Updating your Mac to a new OS is a fairly simple process. All you have to do is click on the notification and hit Go. Or if you have turned OFF notifications, go to the ‘AppStore’ and click on ‘Updates’. These methods work without any issues in most cases.
But if something goes wrong during the process, your Mac stalls or freezes in the updating screen. This can be annoying as it can go on for hours and you won’t be able to use your Mac during this time.
In this guide, let’s look at what you can do to fix a frozen Mac when installing updates. This issue occurs mainly due to power failure during the update, insufficient space or due to other system problems.
Is your Mac really frozen?
Updating your Mac OS can sometimes take a very long time. This is especially true when Mac has just released an upgrade and a lot of users are updating their systems. When it takes that long, you may think that your Mac has frozen, but in reality, it may actually be busy working on the update.
Hence, it is best to give your Mac the time it needs to complete the update. A simple tip is to install the update in the night as may take up to 16-18 hours to complete.
As a rule, wait for about 20 hours before you conclude that you’re Mac is frozen.
If you’re Mac has frozen during installation
After you’ve waited for about 20 hours and you’re sure that your Mac has frozen, you can proceed with the following steps.
- Restart your Mac
Press and hold the Power button to restart your Mac. After your Mac restarts go to AppStore and select Updates to check the progress of updates. Then installation continues from the point it left off the previous time.
- Start your Mac in Safe Mode
There is a possibility that some programs interfere with the installation process. To avoid this, you can use Safe Mode that starts Mac with a minimum set of drivers and software.
To start in Safe Mode, restart your Mac and when the startup sound appears, press and hold the Shift key. Then continue installing the update and restart your Mac again.
- Reset ‘NVRAM’
If restarting your Mac or safe mode doesn’t work, try resetting NVRAM. To do this, restart you’re Mac and when the startup sound appears, hold Command + Option + P + R keys to reset NVRAM. The system will restart and once it does, check if the update continues to install.
- Reinstall MacOS
If none of the above methods work, as a last resort you can try reinstalling Mac OS. This is possible through recovery mode (Restart your Mac and press Command + R to enter recovery mode).
Select Reinstall OS from the recovery menu and your Mac will be installed with a new OS. This reinstall may not include the latest version, so you may want to update it later on if you need to.
Data recovery after a failed Mac OS upgrade
There may be situations when a failed Mac OS upgrade results in data loss. For instance, data loss can happen when the upgrade is running in the background and you shut down your system.
In such cases, if you don’t have a backup, it can be painful. Luckily, there are some data recovery tools such as Hi5 Software to help you recover data in such situations. Refer recover files after failed Sierra upgrade for the steps involved in the recovery process.
