Installation Stuck at Installation in Progress: Calculating Time Remaining

[Commodore 64]

I gave up on waiting after 5 hours! Turned it off and on again. Got a long startup, but now everything runs smoothly.

Wonder why so many face such issues on this upgrade. Is it caused by some extensive re-indexing due to the new file system? Even for those on hdd?

 

[BellePal]

My macbook installed successfully Sunday night, but our mac mini has been going on 5 hours. Stuck on the apple logo with a progress bar that doesn't appear to be moving. Tried to restart in recovery mode, but I still see the same screen...

 

[xgman]

It's probably the AFPS conversion. I had a long wait too which at one point the bar seemed to loose ground and then all of a sudden it jumped to a different screen.

 

[nsiddons]

Yea same issue here out of 4 macs only 1 finishes without issue Mac mini. My MacBook Pro 2015, MacBook Air 2015 and another Mac mini all are hung up I’m gonna hard restart 1 just to see what happens. Luckily I did a time machine backup just before update

 

[ceezy]

Yeah this one definitely took quite awhile, took my mid2010 mbp over 2 hours. Nearly gave up but just let it do it's thing and finally finished. It was too late so didn't get to play with it, tried to let it run all night in case it was indexing. Hopefully get to play with it tonight.

Summary: Patience.

 

[BellePal]

From what I read the mac mini won't be using the new file system yet bc it's not a SSD? Finally got it to reboot in recovery mode. I did a time machine backup before starting, but I am going to try a new install before reverting to that....

Update @ 9:30 am (8 hrs after initiating process) - seems to have worked better this time

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I ended up just restoring from my most recent time machine backup. Will give it another go tonight. If this one fails, I'm waiting till 10.13.1

 

[CapeTownMac]

[doublepost=1506426722][/doublepost]I've been stuck with the bar at 30% and the message "Installation is in progress. Calculating time remaining..." for about 7 hours. Has anyone had a successful install after this amount of time? I'm running a 2015 Macbook Pro with a 1TB SSD drive.

 

[Prateek90]

Hi Guys, I finally found a fix for this issue.

So after waiting for almost 4 hours I gave up and force closed my Macbook Pro. I restarted it and the mac failed to boot up showing me some kernel commands. Got me really scared as I didn't take any backup of my files. These are the steps I took to successfully install High Sierra without losing any data.

1. Restart your mac in to Recovery Mode by holding down the Command (⌘) and R keys during startup.

2. Go to disk Utility and run the First Aid for Macintosh HD. Make sure your mac is connected to WIFI.

3. Restart again but this time in the Internet Recovery Mode by holding down Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R. It will take some time (10 minutes or so) to finish this process. When finished it will take you back to the normal recovery mode automatically.

4. Now Select Install a new copy of MAC OS. It will take 45 minutes to install here. After completing this process your MAC will restart and do the installation again for 45 minutes. ( I don't know why it happened two times but both the times it was real quick and it didn't freeze anywhere.)

I think the Internet recovery thing does something to fix this issue. My mac is now upgraded to High Sierra with all my files intact.

 

[Rosstitute]

Advice above is correct and what Apple just gave me. It’s a bug affecting quite a lot of us. If it’s been stuck for a couple of hours it’s screwed and you need to switch off and follow the instructions above.

 

[davidg4781]

Update on mine. I went to sleep. 5 hours later I woke up and it was on the log in screen. So far everything seems ok, except I don’t see what it improved on. I’ll have to go back and watch the keynote.

 

[waqas]

My 13" Macbook Pro Early 2011 is a hackintosh. It originally came with a hard drive, but I replaced it with SDD and threw out the SuperDrive and installed an SDD there too.

I am getting the same error. From what I am reading it shouldn't take long. In frustration before reading this article, I did press power button three or four times but did not close the laptop or hard restart. I care about my files so I hope they are saved.

I wonder if it would respond differently to Macs with user-modified hardware.

 

[Apple_Robert]

My 13" Macbook Pro Early 2011 is a hackintosh. It originally came with a hard drive, but I replaced it with SDD and threw out the SuperDrive and installed an SDD there too.

I am getting the same error. From what I am reading it shouldn't take long. In frustration before reading this article, I did press power button three or four times but did not close the laptop or hard restart. I care about my files so I hope they are saved.

I wonder if it would respond differently to Macs with user-modified hardware.

You don't have a Hackintosh. You have a 2011 MBP that you upgraded to SSD, and removed the super drive etc.

Glad you finally got High Sierra running.

 

[GiLLER]

1. Restart your mac in to Recovery Mode by holding down the Command (⌘) and R keys during startup.

2. Go to disk Utility and run the First Aid for Macintosh HD. Make sure your mac is connected to WIFI.

3. Restart again in the Internet Recovery Mode by holding down Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R. It will take some time to finish its process. When finished it will take you back to the normal recovery mode automatically.

