Sierra Clean-installation Failure [Solved]

[monkey man]

Hi, beloved 'Cornies. I've missed you guys so much!

I'm so sorry to be visiting under this desperate circumstance, but I'm at the end of my tether with this and as a last resort I feel compelled to "bother" you for a solution.

I'm trying to conduct a long-put-off clean installation of Sierra onto a partition on my now-erased 500G 840 EVO boot drive, which will be moved onto my laptop for living-room music playback. An 850 EVO will then replace this drive, on which I'll install 10.12.6 and all software from scratch. This is the clean installation I've put off for many years, but having deleted my previous full / fat one (the 840 EVO), I'm now stuck in this bare-bones spinner partition, dead-in-the-water and apparently not getting anywhere in a hurry.

The installer provided a long message (2 sentences that I can't even remember the gist of right now other than to "try running the installer again") that prevented the installation process' starting. I managed to get around this by setting the time and date to anything around 2 years ago, an action inspired by my El Cap experience where I had to specify a time 1 day after the app's creation date.

Now that this hurdle has been negotiated, the installation seems to initiate, but the progress bar reads "About 7 minutes remaining" with 0% coloured in. It remains in this state as long as I leave it. 9 hours is my record so far.

I read somewhere that installing from a recovery partition might do it, but I have none 'cause my spinner's baseline installation was created via an image restoration of Sierra. I therefore tried creating a bootable-installation drive (not even sure exactly what this means) on a USB stick, but Terminal just kept saying, "Command not found". The "Install macOS Sierra" app has been placed in the correct location for this procedure to work. Here's what I used:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\
Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume
/Volumes/SierraBootInstall --applicationpath
/Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction &&say
Done

I've been stuck in this position for a day now - alternating between trying to install via the app and creating a boot-installation disk, the latter being something I'm not sure I should even be bothering with. I mean, I've never had to do this before; Apple's installers have been fine apart from the El Cap situation where I had to alter the date and time. About had it with reading Google-found threads on the matter and getting nowhere.

To be clear, I'm trying to clean-install Sierra the conventional way 'cause using an image won't install a recovery partition if I'm not mistaken. Pushing 6AM now so calling it a day; will check in as soon as I can, but this won't be for some hours, so please forgive the response lag, and thank you all ever-so much!

Alas, you, Obi-Wan Ke'Cornies, are my only hope...

PS:
Always one for finding a silver lining, I should share the thought that at least I'm able to see you guys again due to my VPN's not being active. This partition is emergency-only, so nothing is installed, not even my prefs or mail account. It would certainly be entirely-useless were I not able to poke my head in here...

[HCMarkus]

Hey there MM! Great to see you. Hope that, other than the current computer clusterffff, life is treating you well.

I am gonna' encourage you to check in over at MacRumors.com in the Mac Pro or macOS Sierra forums; post your issue and you may receive your answer there.

Good luck getting this resolved, and best wishes!

[mikehalloran]

With the installer open, click at the top and you should be able to open Disk Utility. Format and erase the SSD. Quit Disk Utility. The install should now proceed smoothly.

[mikehalloran]

Make A Bootable USB Disk of OSX

http://www.macworld.com/article/3092900 ... drive.html

Not quite the way that I do it but it should work. I name my USB drives. If you keep it as Untitled, then copying the script should work as is. I do use Terminal and have no problems with it.

Once you create the bootable USB, plug it in, shut down your Mac and hold down the Option key while booting. Select the USB drive and hit Enter or Return. The Installer will appear.

Before installing, go to the top of the screen and select Disk Utility. Make sure that the SSD is properly formatted as Extended. Quit Disk Utility to bring back the installer. Proceed as before.

The last few steps do hang for what seems like a near eternity. I have not had it fail, however.

[monkey man]

Hey Sir Markus! Great to see you too, mate. Thank you for the tip.

Make A Bootable USB Disk of OSX

http://www.macworld.com/article/3092900 ... drive.html

Not quite the way that I do it but it should work. I name my USB drives. If you keep it as Untitled, then copying the script should work as is. I do use Terminal and have no problems with it.

Once you create the bootable USB, plug it in, shut down your Mac and hold down the Option key while booting. Select the USB drive and hit Enter or Return. The Installer will appear.

Before installing, go to the top of the screen and select Disk Utility. Make sure that the SSD is properly formatted as Extended. Quit Disk Utility to bring back the installer. Proceed as before.

The last few steps do hang for what seems like a near eternity. I have not had it fail, however.

Mike, thank you. Terminal yields exactly the same response as outlined in my first post, which isn't surprising 'cause it's exactly the same string apart from the ending, " --nointeraction &&say Done".

