"less than a minute" when migrating, transfer fails

Migrating to a MBP running 10.7.2. from white iMac running updated Snow Leopard. Everthing is fine until it gets near the end to "less than a minute" then hangs up there and goes no further. I quit and get nothing.

Your TimeMachine drive is not functioning.
Use a Firewire cable and a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 adapter if you need it and follow the steps to hook the two computers together like I outlined above. Try migration assistant that way.
Another way is to use Carbon Copy Cloner and cloning the iMac's hard drive to the external drive, it has to be formatted GUID OS X Extended first in Disk Utility. Then once you have the iMac clone connected to the MBP then run Migration Assistant against the clone and it works too.
Another method is to use a external drive and transfer the files using that manually.
Last two methods you need to format the external drive correctly
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
Likely won't be able to respond further here.

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HELP! LOCKED IN LIMBO W/MIGRATION ASSISTANT DATA TRANSFER: "LESS THAN 1 MINUTE LEFT" FOR 10 HOURS

This has happened before. I'm migrating from one Macbook Pro to another Mac (though it doesn't seem to matter if it's a MBP or other Apple powerbook) and it gets almost to the end of the bar with the blue water line a sliver away from finishing but it stays at "less than one minute remaining" as it finishes up migrating settings. Going on 10 hours now.
Have read other discussions from 2009 to earlier this month w/this issue.Some say it's a Lion OS issue that's been acknowledged as a flaw. Others had the same issue w/Leopard & say to ignore the remaining minute & leave it alone until it finishes which could take a day or more. I'm moving almost 300 GB of data. I've done this before and had same issue and interrupted it. I manually migrated over applications, documents, etc, one by one and it still took overnight just to do some of the data, so this is not an inordinate amount of time.
If it's going to complete, I'll let it run. If it's not, I'd like to know so I don't waste more time trying... Thanks in advance for assistance w/this conundrum.

I'm not a big fan of migration assistant, because this happens all the time. I'd give it a few more hours, then say "I give up."
Why didn't you use the Setup Assistant on the target mac using the firewire disk mode? I don't have absolute evidence, but you rarely see issues with people who use the Setup Assistant with a newly installed OSX (or brand new Mac).

Time Machine Migration hanging on "Less than one minute remaining"

I decided to take a risk with my iMac and do an erase and install with Leopard, the version of OS X it's been running for years now. The reinstall went fine migration assistent got me started transferring my information from my Time Machine external USB 2.0 hard drive. It said it was just over 200 GB of information. That proceeded fine until it reached the "Less than one minute remaining" mark. It's been sitting here for over 12 hours in the "transferring files to support applications" process. What should I do? Is it alright for me to manually turn off the computer and re-boot? There is no cancel button or anything. I do get the pleasant clunking sound when I hit enter.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If you have connected both computers with a cable, disconnect and connect that cable again, so migration should continue. If it doesn't work, restart your MacBook Pro and check that all the files have been transferred. If not, open Migration Assistant and transfer your files

Migration Assistant 'Less than 1 minute remaining' Solution

Hi all..
I have been reading the problems people have been having regarding Migration Assistant and the dreaded 'Less Than 1 Minute Remaining' screen than never goes away and I found a solution for it so you don't have to go through all that!
I recently upgraded my 24" Late 2008 iMac to a new 27" iMac and wanted to bring all my files over to the new machine as most of it is photos and Final Cut Pro plus related editing software!
I did the whole connecting both macs up on the same network and even connected the ethernet cable for faster transfer but after hours of showing promise, it hung up on 1 minute to go. After leaving it for 4 hours, I gave up but here is the best way to do a hassle free transfer.
Back up all the files on your old machine to a hard drive in Time Machine form. I had 320 gigs to do so it may take 4 hours or so to do the back up.
when this is done, disconnect the drive from the old machine. On the new machine, connect the hard drive, open Migration assistant in Utilities and select BACK UP FROM TIME MACHINE!
Mine took about 1 hr 40 mins to complete and it works like a dream.
Sincerely hope this helps people

Press and hold the power button for a few seconds until the power shuts off, then release, wait a few more seconds, and press it again briefly to restart. Test. If the migration wasn't successful, see below.
1. Migration may stall with "Sharing Only" user accounts
2. Back up the old system with Time Machine or Disk Utility and try migrating from the backup.

