Migration assistant failure

i am installing leopard on a macbook, and have already done an erase and install. i have a full backup of my hard disk on an external firewire drive, made with SuperDuper. i can install leopard just fine, but when i use Migration Assistant to move all my users, files, settings, etc, it grinds for about an hour and then reports a "file transfer error." none of my data gets transferred. i would gladly move the files manually, and re-load all the applications, but certain apps, like addressbook, itunes, and ical, store their data differently in 10.5 than in 10.4. i have repaired the external with disk utility any number of times, ditto the hard disk on the macbook. i'm really flummoxed. has anyone experienced a similar problem with Migration Assistant and figured out a fix?

Hey - I'm having a problem that sounds a lot like yours. Migration assistant fails after an hour or so with 11 minutes remaining.
How did you find the corrupted file? I suspect I've got a file that it trips on every time, but I don't know how to find it. Migration Assistant doesn't offer any specifics on what it was doing when it failed.
Thanks.

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Time Machine - Migration Assistance Failure

Hard drive failure on Mac... installed new drive. When using migration assistant in conjunction with time machine encountering error mid way through data transfer process...unable to create user name.. any insight is appreciated..
This event occurred during several attempts.

Chad Krukowski wrote:
Than you! that is what I wanted to do, a full restore. Unfortunately was following the direction of the genius bar.
Yup. The Geniuses (like most Apple folks) don't actually use Time Machine on their work computers, and aren't real familiar with it, so this sort of thing isn't all that unusual, unfortunately. You could even have gotten similar advice from AppleCare, depending on the expertise of whoever you happened to get. Sigh.

Migration Assistant Failures - And Solutions

I used Migration Assistant to transfer my account from an Air to a new MacBook Pro. I share the problems I ran into and the solutions I used in the hopes it helps someone else.
First failure: the six digit confirmation number from the target (Mac Book Pro) would not display on the source (Air). For some reason when I turned IPv6 on in Network preferences | WiFi | Advanced | TCP/IP | Configure IPv6 - to "Automatically" - the source displayed the confirmation number from the target. The target already had IPv6 on Automatic - in fact all our OS X devices has it on Automatic - except for the Air for some odd reason.
The Migration Assistant took some time to finish the transfer - but, it did finish - or so I thought.
Second failure: When I started the new user that was transferred - I got a number of errors. In looking at the user home folder - I found that the library and other permissions were badly mangled. Even OS X asked for permission to repair the library - I typed in my password as requested - clicked OK - but, it never worked.
The scenario 1 posted by Linc Davis fixed all the permissions immediately (see link and the part of the solution I successfully used below).
Linc DavisDec 25, 2014 9:40 PM Re: "The operation could not be completed" Creating an iMovie
Re: "The operation could not be completed" Creating an iMoviein response to patrickredsox
Back up all data before proceeding.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.
Step 1
If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.
Triple-click anywhere in the following line on this page to select it:
sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

So I Found the issue.... It was stored in Private/var/zz/cleanup at startup
I found the profile name (home file) in the cleanup at startup folder and deleted it. System is working and now I have my disk space back.
I followed the directions that Linc Davis suggested in this post: How do I resolve 43+ GB of missing storage on the Macintosh HD?

Migration Assistant failure - intriguing behavior

I'm now on my third attempt to run Migration Assistant to reinstall my user account files. On the second attempt, I watched as Migration Assistant copied the files (from Desktop down to Pictures), and then sat horrified as the files quickly disappeared from the screen (in reverse order of how they appeared).
A little background. This is on a PowerMac G5 running 10.4.10 (the 10.4.10 update may be the reason for this reinstall and restore, btw). A clean install was required b/c the Volume Bitmap could not be repaired. I used Disk Utility to image the hard drive to a external firewire, which I'm using w/ the Migration Assistant.
The Applications and the Networking Settings were migrated w/o incident, but the user folder was no where to be found after the migration. Observation revealed the mysterious deletion of files.
Any ideas why this may have occured? I know I can copy the files manually at this point, but I'm truly intrigued by this behavior.
Many thanks for any ideas you may be able to provide.
-Val
PowerMac G5 Duo Mac OS X (10.4.10)

I used Disk Utility to image the hard drive to a external firewire
Did you create an image or did you use the restore option? Can you boot with the FWHD? If so, then I suggest that you do another erase & install, but after booting with the install disk, entering your language, select Utilities->Disk Utility and repair the FWHD and repair permissions, quit DU, select Window->Show Log->Show everything, continue the installation, and watch the log while the installation progresses to see what's going on.