4. Now Select Install a new copy of MAC OS. It will take 45 minutes to install here. After completing this process your MAC will restart and do the installation again for 45 minutes. ( I dont know why it happened two times but both the times it was real quick. It didn't freeze anywhere.)

I think the Internet recovery thing does something to fix this issue. My mac is now upgraded to High Sierra

Thanks!! After 3 hours "Calculating remaining time" on my Macbook 12" 2017, I tried this and it is now running High Sierra

 

[Weiwen Ng]

I am sort of glad to hear that other people with machines more modern than mine (a 2010 MBP with a self-installed SSD) are having the same trouble. My progress bar has been stuck at what looks like 100% for 6 hours now. It's not calculating the time remaining or anything. The caps lock key is responsive, so I assume the machine hasn't hung. But that's an assumption. This doesn't seem very well thought out on Apple's part...

Personally, I'm not willing to reboot the machine lest I mess up the install. I naively assumed there would be no trouble, so I didn't create a bootable USB drive, and I didn't back anything up apart from my regular Time Machine backups. In my defense, that assumption was a decent one over the last several Mac OS updates. Anyway, if I wake up tomorrow and my screen is still stuck, I will be rebooting, and the consequences are whatever they are.

 

[WhatAmI]

I guess this is something similar to what everyone else has seen, tried HS install now twice on a 27 5K with 3TB Fusion and I just can't get this to work. Opting for a clean install and to read back my TimeCapsule data afterwards.... and I really 2nd what someone said about High Sierra being an iOS-like installation, no end user feedback whatsoever *grrr*

There, got that off my chest. Feeling a lot better

 

[mike9]

I finally stopped the install after 5 hours without progress and restored a time machine backup. Not sure if I will try again or wait for the first patch

 

[nsiddons]

100% the Recovery install is the fix 1 MacBook up and running 1 MacBook and a mini to go SMH

 

[anyjungleinguy]

Also got the same issue.

Been stuck on a grey screen for 3ish hours with the progress bar about 1/3rd of the way through.

Guess I’ll try the steps listed above!

 

[Jesla]

From what I read the mac mini won't be using the new file system yet bc it's not a SSD? Finally got it to reboot in recovery mode. I did a time machine backup before starting, but I am going to try a new install before reverting to that....

Update @ 9:30 am (8 hrs after initiating process) - seems to have worked better this time

My mini 2014 is now using the new APFS....

EDIT to add:
Self installed SSD.

 

[Identikit]

Mine is stuck too for about 1 hour and 10 minutes (I know, not as long as the rest of you) About 30% (just past the “e” in “progress”). Calculating time remaining... argh.

 

[Prateek90]

Thanks!! After 3 hours "Calculating remaining time" on my Macbook 12" 2017, I tried this and it is now running High Sierra

I am glad it worked for you as well. Please thumbs up my post so others could see it as well. Cheers

 

[Weiwen Ng]

I am sort of glad to hear that other people with machines more modern than mine (a 2010 MBP with a self-installed SSD) are having the same trouble. My progress bar has been stuck at what looks like 100% for 6 hours now. It's not calculating the time remaining or anything. The caps lock key is responsive, so I assume the machine hasn't hung. But that's an assumption. This doesn't seem very well thought out on Apple's part...

Personally, I'm not willing to reboot the machine lest I mess up the install. I naively assumed there would be no trouble, so I didn't create a bootable USB drive, and I didn't back anything up apart from my regular Time Machine backups. In my defense, that assumption was a decent one over the last several Mac OS updates. Anyway, if I wake up tomorrow and my screen is still stuck, I will be rebooting, and the consequences are whatever they are.

About an hour after writing this, I realized that others had success with rebooting, running first aid, then trying a fresh internet install. I rebooted to recovery mode. I ran first aid on my hard drive, which showed up as an APFS volume. No major first aid needed. I rebooted, and my Mac booted successfully and appears to work fine. I've got about 20GB less of hard drive space, though.

 

[Tech49]

Got stuck at about 30% on iMac 2015 27" with fusion drive. Installation started at 20:30, now it is 23:30. See no progress and don't hear anything working in the machine, e.g. spinning hard drive, fans etc.

 

[Identikit]

Mine is stuck too for about 1 hour and 10 minutes (I know, not as long as the rest of you) About 30% (just past the “e” in “progress”). Calculating time remaining... argh.

I just chatted with Apple Support. They told me that install could take “several hours” and don’t touch anything. I told them that I had to leave my office in 3 hours (which will be about 5 hours after I installed it) and the support person said “it should be done within 5 hours”.

Uhhh. Apple should have given us a heads up before embarking on an install that could take up to 5 hours or more. I’m on a 2016 MBP.