported that my new M1 iMac was running happily after a migration of my data from my previous iMac, a 2019 Intel machine. Unfortunately, some glitches have appeared and even after an internet search, I have not been able to fix them :

1) downloads are impossible from Safari "because the disk doesn't have enough space." which it does, of course, the computer is brand new. I tried tweaking the permissions but now Safari crashes when I try to download.
2) I can't get my Google Mail account to sync with Outlook. It did so on the previous machine from which I migrated.
3) I am working off a French keyboard (my US keyboard is still in use with the previous iMac) but have set my keyboard to US-International which worked fine with the previous iMac. It mostly works but not completely.

I noticed in Finder that I have both my new identity and a "deleted user" identity with the same name. I wonder if this is related to the migration advice from @MacInWin who advised me to create a new identity on the new machine identical to the identity on the old machine. In general, that worked, but... now I'm experiencing the above issues. I'm wondering if they could be related to confusion regarding the identity. But really, I don't know where to turn at this point.

Thanks for help!

Ann

 

[lclev]

When I got my new M1 MBP I did exactly what MacInWin said to do. I started up the new M1 and walked through the prompts. When It came time to setup an account I made sure is matched exactly the user name and password on my old mac. I used the same exact Apple ID and Apple ID password on it when prompted. Migration did it's thing and I had one user account with my same exact user name and password as was on the old mac.

So for you to have a deleted user account showing that means you did something different in setting up the account.

Options you can consider:

1. Wipe new iMac and set up again using migration making sure you absolutely match the old to new account.

2. Keep what you have and try another browser. I like Brave because of the security features. There are other that are good.

3. Delete your google mail account from the new iMac then add it back in under internet accounts.

4. Not sure what to do for the French keyboard but if you choose option 1 you can re-setup the keyboard.

Lisa

 

[AMACL]

When I got my new M1 MBP I did exactly what MacInWin said to do. I started up the new M1 and walked through the prompts. When It came time to setup an account I made sure is matched exactly the user name and password on my old mac. I used the same exact Apple ID and Apple ID password on it when prompted. Migration did it's thing and I had one user account with my same exact user name and password as was on the old mac.

So for you to have a deleted user account showing that means you did something different in setting up the account.

Thanks Lisa for the information.
Sincerely, I was very careful to follow that procedure from MacInWin. I can't figure out what might have gone wrong since the user profiles are identical on the two iMacs.

Options you can consider:

1. Wipe new iMac and set up again using migration making sure you absolutely match the old to new account.

Since I strongly believe that I matched the two accounts, I would rather not go through the migration again unless all else fails.

2. Keep what you have and try another browser. I like Brave because of the security features. There are other that are good.

I checked, and indeed I can download using Firefox, which I have used in the past. I just would rather not have to get used to another browser unless I have to. So, unfinished business. Apparently I'm not the only one to have this problem with Safari on an M1 Mac.

3. Delete your google mail account from the new iMac then add it back in under internet accounts.

Internet Accounts only lets me add accounts for Apple Mail, as far as I can tell. I'm using Outlook. I know that Outlook, Apple and Google is not a great combination , but it was working more or less on my other Mac machines.
Anyway, I added a new Gmail account to my Outlook profile on the new iMac, and that seems to work. I am now deleting the original Gmail account on Outlook. It is taking a long time, I assume because the file is pretty big.

4. Not sure what to do for the French keyboard but if you choose option 1 you can re-setup the keyboard.

Lisa

I think Apple has changed the location of some keys on the US-International keyboard - these are the keys that allow me to type certain French characters on a QWERTY keyboard (the kind I learned to use lo those many years ago on a manual typewriter). If I have to learn the new locations, OK. It may even be possible to reprogram the virtual keyboard, but I'm not quite up to that at this point.

Much appreciate your help !

Ann

 

[MacInWin]

The key to getting it all in one account seems to be that both the login name and the login password need to be identical, even to capitalization, on both the old and new accounts. I don't know why it didn't work for you, but if you are confident that EVERYTHING you need is in the new account, you can always delete the old one and then let the system delete all the data associated with that old account.

Frankly, with the other issues with Safari, Google mail and the other account, you might be better served by resetting back to factory and migrating again, as Lisa suggested. Yes, it's a real pain, but you may be struggling with these issues you are having for a long time, so the short investment in pain may well be worth it overall.

 

[AMACL]

I hear you, Jake. I may take that route, but as I noted in my reply to Lisa, other M1 users appear to be having the same issues with Safari and Google/Outlook (the latter seems to be resolved, for the time being). So the main issue is getting Safari back on track. It does everything but download, I can get most documents by displaying them and then saving them to wherever, so it's mostly operational.
However, I will keep this ultimate solution in mind.
Gotta keep the machines available for daily tasks so I am loathe to incapacitate them for a long period.

