Big Sur installation stuck

Facing same issue on iMac 2019 (Samsung SSD) migrating form Catalina 10.15.7 with both 11.0 and 11.0.1.

After having waited for hours, the installation progress bar did not even appear.
Decided to hard reboot leading into Catalina coming up ok up to you're login. Right after providing password, the iMac gets stuck in the login process with a frozen screen.
So finally booted into recovery and reinstalled Catalina, which is working fine :-)
None of the suggestions worked for me yet.

Will we have 11.1 soon?

Hey guys, suffering from the same issue, too.

today I purchased macbook pro i7 16GB 512 SSD; after starting it with my apple id; on the desktop found a new release of macos big sur as an update. I did required steps however it’s been going on for almost 9 hours and not completed. It once showed:
12,18 GB / 12,18 GB with an un-filled blue line in the dowloading statues bar; with an inconsistency that the download seems to be completed in numbers and yet the line has not hit the finishing point.

Suffering from the first hours of my brand-new mac has not been a good experience.
Hope someone would help and let me enjoy this device asap.

thanks in advance.

Same issue today. I have a 2019 MacBook Pro I purchased around this time last year. I see the apple logo... And the install bar frozen at about 90% complete.

It's entirely disappointing at this stage that I cannot find an answer to resolve it. Im going to attempt to reinstall Catalina so that I can actually do some work tomorrow. Wish me luck.

G

Shut down Mac 
Hold down Option + Command + P + R for about 20 seconds
Restart his iMac.

worked for me on iMac 2018.

Thanks T2jerry

I've got the same problem during update from Big Sur 11.0.1 to 11.1. What finally helped is installing Big Sur from App Store when in safe mode (holding Shift on switch on to enter it). Neither restoring Big Sur from recovery mode nor wiping out NVRAM helped in my case.

Hi all,
I have looked at your suggestions but I am still stuck after I tried to upgrade to Big Sur (on a 2018 MacBook Air).

When do you exactly use the shift etc options to reboot and get into safe mode?
I have pressed it during every possible moment but it doesn’t lead me to a safe mode or any way out of this installation loop....
Stuck with the Apple logo / not finishing the installation and leading to an error message.

Just want to go back to my files to save them on a disk.

Can anyone advise?

I have tried everything suggested.

Now I get this.

1. If I do not press Command + R at the reboot, the Mac just keeps rebooting itself.

2. If I press Command + R at the reboot , the Mac just stops are the beginning showing an Apple logo with the progress bar stuck at about 10% and never proceeds.

It was working perfectly yesterday before I tried to update to Big Sur.

Please help.

Jing

Not to add more of the "me too" threads... but this is happening to me as well.

BRAND NEW Macbook Pro 16.

Finally got it to restore a backup from my old macbook via Time Machine and boot up normally. That was a challenge and took a lot more time than I thought it would (no big deal though)

As soon as it booted, it asked me to update to Big Sur... Wish I did my research before doing this!

I went ahead to update it and it got stuck somewhere around 50-70% (hard to tell)...

So, like all of us here, I did a Google search and found few options for a possible solution(most are listed here).

Shutting it down (hard shut down) and then turning it back on... Didn't work.

Tried to reset NVRAM... that got stuck halfway through the loading bar (apple logo)... had to do another hard shut down... tried to reset it again... stuck again.

I tried using the recovery mode (online - command+option+R) to reinstall... but it only shows Catalina and not Big Sur... but if I go into the local recovery mode (command+R) and I go to reinstall, it does show Big Sur but then says it has to be online in order to do this... Now I'm just frustrated!

Brand new MacBook Pro 16, over $3500 and I still can't use it! (I know the computer itself isn't the problem, but this is still unacceptable!)

Has anyone else gotten this experience?

Thank you all!

What the hell have I just gotten into...

I have just updated a 2013 iMac 21.5-inch to Big Sur and boy was that a mistake....
...my mom is going to kill me...
I guess 12 HOURS of research didn’t work...

I have the same issue updating my iMac (bought just a few years ago). I tried everything on this forum and nothing is working. Apple should really be addressing these issues and replying on here.