Migration stalled with "less than a minute remaining"

This issue was discussed back in April, but no definitive solution was found.
I installed Mountain Lion on an older MacBook Pro and all went well until I got to the Setup Assistant after restart. The migration of my files from a Time Machine backup stalled with "less than a minute remaining" while "transferring files to support applications". Apparently this is a known issue that affects older Macs upgrading from Snow Leopard. I have two questions about this:
1. Can anyone suggest a fix or workaround for this problem? In the earlier thread, some people repeated the file transfer several times with exactly the same results. One person evidently had better luck when he started over and deselected everything but Users on the transfer options screen; but it obviously requires alot of extra work on the user's part to reinstall every application.
2. What is the best way to abort the stalled transfer without risk of damaging the data on my Time Machine backup drive? Mountain Lion refused to install on my startup drive until I erased it, so my Time Machine backup is the only copy I have of my data. Since Setup Assistant is not frozen, I can hit command-Q and Setup Assistant offers to shut down; but is the data on my backup drive at risk if I shut down and start over?
Thanks!

Has your Migration Assistant actually crashed? I am restoring my computer from a hard drive failure and the following dialog has been displayed for the last 12 hours. I clicked on the App in the dock to see if it was displaying as crashed, it doesn't appear to be.
I checked the "Get Info" on the Hard Drive Volume, and it is showing a very slow progression of used bytes. I suspect the transfer is still continuing, just very slow as I have so much data. I think it is a matter of quanity of files rather than "file size".
Should be interesting to see in another day or so to see if it completes. :-)

If you migration hangs at "less than a minute remaining," maybe ok still

I just wanted to describe my experience using the Migration Assistant app with my new 15" MacBook Pro i7 model.
I had a Core2Duo MacBook (black casing) with about 185GB of data on it. I setup the Migration Assistant process to import the data to my new Macbook Pro, after about 4 hours of importing it hung at the 10 minute remaining point telling me to check my connection (ethernet) for problems. I changed out the ethernet cable and had to click "continue" about 3 times before it started working again.
Then at the "less than one minute remaining" point, which was an hour of waiting for me, I called Apple Support and basically we determined it wasn't going to move and just canceled and rebooted.
At first it appeared nothing transferred to the MacBook Pro because I was greeted with the choose language prompts upon first rebooting. However, just go through those as normal, choose NOT to import any data then go to the desktop (you may still have to create a dummy login account) then go to Accounts and choose the one you migrated which hopefully is there, then just delete the dummy account.
Glad I realized this before going through another 4+ hour migration!
Hope this can help someone if it happens to them.

I ran into something similar yesterday while running Migration Assistant.
I solved this riddle myself by turning off the WiFi on both computers. For some reason, with an ethernet connection checked, the Migration Assistant still chose to transfer my data via WiFi with quickest time estimate of over 24 hours.
The only other time I did this with Migration Assistant, it apparently used the ethernet cabling right from the start.
This latest attempt is only going to take about 2 hours. As to why Migration would choose wifi when there was a valid ethernet connection available, I'll leave that to the experts. With AirPort turned off, I transfered about 120GB of data in slightly less than 2 hours.

Migration assistant has halted at "less than a minute remaining"

Im in the process of transferring my MacBook Pro to a new MacBook Pro.
Since I didn't have a Thunderbolt cable and the ethernet cable is not an option on the new MacBook Pro I have done it wirelessly.
At the start is had 29 hrs to complete…I have been extremely patient until now…this is 2 days into the transfer.
It says it has "less than a minute remaining"…would be great if that were true.
Its been stuck on that now for 3 hrs.
I did note the time remaining kept going up and down during the transfer so I'm hoping this is the case and it will eventually finish.
Any suggestions on what to do if it doesn't change anytime soon?