Thanks for the support !

Ann

 

[MacInWin]

Good luck with it, Ann. I have not had any issues with Safari at all. Hope it all works out for you.

 

[AMACL]

Do not know what happened, but my original Gmail account on Outlook was not deleted, in the end (because it was spinning for a long time, and I ended its agony). And now it is working. The ways of IT are inscrutable.
Now I have to decide whether or not to delete the other Gmail account (identical) that I created. Because now I have duplicates of all incoming Gmail emails. Which is better than having none, but still...

 

[lclev]

2 Gmail working accounts! I have nothing....

BTW: I too have read about Safari issues on M1's. Since I only use Brave browser I have no suggestions.

Lisa

 

[NSMacGuru]

1) downloads are impossible from Safari "because the disk doesn't have enough space." which it does, of course, the computer is brand new. I tried tweaking the permissions but now Safari crashes when I try to download.

Just to ensure this doesn't slip past without examination....

The "of course": Well... are you sure? I mean, for the past few years, upgrading from an older Mac to a new machine has usually meant moving from a spinning, large-capacity old-style hard drive to a solid-state (SSD) with much smaller capacity.

Whenever folks ask me about "which Mac should I buy", I have them first look at their existing drive and see how much space they have free / are occupying, and use that as a guide to what configuration they should pick up in the new machine (as well as giving some hard thought to managing the offload of files to external storage, etc.).

Never assume....

 

[AMACL]

Just to ensure this doesn't slip past without examination....

The "of course": Well... are you sure? I mean, for the past few years, upgrading from an older Mac to a new machine has usually meant moving from a spinning, large-capacity old-style hard drive to a solid-state (SSD) with much smaller capacity.

Whenever folks ask me about "which Mac should I buy", I have them first look at their existing drive and see how much space they have free / are occupying, and use that as a guide to what configuration they should pick up in the new machine (as well as giving some hard thought to managing the offload of files to external storage, etc.).

Never assume....

I am indeed sure that the disk isn’t full. It is an SSD indeed, but the same capacity - 1 Tb - as the Fusion drive on the older machine. (I bit the bullet of large capacity on the advice of @chascg in this forum). And the fusion disk itself was less than one-third full.

 

[Rod]

This is one of those few times when a agree with Apple Support's frequent suggestion; erase and reinstall the macOS as per MacInWin's suggestion in post #4. Then perform the migration again or use a Time Machine backup to restore all your data.

See; Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon
The article refers to Big Sur but the process is the same for Monterey. And below;

Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon

Learn how to use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon.

support.apple.com

I say this because Safari ,whether or not you use it day to day, performs some unique functions related to your Apple Account. Ignoring it for now may come back to haunt you some time in the future when you are less inclined or equiped to perform an erase, reinstall and restore.
At the moment I would guess your two devices are pretty much identical as far as data goes so a Time Machine backup of your old device would be current.

 

[AMACL]

This is one of those few times when a agree with Apple Support's frequent suggestion; erase and reinstall the macOS as per MacInWin's suggestion in post #4. Then perform the migration again or use a Time Machine backup to restore all your data.

See; Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon
The article refers to Big Sur but the process is the same for Monterey. And below;

Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon

Learn how to use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon.

support.apple.com

I say this because Safari ,whether or not you use it day to day, performs some unique functions related to your Apple Account. Ignoring it for now may come back to haunt you some time in the future when you are less inclined or equiped to perform an erase, reinstall and restore.
At the moment I would guess your two devices are pretty much identical as far as data goes so a Time Machine backup of your old device would be current.

Ah, OK. I guess that would be the more prudent option. The procedure via macOS Recovery looks more complicated than what I used earlier, but I will follow it.

But now I have a dilemma : the Apple instructions don't specify (or I didn't see it) the procedure that was recommended here by @MacInWin and @lclev , that is, to create exactly the same user profile on the new iMac when migrating from the old one.

I don't mind doing so, but now I'm worried I'll do something wrong (again?).

Thanks for your help,
Ann

 

[MacInWin]

Ann, I got the process from here: Migrating to a new Mac

The owner of that site is a well-known, very knowledgeable system administrator. I did exactly as I described and it worked perfectly for me.

 

[AMACL]

Ann, I got the process from here: Migrating to a new Mac

The owner of that site is a well-known, very knowledgeable system administrator. I did exactly as I described and it worked perfectly for me.