Hard restart (with power button)
Before pressing start press: option+command+R
When Earth appears, release
Wait couple of minutes
Reinstall Big Sur or/and first aid disks or/and use Time mashine

It worked for me

The following steps helped me for MBP 2017:

1. Turn off MacBook;

2. Hold shift, turn on MacBook, it should launch to desktop in Safe mode;

3. Open App Store, search "big sur" and press "Get", System Preferences should open with downloading of full Big Sur update (~12GB);

4. Wait until installation completes and reboot normally, you can work meanwhile, however UI is quite slow in Safe Mode.

All personal files and apps remained intact, TimeMachine restore was not needed.

Brand new MacBook Pro that needed to update to Big Sur from Catalina. Progress bar at about 90% - 12.21 GB of 12.21 GB. And nothing. Been sitting there for a while.

Apple? It seems there is a problem with OS updates. What can we do to fix this? Trying to provision out my new system and it's stuck. I'm leery of doing anything else with the system until I can finish the update. Glad this is all happening during the free technical support period... Will likely be calling tomorrow.

Add me to the list, tried rebooting all kinds of ways and reinstalling Big Sur and it says I do not have enough storage space. It was working fine until almost 24 hours ago when I tried installing it, and now just keeps rebooting.

In 30 years of Apple I've never had such a disastrous install. Right now my fancy Macbook Pro is a brick, and Apple support sheepishly admits this is a problem they know about.

The ONLY solution offered by support is to connect by cable to another Apple computer and ERASE my hard drive and start again. That's putting a lot of hope on the regular backups!!

I'd call this totally unacceptable.

A few days ago a friend of mine had this problem. The update got stuck. In this case the problem was hard disk space. Fortunately I had an external disk with a MacOS installed... I booted the computer using that OS and from there I cleared some space from the internal disk. Then I started the system again and the update worked. It now has Big Sur working fine.

Big Sur-ge of pain to the brain. If there are known issues why don’t apple remove the update until they figure out why it’s causing machines to break. I’ve tried all of the solutions, nothing works. In recovery mode it won’t even recognise my password. I also wasted about 3 hours retrying the update before realising there was a problem. Ridiculous.

I was prompted to update to Big Sur today and am now unable to get past the login screen. Unfortunately I wasn't paying great attention to the installation but I did notice at one point it seemed to have failed.

I was close to not having enough space on my hard drive which it seems might be related. However, Big Sur refused to install until I removed some items and then it appeared to have enough space.

Currently, it can bootup to the login screen. I try to enter my password and it appears to be loading an update for a moment, but then it kicks out to what appears to be more of an installation screen for a moment, then eventually it just restarts and brings me right back to the login screen.

Have tried most of the solutions below, nothing is working. I currently do not have easy access to another Mac such that I can load this externally.

I would threaten to stop buying apple products, but I still think this OS (for me) blows away anything else I've ever used.

mannn mine is extra buggin, it’s stuck on 25% on loading bar, but has “less than a minute remaining” and then my mouse popped up, and then a box popped up around the apple logo, and a box popped up at the bottom left saying “ VoiceOver on Installer Progress, window, Apple Logo has keyboard focus”

Hi I am having this issue now. Did anyone find a solution? I have no idea what to do its been doing this for about 4 hours.

SAME ISSUE STUCK AT LESS THAN A MINUTE REMAINING

Same issues on iMac 2015, with total freeze up in recovery mode - no control with keyboard or mouse so I couldn't make any choices. dsortor had the solution in my case. Hard shutdown, then hold down the option key when restarting (startup manager) I had 3 choices: MacOS Hard Drive Backup disk. I chose my hard drive and finally have my computer back!

I would say the problems stem from the computer trying to restart from the install, as opposed to restarting from the hard drive. If the install is bad, then restarting is bad. If you can get to startup manager then you can choose to restart from your hard drive instead and maybe you'll get back in - good luck!

I'll wait on that upgrade I think... ;)

same problem. Luckily, I tried to install Big Sur to my external drive, so I was able to use macOS normally again.

Stuck on 13%. How is this not solved already by Apple?

I already switched my main computer (after 15 years!) to PC after Apple failed to deliver my iMac 3 times - now simply trying to run an update and reading this forum just gives even less hope.

That said - sending you love and good vibes Apple - please solve this as I do need my laptop!

When I press the power button to force shut down, the clock moves from the static 13% to 3% then ‘less than a minute’ - then I let go of the key and it goes back to 13%...

dont know if to laugh or cry