Migration Assistant Failure - Lion - MacBook Air

I'm trying to migrate my 2010 13-inch MacBook Air to a 2011 13-inch Macbook Air. Tried all kinds of ways. Migration Assistant reports that it keeps loosing the connection between the two Macs. Even tried the peer-to-peer option. I think this is a bug in Lion. ***** because now I'm forced to make a Time Machine backup of the old machine to try that method. Six hours from now!!!

What have you done so far.
I did the same Migration this way:
First I did a full Bootable copy of my old MacBook AIr HD to an external HD, then I connected the external HD to the new MacBook AIr via USB cable and did the Migration.
In one hour I had the new MBA a mirror copy of my old MBA, no problems at all.
I hope this may help you and others.
Before doing this I asked at the Apple store if I could use an USB connection to do the Migration and the answer was "NO"!!!!!!
Good luck.

Using Migration Assistant to restore after hard drive failure?

My MacBook's hard drive recently went kaput. The replacement arrived today and I attempted to do a TM restore when booting from the Snow Leopard disc. However, it inccorrectly states "This disk does not have enough space to restore your system." The new hard drive is exactly the same as the old one; both are 640 GB. I have researched this issue for hours and no one seems to know how to fix it, and frankly I am shocked that Apple has failed to recognize this serious problem.
So, my question is, can I use Migration Assistant with a fresh install of SL and get exactly the same results as I would if I had restored via Time Machine? Will I lose any data in the process that I would have had, had I done it via TM?
Another thing: I was messing around in the Migration Assistant window just to see how it worked. I selected everything that was available to be restored. However, it stated there was still around 150 GBs of free space on the drive. I had nowhere near that much free space on the old drive, and one would think that that would have left TM with enough space to go through with the restore. How is this sudden new, free space accounted for?

If you haven't already, use Disk Utility (which should be available early in the Snow Leopard installer boot process) to partition and format the new disk. Select the drive (not the volume), select the Partition tab, click on the Options button, then select "GUID Partition Map Scheme" (or whatever the exact wording is). Then format the volume as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

Migration Assistant- Recovering from a hard disk failure

Was running on OS X 10.8.5 on MBP 8,3 (2011 17")
Many issues with slowness, and software, and then boom, the hard disk failed.
No software recovery worked. Drive has been shipped for physical recovery.
I did not use migration assistant to set up the new hard disk. Not going to live with migrated issues like the last 2 years….
I have a 3 month old backup that has most of my static data. It's a bootable clone running on a Lacie Thunderbolt external.
Here is what I did:
1. Installed new SSD
2. Formatted new SSD, installed Yosemite 10.10.1
3. Did fresh installs of Adobe Creative Cloud Apps, Bought new Extensis Suitcase 6, reinstalled Office 2011
4. Reset up the email boxes from scratch (some issues- so did not want to migrate)
5. Imported HTML bookmarks from old Safari.
Now, I thought I would get the easy part…. run Migration assistant to selectively bring over about 500gb of desktop files, docs, photos and music.
It won't work. It forces me to create a new user on the machine.
How do I work around this to get the permissions changed and moved to the new machine/account?

I thought I would mention the issues with Third Party SSD and Yosemite:
http://www.macworld.com/article/2849366/mac-wont-boot-about-yosemite-and-your-th ird-party-ssd.html
Also to address some of your slowness and software issues in Yosemite that many people fail to read... Many of the Features require a newer MAC than the Hardware requirements to run the OS...
Upgrade to OS X Yosemite.
Free on the Mac App Store.
http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/
1. Check your Mac hardware.
These Mac models are compatible with OS X Yosemite:
    •    iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
    •    MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
    •    MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
    •    MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
    •    Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
    •    Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
    •    Xserve (Early 2009)
2. Check your version of OS X.
You can upgrade to OS X Yosemite from the following:
    •    OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6.8)
    •    OS X Lion (v10.7)
    •    OS X Mountain Lion (v10.8)
    •    OS X Mavericks (v10.9)
Now if you Notice the Check you Mac hardware shows older models than the Feature Requirements:
3. Check Feature Requirements:
    Handoff and Instant Hotspot
    AirDrop
    AirPlay Mirroring
    Power Nap
    Supported by the following Mac models:
    ⁃    MacBook Air (2012 or newer)
    ⁃    MacBook Pro (2012 or newer) <-- Yours is 2011
    ⁃    iMac (2012 or newer)
    ⁃    Mac mini (2012 or newer)
    ⁃    Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Just an FYI,

