Whether you've encountered problems installing Catalina or are having issues getting your Mac up. High Sierra error or Mojave error? In this guide, we look at some of the installation problems that tend to occur with new releases of macOS.
After summer comes macOS. This long-standing tradition started by Apple is the most exciting moment of the year — seeing your Macs improve and gain new bells and whistles. In 2019, we’re welcoming Catalina, the 10.15 version of macOS named after Catalina island in California. Apparently, it’s hot.The operating system boasts a whole lot of like Sidecar, iOS apps porting, and major Photos update. To try the features right away, you can install Catalina from the Software Update tab.However, be prepared for some troubleshooting. The acquaintance with the new macOS doesn’t always go smooth — and with macOS 10.15 deeming support for lots of software, many things will not go smooth.
We’ve collected the key macOS Catalina issues you may encounter, along with the ways to fix them. MacOS 10.15 Catalina problems and their fixesGiving up Catalina is a decision you can choose to make. But before rolling back, ensure you use every bit of advice as to how you can fix the common problems.
Sometimes, a quick fix can solve your concerns. ✕Problems with macOS Catalina you can solve:.macOS 10.15 Catalina won’t installThis is the classic problem that arises with every macOS release: The installation won’t start or you face the “Catalina installation stuck” problem — when it freezes and you see no progress on the install. No matter how many times you start over, you keep getting an error trying to install Catalina.” How to fix:.Apple recommends to reset SMC. Shut down your Mac, and hold Shift + Ctrl + Option + Power button for about 10 seconds, with your cable plugged in. Click on the power button and wait for your Mac to start up.Try resetting NVRAM or PRAM. Shut down your Mac, and hold Option + Command + P + R for about 20 seconds. Wait for your computer to restart.Reinstall from macOS recovery.
Hold Option + Command + R to reinstall. Once you see the startup screen, start the installation again.Some users reported they were prompted to enter administrator password several times to complete the installation.
So it might be something for you to try as well.In most cases, macOS Catalina cannot be installed on Macintosh HD, because it doesn’t have enough disk space. If you install Catalina on top of your current operating system, the computer will keep all the files and still need free space for Catalina. So the easiest fix would be to clean up your system with before upgrading. All the system junk, app leftovers, and unneeded files will go away in a minute.Backup your disk and run a clean install. This will wipe away your current system files, leaving space for macOS Catalina — so yes, this option is for the brave.
If you use a solid backup solution, you’ll keep your data safe, though. Is a nice way to do it — unlike Apple’s Time Machine, the app allows running bootable backups.Say you’ve cleared up and backed up your disk. But your Mac still gets stuck at the installation and shows “not enough space” error, so you can’t get out of the cycle. In this case, there’s another fix you can try:.Reinstall Mojave. No worries, this won’t delete your disk. Reboot your Mac and hold Command + R to enter the Recovery Mode. Click Reinstall macOS.Restore from your backup.
If you have a Time Machine backup, enter the Recovery Mode again and select “Restore from Time Machine Backup.” Select the backup from the list and restore your files.Some users also they tried to reboot into Safe Mode and take the installation from there; the others used a newly created admin user — but most attempts have been unsuccessful.We must agree that macOS 10.15 is one of the slowest systems in terms of installation. But if you use the hacks described above and have a little patience, you’ll be able to get to the “Catalina installed” point. If you can’t login after upgrading to CatalinaThere’s a known problem of failing to login after the installation. Unfortunately, the only way to fix it — at least for now — would be to roll back to Mojave:.Clean up your Mac with CleanMyMac X and backup your data.Save passwords to ensure you don’t lose license keys and settings.Create a bootable installer of Mojave (after Catalina goes public, you can download Mojave ).Delete macOS Catalina: Apple menu Restart Command + R Disk Utility your startup disk Erase.Fix macOS Catalina Sidecar issuesOne of the things Mac users are particularly excited about is the new Sidecar feature. It comes as a handy solution for those wanting to expand their workspaces.
