Advice on MacOS Updates?

hey MPU,

Any advice for this situation…did the update to Venture 13.2.1
I can’t fully blame it, but not sure what else to do for tracking down the issue.

Issues encountered…

  1. Wouldn’t initially update, kept getting on a loop to agree to the apple statement (probably a sign I should have examined)
  2. Update froze my mac after logging in (stuck in an optimization loop)
  3. Login Time! Finder crashed several times, programs wouldn’t open, beachball galore
  4. Restarted 2-3 times
  5. Repeat #3 again
  6. So far…things seem to be working.

perhaps it is time to go to recovery mode and reinstall the current OS before upgrading

can’t get into disk utility and when i do…it’s just blank or hangs on ‘loading disks’

recovery mode just hangs on examining volumes

an update for those following along…

after a call to apple support, with them on the phone, we couldn’t get back into recovery, couldn’t run diagnostics, couldn’t do anything other than just login to a ‘slow’ machine, etc.

scheduled a genius bar appointment tomorrow morning…

hangup call…random brain fart moment…

-unplugged time machine hard drive from hub
-unplugged carbon copy cloner hard drive from hub

30 seconds later…
Disk Utility ran and was good - check
Reinstalled macOS through recovery - check

Everything seems to be fine and running normal.

But what is the root cause? failing hub? failing externals?

what type of hub are you using ?

seems that the issue was caused / influenced by external devices.

It is always a good practice to disconnect any attached devices from the mac before using recovery anyway

Been using this hub, connects my 2 passports, Stream Deck and Scarlett 8i6 interface… I wouldn’t use if the Mac Mini just had more ports…

Nothing wrong with that. But… definitely not during a restore (and ideally not even during a OS update). USB devices can be everything. What they really are to the Mac depends on how they identify themselves. The Mac “learns” through drivers that are coming with a MacOS installation. As long as those are missing, the Mac has the problem not knowing what exactly is connected to the Mac. And this can lead to unexpected results. Even more so, if USB devices are connected through a hub, which makes stuff even more complicated.

I do not unplug every USB device during an update (who does…), but IF an error occurs, it is the first thing to be done before doing anything else.

EDIT: I have forgotten the most important thing: I am glad that everything is up and running again. :slight_smile:

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