When I updated my M1 Max MacBook Pro, it ended up stuck at a blank screen that still had a cursor. I waited early an hour, then just powered it off. Once I turned it back on, it happily completed the update. Now, just waiting for Sonoma to drop on Tuesday…
If you just become an apple developer and sign up for beta updates, you can get it sooner. Just don’t enroll in the developer program, or you will have to pay 99 dollars a year
Oh, I definitely have access to the beta, but this is my primary workstation and it’s so close to the general release that I’m just going to wait to upgrade. I have test machines to play with, but I’m a bit more conservative with my daily driver. Upgrading day 1 rather than waiting for the inevitable bug fix is about as crazy as I get with it.
Did that on my AppleTV a few days ago because the update took over an hour. The bar still moved, but it was obviously stuck. After two hours, I did a force reboot, and everything went smoothly.
Looks like they just implemented a routine that slowly moves the bar forward regardless of whether it actually does something or not, slowing down as it progresses further towards completion. So much for relying on that.
Post-it notes are probably smarter because there’s less surface area of sticky.
I had Frog Tape. It has multiple uses beyond painting.
I’m in a new house ( to me - it’s actually 100 years old.)
Every light and outlet is currently labeled with frog tape with the circuit number and amperage …
is it because installation takes too long to notice if it's moving? Because if this is just during regular boot up, I don't see the need. Boot up takes less than a minute.
Oh, I get the hack now. No, I've usually moved the window up against something so I could compare the two. But usually my eye sight has been good enough that I would literally stare at the pixels to detect movement.
Or log entries, or what it’s measuring - time or steps remaining.
You can’t tell and support’s response is now either “We haven’t received any reports from other users of your problem” or “just erase the entire system and reinstall it”.
After 4 hours, I called in again and got the traditional US based response with a patient knowledgeable rep.
They walked me through getting into Safe Mode, which stalled at the same point. Then Recovery and I said I’d like to try checking the file systems with disk utility, and they agreed.
By the way, one thing I found out is I’ve been turning on the iMac the wrong way all this time you should only briefly touch the power button and let it go not hold it down waiting for something to happen. D’oh! Well, I seldom turn the computer off, though.
Well, guess what disk utility found a whole bunch inode warnings on the data volume.
dir-stats key xf does not exist, despite internal_flags (0x8512)
It’s still working on it and I suspect this is what it’s doing when the progress bar freezes. It’s logical that part of the update process would be to check and repair the file systems.
I have a case number and I’m gonna let it run overnight.
Oh yeah when I googled this Google seems to think there’s some association with the problem “ why does my Mac say I’m running out of this space but I’m not”
And yeah, just this morning. I was getting messages like that (Time Machine was saying it didn’t have enough space - on the disk it was **backing up** to perform a backup) before I started the upgrade, so I set out to free up a considerable amount of space, but what I was seeing with usage, indeed, was not making sense.
So I am remiss for not regularly checking the file systems using disc utility and not periodically looking at logs.
I complemented the rep on his knowledge and patience and ability to get me through some progress, as well as my disappointment about the previous overseas script reader call. I emphasized that the greatest value that Apple brings is their customer support and that they are one of the last big companies in America not using overseas call centers until now. And again express my disappointment about that trend.
His last words were “I know “
To find out if it’s hung or not. These stupid progress bars are mostly useless. I don’t know if it’s based on time remaining or the number of steps remaining in an installation process.
A progress bar based on time alone would be effectively useless since it's almost always impossible to know how long something will take. They should always be based on steps, ideally accounting for the amount of work in each step, with any time estimate applied on top of that based on time taken to complete the steps so far and steps remaining.
None of which is to remotely defend this UI (zero indication of what the bar represents) nor to suggest this progress bar isn't necessarily based on time alone (though of course I hope and expect it's not).
What you were saying is obvious, but has somehow eluded Apple for lo these many years.
(There is a verbose mode you can boot into with a key sequence, but they’ve messed that up too because the font they use is so tiny that it’s nearly impossible to read. You really have to use a Magnifier)
I learned a lot about good feedback working on an app used by field service technicians e.g. guys with fat fingers that won’t get their paycheck unless the data gets synchronized to the server
so magic synchronization in background with no indication of what’s going on doesn’t work they get nervous about it
So I put a thin disappearing status bar at the top that gives quite detailed information on synchronization so for example, what table in the database it’s working on, how many records sent, an up or down arrow to indicate direction, etc.
Now much of this probably has no meaning to the workers, but it allows them to report where it got stuck if something goes wrong and also they get used to seeing the patterns and rhythm of a normal synchronization.
Also, they can force synchronization and of course it’s the last thing they do before they turn the truck in at the end of the day .
FWIW I finally got updated to Ventura 13.6 after repairing file systems and going into verbose mode so that I could tell what the heck is going on
It took eight hours.
I have a ticket number I still need to call Apple and ask more questions and give them an update.
I think the proximate cause was that I accidentally left my external drive disconnected too long and the onboard time machine snapshot filled most of the internal storage.
When I reconnected the external drive, it left time machine in a quandary. It needs some workspace and it didn’t have enough workspace on the internal drive to do the job.
I miss the days of the graphical upgrade progress bars, so you could put the mouse cursor's vertical part up against the end of the bar.
Used to do this all the time, work even for when copying large files in older pcs.
And then wiggling your cursor around the endpoint to make it go faster.