You can either mirror your Mac’s screen to iPad or use your iPad’s screen as an extension of a Mac.If the only reason you’re here is because you want Sidecar, we have to warn you it might not work with your new macOS. Reddit is full of about the feature unavailable on macOS Catalina. Most likely, this is the issue of compatibility. How to fix:Here are the ways to fix Sidecar problems:.Get the new iPadOS 13.
Unfortunately, macOS Catalina doesn’t work with iPadOS 12. So basically, you have to use the recent operating systems if you want to try Sidecar.Make sure your Mac is one of the compatible devices. Sidecar works on:. 2019 Mac Pro.
Late 2018 Mac mini +. Late 2018 MacBook Air +.
2017 iMac Pro. Mid 2016 MacBook Pro +.
Early 2016 MacBook +. Late 2015 iMac +.Try connecting your iPad with a cable.
With Sidecar, you should be able to connect your iPad wirelessly. If this doesn’t work, the cable might solve the issue.Battery drain on macOS CatalinaMany of the previous macOS releases were known for battery life concerns — greedy apps, Safari and Chrome draining battery, or power-saving not working. There has been no major battery drain issues reported by the Catalina users so far.
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How to fix:Just to make sure you don’t encounter the problem as well, here are a few precautions:.Check for apps that use significant energy. For a quick insight, check Apple’s in-built Activity Monitor. It shows the “Energy impact” for every application — calculated based on CPU, network usage, and other factors.Have a solution for battery health monitoring. Is a perfect fit if you need detailed analytics on disk activity, CPU usage, battery life, memory load, and much more.
The app shows all the data right in your menu bar. Plus, you can customize what’s being monitored flexibly.Use Screen Time to limit the use of apps. This is the brand-new app on macOS Catalina, which helps you live a healthier Mac user life. Set time limits for the use of specific apps or app categories and schedule downtime.
The main goal is to track how much time you spend on the computer, but you can also use it to optimize battery life on Mac.Apps not working on macOS CatalinaIn the attempt to speed up your Mac’s performance, Apple is killing 32-bit app architecture with the release of Catalina. This means you have to switch to 64-bit, for good. You might see the messages like this when trying to launch an app:The chances are it’s one of the oldies. How to fix:CleanMyMac X can pretty much solve every app problem on macOS Catalina.
✕.Use Updater to search available app updates. Maybe the app is not working, because it needs upgrading. If you’ve missed the update notification, you won’t know about this. To solve the issue, CleanMyMac X will show you the full list of apps with available updates from developers.
The best thing is you can run a batch update right in the app.Uninstaller gives you an easy way to reset or get rid of 32-bit apps. The Apple way of checking for 32-bit applications is quite easy: access About This Mac System report Applications. However, once you find apps with the outdated architecture, you’ll have to go and uninstall each of them separately.
The Uninstaller feature in simplifies things for you — filter by 32-bit and get rid of each of them. If there’s no particular reason an app misbehaves, try resetting it. Guess what, CleanMyMac X has it covered too.
In Uninstaller, click on the arrow button next to the app and choose Reset. As easy as that.While app notarization takes time, you can expect many apps being unavailable after the release of Catalina. This doesn’t mean they are gone for good, though. Contact developers or follow official developer announcements to find out about compatibility plans.
OneDrive client problems on CatalinaDue to Catalina’s new security settings, Microsoft’s OneDrive may have a problem accessing your drive — even if you allow a full access. This is because macOS 10.15 comes with two disk volumes by default. How to fix:There are no surefire fixes just yet, but you can try to troubleshoot OneDrive by setting it up from the very beginning.
