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Hung during security update

  • Installed the latest security update for Catalina on an early 2013 27" iMac. Has been running Catalina with previous sec updates fine. Can not upgrade beyond Catalina. This one hangs up at end of progress bar.


I CAN force a shut down by holding the power button but upon restart it goes back to the progress bar and again (after a long time) gets to the end and just hangs again.


I can NOT start at all. It wants to finish the update and won't do anything else. Will NOT boot into SAFE Mode. Resetting VRAM/PRAM or SMC doesn't help. Will not start up at all. Just goes back and attempts to complete the security update. Disconnected all external devices and still the same.


I do have a Time Machine drive but can't get the system to boot in order to use it.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jul 25, 2021 1:29 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 25, 2021 8:26 PM

Do you have a reliable backup?


Make sure you are following the Safe Mode boot procedure exactly. What happens when you try to Safe Boot?


If you have a reliable backup, you can do the following which I did a few years ago when I had the same issue with a Security Update with High Sierra.


[Follow this only if you have a reliable backup] Boot into Recovery (holding COMMAND-R on boot).

You can try (a) Disk Utility to repair and if that does not help then (b) reinstall the OS (without erase or reformat).

If neither (a) nor (b) resolves this, again, only if you have a backup, you can select the option to reformat and erase the drive, then reinstall the OS, which I expect will be Catalina. This wipes the drive, you must have a backup. After the MacOS install is done, on first boot install one new user, call it ADMIN, with administrator privileges. Nothing else. Then apply all updates available through Catalina. This will include the problematic Security Update, which will install because you have a factory fresh MacOS at this point with nothing else. [If it fails again then you need to have your hardware tested.] After all this, reboot, verify all updates have been applied and verify proper functioning, and then use Migration Assistant to migrate your accounts and files from your backup. You will have the option to migrate everything (files, settings, applications) but I recommend bringing over only user files, then reinstall only needed software and apps from scratch, re-establish settings from scratch. This minimizes the chances of re-installing the item that conflicted with this Security Update and caused the freeze.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 25, 2021 8:26 PM in response to Grandmamelissa

Do you have a reliable backup?


Make sure you are following the Safe Mode boot procedure exactly. What happens when you try to Safe Boot?


If you have a reliable backup, you can do the following which I did a few years ago when I had the same issue with a Security Update with High Sierra.


[Follow this only if you have a reliable backup] Boot into Recovery (holding COMMAND-R on boot).

You can try (a) Disk Utility to repair and if that does not help then (b) reinstall the OS (without erase or reformat).

If neither (a) nor (b) resolves this, again, only if you have a backup, you can select the option to reformat and erase the drive, then reinstall the OS, which I expect will be Catalina. This wipes the drive, you must have a backup. After the MacOS install is done, on first boot install one new user, call it ADMIN, with administrator privileges. Nothing else. Then apply all updates available through Catalina. This will include the problematic Security Update, which will install because you have a factory fresh MacOS at this point with nothing else. [If it fails again then you need to have your hardware tested.] After all this, reboot, verify all updates have been applied and verify proper functioning, and then use Migration Assistant to migrate your accounts and files from your backup. You will have the option to migrate everything (files, settings, applications) but I recommend bringing over only user files, then reinstall only needed software and apps from scratch, re-establish settings from scratch. This minimizes the chances of re-installing the item that conflicted with this Security Update and caused the freeze.

Hung during security update

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