With the installer open, click at the top and you should be able to open Disk Utility. Format and erase the SSD. Quit Disk Utility. The install should now proceed smoothly.

I assumed this might've had an effect that erasing and partitioning the disk at least half a dozen times via DU the "conventional" way did not, but alas, there's no access to DU via any of the menus from within the installer.

I await your esteemed head-scratched response, mate. Thank you in advance.

EDIT:
I've run DU's first aid dozens of times, and verified that the disk is write-enabled.

Oh, and I've typed the initial message now. It's:
"An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."

[monkey man]

OK, I took the liberty of running DU from the Dock whilst the installer app was open.

Tried erasing and re-partitioning the disk and still the same 7-minute progress-bar readout appeared, frozen. Did this 4 times.

Still had to change the system date to 2015 to prevent the message previously quoted's reappearance.

Tried to run the installer from a Snow Leopard partition created from a disk image, and the OS doesn't support it.

[monkey man]

Managed to make an installation boot disk using "Disk Creator", but restarting holding "Option" didn't see its being offered as a boot option.

It didn't appear in Sys Prefs / Startup Disk either.

The app at least allowed me to complete the creation of the disk using the current date. Went through the creation process twice for good measure.

DU's First Aid, run several times, says all is OK.

Two days to install Sierra and not a millimetre of progress. I have to do it twice (once on each of two SSDs), and then there's the huge job of installing all apps and plugins from scratch. Being stuck before I've even started sucks big-time, if I may make such an understatement.

[mikehalloran]

Do not partition the SSD. Format it at the top level. If you need to partition, you can do that after you install. Format as Extended.

If you did the USB correctly, it shows up as one of your choices when you Option-boot.

[monkey man]

If you did the USB correctly, it shows up as one of your choices when you Option-boot.

Yeah, but it doesn't show up, Mike. I used the app "Disk Creator" 'cause the Terminal string, which I verified as being correct (same as the one you provided), didn't work. I outlined this in the OP and reiterated that it's still occurring in another post (Command not found).

The "Disk Creator" app has given me a drive (Sony USB stick) called, "Install macOS Sierra", which only has one visible file on it - "Install macOS Sierra.app", which is 4,965,270,857 bytes in size. This is exactly the same size as the original installer app that I can't get to work. I don't understand how / why this would be seen as a potential startup disk, but I did everything to the letter according to the "Disk Creator" app's instructions and this is how it "looks" in the Finder. As I said earlier, it doesn't show up in Sys Prefs' Startup Disk or as an option after booting holding down the Option key.

That reminds me, I wonder if I could get you or someone to check the size of the Sierra installer. As I said, mine is 4,965,270,857 bytes. I'm hoping this is wrong 'cause that'd mean I "only" need to re-download it. I've left this as a last resort of sorts 'cause my connection's slow. Thank you in advance, mate.

Do not partition the SSD. Format it at the top level. If you need to partition, you can do that after you install. Format as Extended.

Thank you, Mike. I've just done this now, and unfortunately it's still stuck on an empty progress bar and displaying the message, "About 7 minutes remaining".

[mikehalloran]

For the Terminal command interface to build a boot drive, Your USB stick needs to be named Untitled and the installer needs to be in the Applications folder. The Terminal command works when these are correct. It will take some time to build the bootable installer but it works for me 100% of the time.

When done, the USB drive will be renamed Install macOS Sierra and it will show up as a bootable drive in Option Boot.

I've never used the other methods.

[monkey man]

For the Terminal command interface to build a boot drive, Your USB stick needs to be named Untitled and the installer needs to be in the Applications folder.

Done, and done... every time, except when I named the freshly-formatted disk "SierraBootInstall" when trying the commands quoted in the OP, which were the same as yours except for the title.

The Terminal command works when these are correct.

It didn't. Tried a dozen or so times now.

It will take some time to build the bootable installer but it works for me 100% of the time.

I imagine it would take some time, 'cause when I used "Disk Creator" it took quite a while, and I'm guessing the app uses the same Terminal command. I was able to monitor the "progress" thanks to an indicator light on the USB stick. All appears to have gone swimmingly except for the fact that I can't boot from the resulting disk.

When done, the USB drive will be renamed Install macOS Sierra and it will show up as a bootable drive in Option Boot.

As I described earlier, the resulting disk (USB stick) was named correctly (Install macOS Sierra), and contained only the "Install macOS Sierra.app", not counting any possible invisible files.

Still hoping for verification that the file size (of the installer app) is correct, Mike. Again, mine is 4,965,270,857 bytes.