This worked for some users, according to the:.Unlink your account and quit OneDrive.Remove OneDrive client from your Mac and delete the folder.Set up OneDrive again and make sure you allow full disk access in Security & Privacy.iCloud problems on macOS CatalinaThe most common issue with iCloud is that users are unable to download their folders. You can try downloading iCloud files separately — but that’s going to be a pain if you have an extensive library. How to fix:The best fix would be using for your file management. The app is Catalina-ready and allows connecting local drives, Dropbox, iCloud, and tons of other storage sites.If you’re setting up iCloud, there might be another issue standing in your way: Not being able to agree to the Terms and Conditions. The window will just keep popping up on your screen. An easy way to fix this would be to access System Preferences Internet Accounts and then click on the iCloud icon. You’ll see a static Terms and Conditions window — click Accept and you’re good to go.
Replacing iTunes on CatalinaThe new macOS 10.15 brought along the end of iTunes and the birth of the new Music app. Basically, it looks the same — but with music-only content.
There’s a huge difference for people who rely on syncing Apple Music with third-party apps. The new app doesn’t support XML file support, which makes playlist syncing impossible across many apps. So if you use Apple Music for DJing, you’ll definitely have a problem. How to fix:The only fix to suggest here would be to stay away from Catalina if you need your XML apps to work with iTunes. Music library issues New Music app keeps freezingThere have been reports about the new music app freezing on Mac.
Well, it’s the first splitting of iTunes, so it’s no wonder it doesn’t go smooth. In most cases, your Mac will keep showing the “library updating” status.
How to fix:.Create a backup of your entire music library.Move your music out of the music folder.Go to /Library and remove every file related to “Music” and “iTunes.”.Delete music caches in /Library/Caches.Restart your Mac and try to access the library again. It should be working now.Memory usage problems with Apple Music appAnother problem you may come across is the Music app eating too much of your space. One user the app used over 30GB of memory on his Mac. How to fix:Apparently, the problem is related to the memory management of Album Art. It is getting better, though.
According to user reports, memory usage goes back to normal after restarting the app. Mail search is brokenAccording to, your mailbox might get pretty messy after the upgrade — with no search functionality whatsoever.
So if you try searching by keywords or recipient/sender name, the app will keep showing the numerical number of results. The reason could be the new Spotlight integration. How to fix:.Open System Preferences Internet accounts and remove your mail account.Restart your computer and once again add your mail account to the app.Try searching through your emails — it should be working now.There have also been some about emails missing from the Mail app — so you might want to wait for it to get fixed before upgrading, especially if you rely on Apple Mail. Slowing down and overheating macOS Catalina problemsSo here’s the thing: macOS Catalina should be faster than Mojave. 32-bit architecture was one of the things slowing an operating system down. It’s gone, and so are the issues with slow apps.
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Unfortunately, you can expect your Mac go slow and overheat anyway. How to fix:.Too many login items often cause your Mac to go slow. To eliminate the problem, disable apps from launching at startup. Go to System Preferences Users & Groups Login Items. Check the apps you don’t want to run at startup and click on the minus button.Reset SMC. This is a universal fix that helps solve the issues with overheating, battery life, slow Mac, and more. The process is pretty simple and doesn’t impose any risks of losing your data.
To reset, shut down your Mac, but leave a charger plugged in. Hold Shift + Ctrl + Option + Power button for about 10 seconds. Click on the power button and wait for your Mac to start up.Dock disappearing on macOS CatalinaOn the, people mentioned Dock disappearing from their screen after upgrading to Catalina.
The nature of this mistake is unknown — some users connect it to PRAM resetting, the others say they had the issue when trying to work across two screens. How to fix:Try Option + Command + D.
If it doesn’t work for you, do the following:.Go to Settings Dock.Change the Dock’s size so that it starts flickering.Change the hide/show settings.Customize the Dock’s position on screen (you can do it randomly).Close the window and check whether it’s working now. Internet not working after upgrading to CatalinaIf you’re putting macOS 10.15 over your current system, you’re likely to encounter Internet connection problems. How to fix:The radical way would be to clean install macOS Catalina — it’s healthier for your Mac and will probably fix the issue.
