HELP! Mojave install has screwed up my Mac!

[Schmactor]

Just installed Mojave on an older system that had been running El Capitan. So many problems now:

1) Every time I restart the computer it goes through the Mojave "Setting Up Your Mac" screens that normally only appear right after an install and therefore a lot of changes I've made get reset.

2) I can't sign into iCloud. I keep getting "errors" and "unknown problems"

3) The "MacOS needs to repair your library" loop is in full effect and I can't get it to stop.

4) Chrome pauses sync every time I restart it which it never used to do.

5) Lots of other things are acting weird but those are the main ones.

 

[bogdanw]

1) Every time I restart the computer it goes through the Mojave "Setting Up Your Mac" screens that normally only appear right after an install and therefore a lot of changes I've made get reset.

For this problem you can use in Terminal

sudo touch /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone

and, if the problem persists, try

sudo touch /private/var/db/.AppleDiagnosticsSetupDone

For the rest... you should probably consider a clean install.

 

[Macsonic]

Sorry to hear about your problem with the Mojave install. It’s not advisable to install Mojave from El Capitan. As far as I know, it is required you need to have High Sierra installed first before installing Mojave. A friend of mine using an iMac, from El Capitan he upgraded to Mojave and also screwed up his Mac. All his programs were super slow and he encountered many freezes. It's also good practice to first clone your drive before installing any new OSX

 

[Remag123]

Short & Sweet. CLEAN INSTALL. El Capitan is as close to the Kiss of Death you can get. Fusion Drive are another Apple disaster, just replaced mine with a SSD.

 

[madrich]

Sorry to hear about your problem with the Mojave install. It’s not advisable to install Mojave from El Capitan. As far as I know, it is required you need to have High Sierra installed first before installing Mojave. A friend of mine using an iMac, from El Capitan he upgraded to Mojave and also screwed up his Mac. All his programs were super slow and he encountered many freezes. It's also good practice to first clone your drive before installing any new OSX

FYI: I “upgraded” from El Capitan directly to Mojave on my MBA. No problems whatsoever.

 

[maverick28]

I migrated Mavericks apps and data to the High Sierra partition (High Sierra - Mavericks = 3 releases skipped, as opposed to Mojave - ElCapitan = 2 releases) without issues. You problems may be related to the fact that ElCap was HFS and Mojave - entirely APFS, whereas High Sierra allowed 2 way install - either as HSF or APFS. That explains why I didn't have any problems with HS.

 

[Macsonic]

FYI: I “upgraded” from El Capitan directly to Mojave on my MBA. No problems whatsoever.

Likely depends on the model of the Mac computer. In this Apple article, the article indicated that you need to have High Sierra installed as required before installing Mojave in a Mac Pro. Probably with newer Macs, it’s not required to have High Sierra installed.

Install macOS 10.14 Mojave on Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - Apple Support

Learn how to prepare your Mac Pro (Mid 2010) or Mac Pro (Mid 2012) for macOS Mojave.

support.apple.com

 

[madrich]

Likely depends on the model of the Mac computer. In this Apple article, the article indicated that you need to have High Sierra installed as required before installing Mojave in a Mac Pro. Probably with newer Macs, it’s not required to have High Sierra installed.

Install macOS 10.14 Mojave on Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - Apple Support

Learn how to prepare your Mac Pro (Mid 2010) or Mac Pro (Mid 2012) for macOS Mojave.

support.apple.com

View attachment 896447

That being the case, Would there not be an Apple system edit that would prevent you from going from El Capitan directly to Mojave?

 

[Macsonic]

That being the case, Would there not be an Apple system edit that would prevent you from going from El Capitan directly to Mojave?

To clarify, what do you mean an Apple system edit going directly to Mojave? I mentioned in my previous post, depending on other Macs, they can permit the user to install Mojave without having High Sierra installed.

 

[Riwam]

A small indication just as an info.
Although Apple wants that everybody uses APFS with Mojave, there are workarounds if one wants to keep HFS+. It needs some additional steps before and after installing Mojave but it is not true, as mentionrd above (Maverick28) that „Mojave is entirely APFS“ in spite of Apple‘s wishes. I indicated how it worked for me in a thread some time ago.