I had this problem migrating from my iMac; a late 2009 24in FW800 with Mavericks, to a late 2013 27inch Thunderbolt. Migration Assistant hung at "lass than a minute" for over an hour and change... My back up drives had two F800 interfaces and a USB. I was abe to plug an additional drive into one of the remaining available ports on the back of my Time Capsule drive. This woke up the Time Capsule drive and finished the migration installation process.
I beleive the setting "put Hard Drives to sleep when possible" must have been on by default on the unused OS without my awareness. The action of plugging in an additional drive to the remaining port on my Time Capusle back up drive woke the Time Capsule drive up and then in completed almost imediately. Hope this helps and that any future readers have a BAck Up drive with more than one port and an extra device or drive they can plug into in (Daisy Chain Style) to get the Capusle drive to complete. Good luck!
Turned Out Flawless for Me.

Migration Assistant says "Less than a minute to go" but this goes on for hours and nothing gets transferred to my new iMac 27"

Am trying to transfer all my data from my old MacBook Pro 10.6.8 , 2.8GHz, 4GB memory to my new iMac 27" 10.9.4, 3.2 GHz, 8GB and after 3 days I still can't get there.
I am using Migration Assistant. Both computers are on wi fi. I have connected them together with an ethernet cable.
I can get the process going but hours later the computers say "less than a minute remaining" . I have left them alone for more hours but nothing moves on. I them quit and of course I find that nothing has been transferred.
I am not very skilled at all this so I hope someone can help me with an easy solution.
Thank-you

Hello again baltwo
The above didn't work so I then tried what you suggested and erased the hard disc, reloaded the OSX software and then tried the Migration Assistant again. Same old problem only now it doesn't get beyond "new mac selecting what to import". When I press continue the screen just goes grey then back to the login page.
However another problem I have is that the free 'bundled apps' ... Pages. Numbers, Keynote, Garageband, iMovie and iPhoto have disappeared! I've been to the App store and into my account but they are not there under 'Purchases".
This is all turning into a nightmare so any help would be very welcome.
Thank-you

Trial Download of Indesign CS 5.5 fails at less than a minute remaining

I have tried downloading the trial version of InDesign CS 5.5 on two different Macs, both eventually fail/hang when the message in the Adobe Download Assistant is "Downloading xxx MB - less than a minute". This message remains indefinitely. No log file that I can find indicates any progress, and the downloaded file is *larger* than the size indicated in the "Downloading xxx mb message".
In both cases, the computers are running OS 10.6 and the destination for the download is the users Downloads directory. In one case, the user is an administrator of the computer, in the other it is not. In both cases there are previous licensed versions of Adobe creative suite products installed (CS5).
Please provide a solution or a direct download link.

Follow Solution 1 from the below link.
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/troubleshoot-download-assistant.html
Please try the following steps:
1) Visit Adobe.com product download page http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=indesign
2) Click the "Download Now" button
Adobe Download Assistant will launch on your desktop, and after you sign-in (it does not remember the credential intentionally), you will be prompted for a location to save the product and download will start.
If you are already on an Adobe.com product trial download page (step 1), simply refresh it, and then click the "Download Now" button.

Migration assistant taking forever at "less than a minute"

Using Migration Assistant to set up new Macbook Pro running 10.8 from external drive (via USB) using 10.8 Time Maching back up from my iMac. I did the exact same thing in January from old Macbook Pro to new iMac without any trouble. This time around the migration assistant has been in "Less than a minutate remaining" mode for about 3 hours. It has gone from "tranferring files and folders" to "transferring system settings" but both has remained in "Less than a minute remaining." Should I be persistant and stick it out? If so, for how long? Some support threads say stick it out while Apple support says "this is not normal" and the back up could be corrupt and may need to be migrated in safe mode. Any thoughts or ideas shared here appreciated. Thanks!