If you’re not ready to take a risk, try rebooting your Mac.There has been a user report saying that Sophos caused the problem of network connection. So uninstalling it may be a fix as well. Bluetooth not available on macOS CatalinaWell, that’s a problem. Definitely a huge one if you use AirPods.
Deleting your Bluetooth.plist files might be the way to solve this. How to fix:.Open Finder Go Go to Folder.Type Library/Preferences.Find a file with the name “com.Apple.Bluetooth.plist” and delete it.Safari extensions not workingWhile Apple is trying to transition to iOS-compatible extensions, it gradually deems support for many web extensions formats.
On Catalina, you’ll face the problem with.safariextz files not working. How to fix:Just like with 32-bit apps, there’s no way to fix the missing extensions. If you can’t find a good alternative, you can switch to Chrome or another browser. Storage filling up too fastIf you notice unusual storage filling up progress, this might mean your Mac captured too many redundant files during the Catalina installation.
In most cases, these are APFS files and Time Machine backups. How to fix:If you can use a good Time Machine alternative like throughout the upgrade, do it. Otherwise, you can remove Time Machine leftovers after installing Catalina with CleanMyMac X. In the Maintenance tab, select “Time Machine snapshots thinning,” and run a cleanup.To remove snapshots manually, use the following Terminal commands:1. To view the list of snapshots:tmutil listlocalsnapshots / tmutil listlocalsnapshots /System/Volumes/Data2. To delete snapshots:deletelocalsnapshotsHere’s a quick review of all mentioned fixes, which you can take with you: Is macOS Catalina stable?The short answer is yes — if you use it right.
So before you decide to downgrade back to Mojave, make sure you’ve done the following things right:. Backup your Mac with Get Backup Pro or any other reliable tool before running an installation. If you still need some of the Mojave functionality that won’t be available in Catalina, install the new macOS on partition. Make your Mac as clean as possible before upgrading. Get iPadOS 13 if you want to use the Sidecar feature. Get rid of 32-bit applications, even if this means killing your darlings.
Backup your Music and then empty the folder along with music-related Library caches. The new Apple Music app is still pretty much unpredictable, so you need to ensure you don’t lose your playlist. CleanMyMac X is a solution for many Catalina issues, so you need it — badly.
To cut the cost, you can get it through and receive extra tools like Get Backup Pro and Endurance.If you want to dive more into macOS Catalina bugs fixed, check out the.
Installing a new version of the Mac OS is generally a fairly pain-free process; this trend continues with macOS Catalina. Even so, it’s a good idea to review our Rocket Yard guides for a as well as an. You should also take basic steps to ensure you can recover from any install issues you may come across.The most important of these is to before you start the installation process so that you can recover from any installation issues that may arise.If you’ve run into an issue and you didn’t first perform a backup, then with any luck, one of our tips will get you back on track. If it does get your Mac going again, remember to back up your Mac before you go any further.If you need a storage solution to handle your backups,.With backups out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the common and not-so-common macOS Catalina installation issues you may run into: macOS Catalina Won’t InstallThis is the most basic of Catalina installation errors; it simply won’t install. It may be that the installation won’t start, it seems to freeze during the installation, or it never seems to complete.The two primary causes are; attempting to install on a Mac that Catalina doesn’t support, or trying to install Catalina on a Mac with limited storage space.Supported Macs: Most Macs from 2012 or later support macOS Catalina.
The lone exception is the 2010-2012 Mac Pro, whose graphics cards don’t meet Catalina requirements. You can find a full list of supported Macs in the Rocket Yard guide:.Storage Space: You’ll need about 6.5 GB of space just to download the macOS Catalina installer. After that, the amount of space needed is dependent on the type of installation you’re performing: a clean install or an upgrade install.