Haha, I was just reading the long thread on that site, which is indeed very helpful.
I am a bit puzzled, because that site (Howard) recommends replacing the primary user on the new machine, whereas you recommended merging the two users.
Not sure if that is relevant to my case, but just saying.
Also, I decided to upgrade both machines to Monterey (since he says it's best to have the newest OS). I'm doing the "old" one now and will do the "new" one after erasing its disk (I'd better review the procedure for that again, as I don't seem to have written it down).

 

[MacInWin]

Ann, on the new one there is a quick reset process. No need to reinstall the OS on M1 Macs running Monterey. From that same site: Erase All Contents and Settings: prepare your Mac for disposal and more

Howard refers to EACAS, which is new with the M1 and (I think) Monterey. Much faster than trying a full reinstall.

I am a bit puzzled, because that site (Howard) recommends replacing the primary user on the new machine, whereas you recommended merging the two users.

Well, I don't think it matters, but follow his guidance. I didn't have anything in the new user on the new machine so replacing it was replacing nothing. In any event, it works.

 

[AMACL]

Ann, on the new one there is a quick reset process. No need to reinstall the OS on M1 Macs running Monterey. From that same site: Erase All Contents and Settings: prepare your Mac for disposal and more

Howard refers to EACAS, which is new with the M1 and (I think) Monterey. Much faster than trying a full reinstall.

Well, I don't think it matters, but follow his guidance. I didn't have anything in the new user on the new machine so replacing it was replacing nothing. In any event, it works.

Thanks, Jake. Both of my machines were running Big Sur, not not Monterey. Maybe that is part of the problem ? Anyway, I am (after some glitches) installing Monterey on the "old" one (but I have to leave home just as it's schedule to finish - hope it will wait till I get back = and will install Monterey on the new one after that. I am a bit confused as to whether I should do that BEFORE erasing or afterwards, but before doesn't make sense if it is going to be erased, and I believe the machine will start up with its native (childhood) OS?

 

[MacInWin]

Ann, not to get too deeply technical, but if you follow the steps in that article I linked, the process of emptying the new machine and reinitializing the operating system will not really "erase" the drive, just re-initialize it (all the data will be gone, as if it had been erased). And the OS is stored in a hidden, encrypted portion of storage, so when it gets back to factory condition, it will do what it needs to do to give you a functioning operating system.

I am surprised you say the new machine is running Big Sur. I thought Apple shipped all the new machines with Monterey. In any event, with both on Monterey, the process should work.

 

[Rod]

Sorry Ann, I didn't mean to muddy the waters. The process I described is indeed the way we used to do this. It's my understanding that using my method would not be ID critical you would simply be "restoring" your data from the older machine via Time Machine rather than transfer via Migration Assistant.
But whichever way you go and the way Jake advises certainly seems easier I think we are all in agreement that it should be fixed, earlier rather than later.

 

[AMACL]

Ann, not to get too deeply technical, but if you follow the steps in that article I linked, the process of emptying the new machine and reinitializing the operating system will not really "erase" the drive, just re-initialize it (all the data will be gone, as if it had been erased). And the OS is stored in a hidden, encrypted portion of storage, so when it gets back to factory condition, it will do what it needs to do to give you a functioning operating system.

I am surprised you say the new machine is running Big Sur. I thought Apple shipped all the new machines with Monterey. In any event, with both on Monterey, the process should work.

Thanks so much for this. I am learning all the time ! Speaking of time, I had none today to get back to this task but tomorrow hopefully I will be able to redo the migration.

 

[AMACL]

@Rod and @MacInWin,

Well guess what? I decided to install macOS Monterey on the new iMac, and the glitches I described in my original post seem to have disappeared. I know, they always say install the latest OS, but the machine shipped with Big Sur so I thought it wasn't urgent.

Anyway, Safari no longer crashes on download, my original Gmail account syncs with Outlook. As for the keyboard changes in US International-PC, they are still there, but I'm going to get my QWERTY keyboard back eventually so I will live with it for a while, though I'm curious why they (whoever they is) did that.

However : Do you still think it's better for me to migrate again ? The two machines are not identical at this point, though there are not huge differences.

For me, the more urgent task is wiping my husband's dying 2014 iMac - I've decided I will probably have to rebuild his Safari passwords file, unless I can find it in his Time Machine disk or Documents backup and "plug it in" instead of the one on my machine.

I'm thinking I will create a new user for him on my "old" 2019 iMac, which is what @chscag recommended I believe, which will then hold his preferences and passwords, if I understand correctly (which is not a given deal).

Thanks
Ann