I've never used the other methods.

I take it you mean the "Disk Creator" app. This app is the one recommended by sites that outline the Terminal approach, for those who're not-comfortable using Terminal. The outcome should be identical; the difference for me of course was that Terminal refused to carry out the commands whilst the app did.

I take heart from the fact that you too seem to not have ever had any problems performing basic installations of OS's using Apple's downloadable installers. I've never had an issue before, which is partly why this is so frustrating!

Apart from the file-size-being-wrong possibility, which is a long shot I reckon seeing as the "Disk Creator" app had no problem creating an installer disk (that won't allow me to boot from it, but nevertheless, it appears to have been made) using it, I'm at a dead end.

Remember, I'm only trying to do this so that a recovery disk is installed on the SSD, and the same will apply to the 850 EVO I'm replacing it with (see the OP if you've forgotten the situation). I could live with using the slightly-dirty disk image (that I'm using now) I have's being used to install the OS on both SSDs as a last resort if I hadn't read in so many places that it's important to have a recovery partition for many reasons. For example, practically every thread I've read addressing the sort of problem I'm having has recommended booting into the recovery partition and installing the OS from there - so frustrating as I don't have one!

As things stand, I don't have a recovery partition anywhere on either my laptop or cheese grater. The 850 EVO will be my working-boot drive on which everything will be installed, and I want it to be clean-and-perfect as a starting point for this reason. Right now I only have this dirty-image-restored partition (using it for this installation effort and seeking help from you) and another copy of it (which I've tried the OS installation from with the same results) as my sole means of using the tower.

So, bottom line right now is I'm waiting on verification of the app's file size, and hopefully anything else you can come up with if indeed there's nothing wrong with my copy based upon the the figures' matching.

Thank you again in advance, Mike.

[monkey man]

I've noticed that the drive seems to tick over slowly-and-consistently during the 7-minutes-remaining, empty-progress-bar "freeze", Mike. As I said earlier, I waited 9 hours on one occasion on Friday and still no apparent progress. This got me thinking, and I didn't know that one could view a log of the app's shenanigans, but stumbled upon how to invoke one. Following is a collection of the "final" entries under the "Errors and Progress" filter. I highlighted a few that seem suspicious, even to a luddite like me:

Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: OSISDownloadOperation: totalEstimate=377.000000, significantDownload=1
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: Operation queue started
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: __52-[OSISHelperProxy createMutableProductAtMountPoint:]_block_invoke: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.install.osishelperd" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.install.osishelperd}
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: -[OSISCreateMutableProductOperation startWithDelegate:]: Could not create mutable product at mount point: /Volumes/Untitled
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: OSISDownloadOperation: totalEstimate=377.000000, significantDownload=1
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: No available package ref for compatibility update. Ignoring.
Aug 28 02:40:57 192-168-1-100 osinstallersetupd[729]: Retrieving 2 packages (4.950 GB)

Retrieving 5G packages? Wha...? There's only 4.5GB left on the disk 'cause I copied the installer app to the Applications folder (it's a 20GB partition that originally had 10GB free). This said, I've been monitoring the free/used-space readout for the disk on the Get-info window, and only 20mb has been added to the used space in the last hour. It's a very-slow trickle, and it's not Spotlight. Just thought this might be helpful.

Gonna give up now for day 3. Thank you for your time and consideration, as always, Mike.

[monkey man]

Oh, poo. Even after quitting the installer this background disk activity seems to be ongoing.

Goodnight, Mike, 'Cornies, John-boy and beloved cheese grater. 'Til the morrow.

[monkey man]

Well, after searching the 'net for 2 days for the above log entries, I've had no luck.

This is beyond-absurd. Wondering if I should just wait for High Sierra now; I'm dead-in-the-water anyway, so there'd be nothing to lose...

... except... would HS's 64bit-only stipulation mean that Cherry Picker, Sysex Librarian, XMenu, MenuMeters, Temperature Monitor (relying heavily on this up 'til Sierra even 'though it's for Snow Leopard) and so on won't work?

Can't believe I even asked that. "Download and install Sierra". Sounds simple-enough...

[monkey man]

That reminds me, I wonder if I could get you or someone to check the size of the Sierra installer. As I said, mine is 4,965,270,857 bytes. I'm hoping this is wrong 'cause that'd mean I "only" need to re-download it. I've left this as a last resort of sorts 'cause my connection's slow

Still hoping for verification that the file size (of the installer app) is correct, Mike. Again, mine is 4,965,270,857 bytes.

Some feedback on this from someone would be helpful at this stage; I'm definitely stuck-in-the-mud right now. Thank you very much in advance.