You can see how much free space is available on the target drive by highlighting the drive and pressing Command-IA clean install uses up around 20 GB of storage space. In addition, you need to allow for space for your user data, applications, and future updates. As if that weren’t enough, you should keep at least 10 to15 percent of the startup drive free to ensure adequate performance. I normally suggest a good deal more free space than that, but here we’re just talking about a minimum to ensure you can install and use macOS Catalina.If you’re performing an upgrade install, you need to make sure the startup drive has enough free space for the installer download (6.5 GB), as well as room for the files the installer will copy to the startup drive during installation.
It’s difficult to estimate the size of the free space you’ll need since it’s dependent on the version of the Mac OS you’re running before the upgrade. But if you have 25 GB of free space available, you should be able to successfully perform an install of Catalina.If you’re tight on free space, consider removing unneeded files using one of these methods:.For some of us, even after we clean out unneeded files we’re still short on free space and need to consider upgrading our Mac’s internal drive or adding an external storage system. OWC has you covered if you need to go this route:.Unable to Write Information to DiskThis message (or a variant) will sometimes show up just after you start the installation process, and is most often caused by a corrupt installer file. The simple solution is to delete the macOS Catalina installer and download a new copy. Disk Utility’s First Aid should be run to ensure the startup drive and the target drive do not have any issues that could impact installing macOS Catalina.A new installer will usually take care of the issue, but there’s another problem that could lead to the same message: a damaged target drive for the installation.
If you haven’t already done so, you may want to run Disk Utility’s First Aid tool to check and repair the target drive. You should also run First Aid on the startup drive if it isn’t the target for the installation.
You can find instructions on using First Aid in:.Could Not Create a Preboot Volume for APFSThe “could not create preboot volume” along with other APFS (Apple File System) errors associated with converting an HFS+ drive to APFS are rarely encountered, an indication of the maturing of the APFS file system.macOS Catalina requires the use of APFS instead of HFS+. If you’re upgrading from an earlier version of the Mac OS and you were using HFS+, the installer will convert your target drive from HFS+ to APFS. This, in itself, is not an issue.
However, in rare occurrences, you may see an error message.If you encounter this issue, the cure is easy enough: you just need to. If the target drive was your startup drive, you’ll need to to access Disk Utility. You may also need to restore your Mac’s data using a recent backup before restarting the installation process. MacOS Could Not Be Installed on Your ComputerThis may seem like the same issue we started this article with: having a Mac that is supported by Catalina. The difference is that you already verified that your Mac is compatible (see the link to supported Macs above), but you still see the error message. If the Catalina installer is refusing to run, use the Date & Time preference pane to check that the date and time are set correctly.If that’s the case, open up the Date & Time preference pane and check its settings. Make sure you have both the correct time and the current date properly configured.
The best way to ensure that this isn’t a Date & Time issue is to use the option to “Set date and time automatically.” You’ll find this option in the Date & Time tab of the Date & Time preference pane. Installation Freezes or Failure to CompleteThese are actually two issues; the first is the installer freezing during the first phase of the installation process, and the second is when the failure to complete happens after your Mac has rebooted and attempts to load Catalina for the very first time.In both cases, the first thing to try is to restart your Mac. This fixes the issue for most users experiencing this problem.Unfortunately, it’s possible that if the installer hangs up at the worst possible spot, your Mac may not be able to restart because of startup drive issues. If this happens to you, you’ll need to use the Mac’s Recovery utility to repair the startup drive using Disk Utility, and/or reinstall the Mac OS or use your backups to recover from.You can find instructions for using the Recovery utility in the Rocket Yard guide:.Activation Lock Prevents Access to Your MacOne of the features of newer Macs is the incorporation of T2 Security Chips, which provide a number of useful features, one of which is the ability to erase and deactivate your Mac if it is stolen. The Find My app (here shown on an iOS device) can be used to fix an unexpected activation lock on your Mac.During beta testing, a few people reported that Catalina was failing to complete the installation because it believed the Mac had the activation lock set as if it had been reported stolen.