Failure: Setup/Migration Assistant Cannot Find Volume

I first posted this problem in an e-list. The only replies were manual work-arounds.
I want to move files, applications, user accounts, and settings from my desktop machine to an iBook. I know how to move most of these things the old, manual way by dragging, but it would be neat to use the Assistant.
On my iBook G4/1.33GHz which came with OS X 10.4.2, I reinstalled the OS (Erase and Install). The initial Setup Assistant did not see the "Main Drive" on my QuickSilver G4/733MHz running the retail version of Panther updated to 10.3.9. "Main Drive" is the only volume on an add-on internal Seagate hard drive, and it is the one I want to use for transferring files to the iBook. Setup Assistant saw all three volumes on the original IBM hard drive.
Migration Assistant is no better. I noticed in repeated attempts, that the three IBM volumes show up in the iBook's Finder, but Migration Assistant offers only one of them for selection to use, and not always the same volume each time. Would that be normal?
The iBook's Disk Utility does not see "Main Drive," but it sees the IBM volumes. On the QuickSilver, the Disk Utility in one of the IBM's volumes sees "Main Drive."
With searches using "Setup Assistant" and "Migration Assistant," I can find nothing relevant in scanning over 200 of Apple's support pages. I went through Apple's "Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: Transferring data with Setup Assistant / Migration Assistant FAQ" at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25773. The QS is not a server, for the purposes of volume naming conventions at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107316
FIRST: How can I get Migration Assistant to see "Main Drive"?
OK, if there is no easy way to make "Main Drive" reveal itself, I can move files from Home>Documents and I can pick and choose from Applications and Applications Support.
For e-mail, would I move the entire folder at Home>Library>Mail?
What else would I need to move for user accounts and network settings?
iBook G4, QuickSilver G4, PB G3 Lombard Mac OS X (10.4.2) QuickSilver has 10.3.9, Lombard has 9.2.1

I assume that "Main Drive" has a bootable OS on it.
If not, then the Migration Assistant won't see it.
Also, how is the "Main Drive" hooked up? IIRC, it's
through a 3rd party card, it may not work. Does it
show up on the desktop when you mount the QS to the
iBook in target disk mode?
"Main Drive" is bootable in 10.3.9. It is on the same ATA-4 bus as the IBM drive. But it does not show up on the iBook desktop in TDM.
If it has a bootable OS installed and shows up on the
iBook when hooked up in target disk mode, the first
thing to do is boot the QS with the Panther install
disk, launch Disk Utility, and repair permissions and
repair the "Main Drive." If that passes the repair
cycle, then hook it up to the iBook in TDM, and try
the Migration Assistant again.
Having just run Disk Utility Repair Disk Permissions from "Main Drive" after installing the Security Update 2006-004 on it, I tried TDM again from the iBook. There was no change.
I always run Repair Disk Permissions from the Disk Utility on the booted hard drive as advised elsewhere so that it is aware of all the Apple updates and third party applications.
Should I still run Repair Disk Permissions from the Panther Install CD? This is safe to do?
Thanks.
iBook G4, QuickSilver G4, PB G3 Lombard Mac OS X (10.4.2) QuickSilver has 10.3.9, Lombard has 9.2.1

Can't access old backups after reinstalling Lion and restoring with Migration Assistant

Scenario: App Store developed a random, repetitive, failure to update certain apps. After trying two different solutions which only worked for a couple of weeks (including archive uninstall) Apple Support and I decided to go the full hog and do a full Lion reinstall. Did a full final backup with TM and proceded to reinstall from the recovery partition. All went well. I gave my new account the same name as my old original one (and this might be the root of the glitch I will describe). When Lion was working again I used Migration Assistant to recover all the users, applications, and information.
As my new main account and my old one (coming from Mig Assist) had the same name, MigAssist asked if I wanted to merge them. I said "yes". All fine. Everything was apparently there.
Later that day I tried to access my bank and discovered that my 1Password db was an old version. I went to TM to retrieve the one from my pre-reinstall backup. As I had mapped my mac back to the sparsebunddle file in TC it seemed I had access to all my files going back 1.5 years. It showed my oldest backup as Sep 2010 and 700 gb used. All seemed normal.
Unfortunately, the purple bars before the moment of reinstall are all faded and I can't retrieve any information from them. Nothing before that moment is available, not from the Finder or from withing any other application.
My new merged main user appears as "carlos 1" when it should have been just "carlos".
Do you guys have any advice that could help me? Thank you in advance.
My TC is a 1TB 2009 one.