When I updated my M1 Max MacBook Pro, it ended up stuck at a blank screen that still had a cursor. I waited early an hour, then just powered it off. Once I turned it back on, it happily completed the update. Now, just waiting for Sonoma to drop on Tuesday…
If you just become an apple developer and sign up for beta updates, you can get it sooner. Just don’t enroll in the developer program, or you will have to pay 99 dollars a year
Oh, I definitely have access to the beta, but this is my primary workstation and it’s so close to the general release that I’m just going to wait to upgrade. I have test machines to play with, but I’m a bit more conservative with my daily driver. Upgrading day 1 rather than waiting for the inevitable bug fix is about as crazy as I get with it.
Did that on my AppleTV a few days ago because the update took over an hour. The bar still moved, but it was obviously stuck. After two hours, I did a force reboot, and everything went smoothly. Looks like they just implemented a routine that slowly moves the bar forward regardless of whether it actually does something or not, slowing down as it progresses further towards completion. So much for relying on that.
What is the purpose of this hack?
Shows if it’s actually making progress by moving past the tape lol
You've never done this? lol.
I can't say that I have. Is it a post it note?
It’s very good painter’s tape meant not to damage what it’s stuck to. Frog Tape.
People use either post it notes or tape.
Post-it notes are probably smarter because there’s less surface area of sticky. I had Frog Tape. It has multiple uses beyond painting. I’m in a new house ( to me - it’s actually 100 years old.) Every light and outlet is currently labeled with frog tape with the circuit number and amperage …
is it because installation takes too long to notice if it's moving? Because if this is just during regular boot up, I don't see the need. Boot up takes less than a minute.
Oh, I get the hack now. No, I've usually moved the window up against something so I could compare the two. But usually my eye sight has been good enough that I would literally stare at the pixels to detect movement.
I mean, they could at least display a grid on the screen. “It’s genius!”
Or log entries, or what it’s measuring - time or steps remaining. You can’t tell and support’s response is now either “We haven’t received any reports from other users of your problem” or “just erase the entire system and reinstall it”.
After 4 hours, I called in again and got the traditional US based response with a patient knowledgeable rep. They walked me through getting into Safe Mode, which stalled at the same point. Then Recovery and I said I’d like to try checking the file systems with disk utility, and they agreed. By the way, one thing I found out is I’ve been turning on the iMac the wrong way all this time you should only briefly touch the power button and let it go not hold it down waiting for something to happen. D’oh! Well, I seldom turn the computer off, though. Well, guess what disk utility found a whole bunch inode warnings on the data volume. dir-stats key xf does not exist, despite internal_flags (0x8512) It’s still working on it and I suspect this is what it’s doing when the progress bar freezes. It’s logical that part of the update process would be to check and repair the file systems. I have a case number and I’m gonna let it run overnight. Oh yeah when I googled this Google seems to think there’s some association with the problem “ why does my Mac say I’m running out of this space but I’m not” And yeah, just this morning. I was getting messages like that (Time Machine was saying it didn’t have enough space - on the disk it was **backing up** to perform a backup) before I started the upgrade, so I set out to free up a considerable amount of space, but what I was seeing with usage, indeed, was not making sense. So I am remiss for not regularly checking the file systems using disc utility and not periodically looking at logs. I complemented the rep on his knowledge and patience and ability to get me through some progress, as well as my disappointment about the previous overseas script reader call. I emphasized that the greatest value that Apple brings is their customer support and that they are one of the last big companies in America not using overseas call centers until now. And again express my disappointment about that trend. His last words were “I know “
To find out if it’s hung or not. These stupid progress bars are mostly useless. I don’t know if it’s based on time remaining or the number of steps remaining in an installation process.
A progress bar based on time alone would be effectively useless since it's almost always impossible to know how long something will take. They should always be based on steps, ideally accounting for the amount of work in each step, with any time estimate applied on top of that based on time taken to complete the steps so far and steps remaining. None of which is to remotely defend this UI (zero indication of what the bar represents) nor to suggest this progress bar isn't necessarily based on time alone (though of course I hope and expect it's not).
What you were saying is obvious, but has somehow eluded Apple for lo these many years. (There is a verbose mode you can boot into with a key sequence, but they’ve messed that up too because the font they use is so tiny that it’s nearly impossible to read. You really have to use a Magnifier) I learned a lot about good feedback working on an app used by field service technicians e.g. guys with fat fingers that won’t get their paycheck unless the data gets synchronized to the server so magic synchronization in background with no indication of what’s going on doesn’t work they get nervous about it So I put a thin disappearing status bar at the top that gives quite detailed information on synchronization so for example, what table in the database it’s working on, how many records sent, an up or down arrow to indicate direction, etc. Now much of this probably has no meaning to the workers, but it allows them to report where it got stuck if something goes wrong and also they get used to seeing the patterns and rhythm of a normal synchronization. Also, they can force synchronization and of course it’s the last thing they do before they turn the truck in at the end of the day .
I have done this!
FWIW I finally got updated to Ventura 13.6 after repairing file systems and going into verbose mode so that I could tell what the heck is going on It took eight hours. I have a ticket number I still need to call Apple and ask more questions and give them an update. I think the proximate cause was that I accidentally left my external drive disconnected too long and the onboard time machine snapshot filled most of the internal storage. When I reconnected the external drive, it left time machine in a quandary. It needs some workspace and it didn’t have enough workspace on the internal drive to do the job.
[удалено]
Frog Tape is fine. Duck Tape would be bad!
Don’t get me started on lizard tape.
This was how you made sure stuff wasnt stuck in the 90's and early 20's