Although I expect this issue to be resolved before macOS Catalina is fully released, if you do come across the issue, here’s how to fix it.You can correct this issue by using another Mac or iOS device and launching the Find My Mac app, or opening a browser and going to the iCloud.com website. Log in to your iCloud account, if needed, then remove the Mac in question from being associated with your Apple ID.This should allow you to restart the Mac and complete the Catalina installation. Unable to Install Catalina on an External DriveThis issue can occur because of the T2 Security Chip found in recent vintage Macs. The T2 chip protects your Mac by default from being booted from an external device. Use the Startup Disk preference pane to ensure your Mac is starting from the correct disk.This behavior can explain one problem I’ve seen reported: a Mac that seems to complete a clean install but when the Mac finally reboots, it’s back to the original version of the OS, with no changes. In actuality, the clean install was performed, the Mac is just booting from the wrong startup device.The fix is to open the Startup Disk preference pane and set the startup disk correctly for your Mac.Reset NVRAM and SMC: The NVRAM and SMC hold information used by your Mac during startup. If either becomes corrupt, it can cause unusual effects on your Mac.
Although resetting the NVRAM and SMC are considered a last-ditch effort to correct a problem, you should still try it because it does work from time to time.You can find instructions in the guide:.Did You Have Any Catalina Install Issues?This is our preliminary list of Catalina installation issues you may come across. But as more people perform the upgrade to Catalina, it won’t be surprising to see a few more issues become common.With that in mind, did you have any issues installing macOS Catalina, and if so, did you discover a fix for the problem?Leave a comment below and let us all know. I have a mid 2015 MacBook Pro 15 inch.
I had to replace the SSD and did so with an ADATA SX8200PNP. I have downloaded the Catalina installer. I open it, click Continue, accept the license agreement, put in my password for the helper app etc. It does it’s think for about 13 minutes or so, goes to restarts, and restarts back in Mohave (10.14.6). Every time.Yes, my drive is formatted APFS according to Disk Utility.Is it my ADATA SX8200PNP SSD that is the issue?If so, what is the work around?Thanks,Rand.
HI, I just upgraded the 1TB hard drive on my 27 in Mac (late 2013) to an 1 TB SSD drive. MacOS is version 10.15.3.
Before the SSD drive was installed, I was able to easily access (and sync) the Documents & Downloads folders on the iMac from my Windows 10 laptop. Every time I try to access these two folders from the Windows 10 laptop now, I get an error message on the laptop stating that the folders are not accessible (don’t have permission). I spent over an hour with Apple Support and they were not able to fix the issue. These folders are indicated as shared folders and all permissions are set as read & write on the iMac but Windows 10 still cannot access them. Disk Utility indicates that there are no errors. It is interesting to note that I am able to access & sync other folders on the iMac (e.g., folders that I created on the iMac) but not these two system folders (and Desktop). Would you have any ideas how to fix this?
Thank you and much appreciated. Hello Tom,I tried to repair the macOS Catalina start up disk using disk utility. But when first time the first aid option failed then again run the first aid. Disk utility showed the overlapped extent allocation error.
But I could not replace the damaged file. I did not have the backup, and I was to regain my system. I found some software for disk recovery like Stellar Data Recovery for Mac, DiskDrill Data Recovery and Pandora. I downloaded free version of stellar and disk drill.
Luck by chance I recovered in first attempt by stellar. Am glad to hear the app you downloaded was able to recover your information.I want to point out that the error your drive was producing will likely return in time. You should make sure you have a good backup system in place so you don’t have to relay on data recovery applications. Even the best data recovery system is not a guarantee of being able to successfully recover your data.You may also want to consider replacing the drive having issues before the errors happen again.You can find drive replacement options here:Tom. Get notified of new posts!Email AddressSubscribe. Recent Posts.Macs last a long time. Don't plunk down your hard earned money on a new Mac when an upgraded Mac can run faster than a new Mac.
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