I had this problem migrating from my iMac; a late 2009 24in FW800 with Mavericks, to a late 2013 27inch Thunderbolt. Migration Assistant hung at "lass than a minute" for over an hour and change... My back up drives had two F800 interfaces and a USB. I was abe to plug an additional drive into one of the remaining available ports on the back of my Time Capsule drive. This woke up the Time Capsule drive and finished the migration installation process.
I beleive the setting "put Hard Drives to sleep when possible" must have been on by default on the unused OS without my awareness. The action of plugging in an additional drive to the remaining port on my Time Capusle back up drive woke the Time Capsule drive up and then in completed almost imediately. Hope this helps and that any future readers have a BAck Up drive with more than one port and an extra device or drive they can plug into in (Daisy Chain Style) to get the Capusle drive to complete. Good luck!
Turned Out Flawless for Me.

HT204350 my migration was stuck for hours while it was in the "remaining less than one minute" phase of the mirgration complete

I was using the migration assist from an imac to a macbook air both running the latest versions of mavericks.
The migration strated and bioth computers were on the even count down. At the point when it stated less than one minute to completing the migration assist it just remained like that for over 12 hours.
i had to reboot one of the machines to be able to reset it. Nothing was migrated when restarted the machines.
Any ideas why this happened and what can be done to make sure it doesnt happen again?
I was migrating my system applications only.

just had a look on the apple store. Have found a converter. Will try this. Hopefully will work.
Thanks for your contribution to this community

Migration assistant freezes at "Less than a minute remaining"

I am installing Leopard to a new HD on a PPC G5; during install I have chosen to migrate from my PPC G4 running Leopard via FireWire. It goes along for hours and makes steady progress, until it gets to the very end, it stalls at migrating Application Support with the time remaining saying "Less than a minute", which it has been saying for over 7 hours.
This is the second time I have tried this, the first time I had to do a hard reboot because there is no option to quit during migration. When it restarted it went right back to the "Welcome..." intro. I figured I must have done something (don't know what) wrong, so I did a hard reboot from the installation disk, reformatted the drive and tried it again. Same thing... any idea why this may be happening?

since this is clearly not working I suggest you try migrating user settings only (no applications). If that doesn't work either you'll have to migrate by hand.
see this post for help with this:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

Migrating assistant freezes at less than one minute remaining os x lion

Hi I recently got a macbook pro 13" os x lion, i5 2.4Hz. And i'm using migrating assistant to move my files over from a pc (45gb). The process was fine until it reaches nearly the end where it says cleaning up "less than a minute remaining" and it has been stuck there for ages. My laptop which is the source computer for some reason turned off by itself when it gets to the end of the process. I didnt know how it happened because i was unattened. However the mac was still running. Is it normal? Should i wait or start over again?

http://www.apple.com/support/mac/app-store/contact.html?form=account

Migration Assistant Stuck at "Less than a minute remaining"

Migrating from old G5 single CPU to dual 2.3 G5. Tiger to Tiger. The dual has a clean install from the setup disk, but no software updates -- I just followed the onscreen instructions regarding when and how to do the migration via Firewire target disk mode.
The migration ran for 2 hours, the minutes counting down just fine, but it stopped with "Less than a minute remaining." There it sits, fans blowing, workday slipping away. Any ideas? Is the migration probably finished? Some lonnnng verification occuring?
Thanks,
Paul Otteson

Wait another hour. If it doesn't work, you may have insufficient space to finish the migration, or a bad firewire cable for or interface on the drive in question.
Consider the steps suggested for PowerPC to Intel migration. They are more likely to work:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0

"less than a minute" when migrating, transfer fails

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