Carlos. wrote:
As my new main account and my old one (coming from Mig Assist) had the same name, MigAssist asked if I wanted to merge them.
No, there is no "merge" option:
You can rename or replace, not merge.
Unfortunately, the purple bars before the moment of reinstall are all faded and I can't retrieve any information from them. Nothing before that moment is available, not from the Finder or from withing any other application.
My new merged main user appears as "carlos 1" when it should have been just "carlos".
You have two separate accounts now.
See Problems after using Migration Assistant for an explanation of what's happened (the blue and pink boxes) and a possible fix in the tan box -- but that won't work if you've done any backups since using Migration Assistant.
If you have done backups, your best bet is to do a full system restore, selecting the last backup from before you did the Migration. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14.

Migration Assistant not connecting

I am setting up a new Mac Mini (running Lion, I presume) and trying to migrate files from an older Mini (running OS 10.5.8) during set up. I have them connected with an ethernet cable, but the old Mini doesn't "see" the new one and I can't get them to connect. I've tried it with the airport off (on the old one) and with the airport on, with cable and without. No luck. I'm fully updated on all software. Suggestions?
Let me give another piece of background that might be helpful. I tried this setup/migration on Friday and I got the computers connected, no problem. Migration ran for about half an hour, no problem, until it got the to the place where it was "transferring applications". Then, instead of the time remaining deminishing, it started increasing, going from 4 minutes remaining to about 2.5 hours remaining, before I decided to abort the migration and try again. I tried again, everything went exactly the same way, though I aborted shortly after the time remaining started to increase again. I shut everything down. Returned today and am having this new problem.
Would appreciate any advice you've got.
Thanks.

Thanks. I ended up just setting up the new machine and then migrating the files manually. Not ideal, but it worked fine. I appreciate the advice and will certainly keep it in mind should I run into this problem in future.
FWIW: I don't think the problem in the original migration problem was with the timer - it only took 40 minutes to migrate all the files from a similarly configured and loaded mini to a new mini that same day (with no time adding to the estimated time remaining). I waited over 3 hours for the second migration to complete and it never did finish up. Judging from other posts out there, the estimated time addition seems to be a symptom of the larger failure of the migration assistant.

Can I use Migration Assistant G4 Intel

I'm getting a MacBook Pro 2.4 15" to replace my existing G4 1.67 15" PowerBook. Will Migration Assistant work smoothly migrating form a G4 machine setup to an Intel? What should I be wary of? Can anyone give me some tips as I've not done this before and I can't afford to have the machine out of action for too long with errors or failures. Or am I better to just bite the bullet and make it a fresh install of everything on the new machine (argh!)? One of my concerns is networking and internet stuff such Network setups and locations being carried over, and MACaddress etc.
Many thanks.

Hi Paul, Welcome to Apple's Users Help Users Forums.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350
by *||||| Kappy* is touted by many as the definitive word.

Migration Assistant created account without a Drop Box

I migrated a friend's account from old Pismo running Tiger to my Mac Pro running Leopard. The last time I had seen the Migration Assistant was years ago under Tiger, & it was crystal clear and idiot proof. The Leopard Migration Assistant has more stages to the operation, and a lot more choices, some of which weren't immediately clear to me. The end result was the account was created without a Drop Box! I thought I was telling it not to copy his Drop Box, and never realized I was telling it not to create it. Now, the question is, after this ridiculous Human Interface Failure, how can I create a Drop Box for this account? I need to move stuff across the User account barrier sometimes, and it is presently not possible.

OK, I noticed the Drop Box doesn't look right, so I will try your terminal commands, thanks.
Ooops - Looks like I have more problems. The Migration Assistant really screwed me up. When I opened the Terminal, it was displaying "Last login...." and it says my computer is now called my friend's computer. Also, I am not sure how to use your commands, because how does the computer know what folder it applies to, if I am in my account, and the drop box is in my friend's account? Did you mean for me to run the commands from within my friend's account?
Message was edited by: Gary P

Migration assistant does not allow selection of backup

The HD on my MBP failed. Under warranty. So made an appointment and took her in to my closest Apple Store. I had a recent full backup on my Time Capsule and thought I would be bringing the "not quite dead yet" old drive home. Wrong. Bringing the old HD home would have cost me $200... and I was shocked that there was no provision for erasing the old drive. Yikes.
A couple days later, the new HD is installed and I bring the laptop home and proceed with trying to restore. The machine hangs on reboot... I let it run over night before doing a powerbutton shutdown followed by using option startup to access Recovery disk and reinstall Mavericks. Attempt using an older backup.... repeat... three times. Same outcome. Somewhere in there, I attempted rebuilding and repairing the restored setup. Problems were found and I think I did finally get a system that would startup, but it had issues.... issues with the MS Office install, issues with an Apogee plugin... enough to make me keep trying something else. By now it is several days later and somehow Time Machine has managed to slip in at least one full backup of the disfunctional setup. Not knowing this, I redo the installation of Mavericks and attempt to use Migration Assistant. I am presented with exactly one option for which backup to use... the latest one.
So what to try next?
Somehow delete off all backups after replacement of the HD and try again?
Go back to trying earlier versions of backup using Restore?
I understand now that I should have done a carbon copy cloner backup sometime before the HD got really ill.... whenever that was?
So far this has not been a satisfying experience... a top of the line laptop, with the extended warranty, with regular backups on a time capsule. Still it was not enough. Fortunately, I am not trying to make a living off of this machine and can take some time getting it back up to where it was. It is making me understand why it might be good to have a Mac Pro with a RAID setup if I had real work on real deadlines. Not very portable though.

Continuing to research options for utilizing my Time Machine backups has led to the Pondini pages. Great stuff. In there I learned it would be possible to delete individual backups. This might allow me to get rid of the 3 backups which occured after my HD failed... backups of the new HD that are getting in the way of using Migration Assistant.
Here is my question.
In the listing of backups is a alias called Latest. It seems to be pointing to one of the backups that I want to delete. Will I cause a problem by deleting it? Or better yet, is it possible to edit this alias to point to the backup I want to use in Migration Assistant?
Status of attempts to Restore: Each attempt to restore is taking the better part of a day due to needs like sleeping and goiing to work...
Attempt 1 restore to day before HD failure worked but a strange assortment of error messages showed up indicating that the Drive failure was corrupting things
Attempt 2 restore to earlier same day... same result
Attempt 3 restore to 2 weeks earlier... same result
Attempt 4 restore to 5 months earlier... good result but l would like to get much closer
Is it possible to use Migration Assistant to utilize the "corrupt" backup?

I ended with two Administrator accounts after migration assistant

I had to install Leopard again after a failure drive and I use the migration assistant to move all my stuff and now I'm confused because I have two admin accounts. I rename the other one when (following the directions) and I tough I was going to have all my iTunes stuff and pictures and all my contacts in the Address Book, my calendars from iCal, etc on the new account. How can I transfer all this from the old account to the new one? Do I have to keep the two accounts? What if I delete the new one?
As you can see, I'm very confused.
Thank you in advance

Migration Assistant cannot overwrite an existing account with another having the same short name. MA gave you the option of changing the name of the account your were migrating or cancel the process. What you should have done was to cancel the process, reinstall OS X, and this time use a different short name for the initial admin account. So, here's what you can do:
Macworld | Changing the short username in Leopard. Be sure to read through the article before proceeding.

Migration Assistant freezes part way through

Hi,
Just migrating my old MacBook over to my new MacBook Pro w/ Migration Assistant over network. Was going fine, then an error appeared on old MacBook saying something about a Network connection failure, and the other computer stopped responding. A message about 5 minutes later appeared on the MacBook Pro similar to the first message saying the MacBook had stopped responding. I clicked continue and it still appears to be stuck.
Shall I wait, will they rework the connection or is that game over for this attempt. If so, what state will the new MacBook Pro be in? Does it cancel everything that has happened up until this point, or will it be in a right old mess? I chose the replace users option in Migration assistant.
Thanks!

Since your MacBook is 2 Ghz, I think it has Firewire. If it does, you are better off doing it via Firewire than ethernet. You can get a Firewire 400 to 800 cable from numerous sources. My favorite is http://www.macsales.com/
Ethernet is often slowed down if there is anything else on the network, same as WiFi.
As for wiping the hard drive, you can try without wiping it, however, you may end up with duplicate or incomplete information transfered. Since it is a new machine, extract what you need with target disk mode
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583
And then do the wipe. That way you'll be sure a proper migration has happened.

Migration assistant failure

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