IMac won't allow os upgrade

[ralphie]

My 2017 iMac won't let me update the os to Ventura or Monterey. I have tried several times and it goes through the motions and then opens back up in big sur and prompts me to upgrade again. Any help would be greatly appreciated .

 

[TonyAguila]

My 2017 iMac won't let me update the os to Ventura or Monterey. I have tried several times and it goes through the motions and then opens back up in big sur and prompts me to upgrade again. Any help would be greatly appreciated .

Ralphie, what method are you using to perform the update? Have you tried booting into Recovery and installing the upgrade from there? Recovery requires that you have an internet connection. If the failed attempts happened in Recovery, you should try other means, like from the App Store. If you were using the updater in System Preferences, you could try rebooting into Safe Mode and trying it there.

 

[ralphie]

I have tried everything I can think of except booting up in recovery mode. I haven’t done that before and I was wondering if there was just something simple that I was missing. I have tried from updater and App Store it all looks as though it’s working till the very end and it just restarts in big sur I may have to bite the bullet and try recovery mode

 

[TonyAguila]

I have tried everything I can think of except booting up in recovery mode. I haven’t done that before and I was wondering if there was just something simple that I was missing. I have tried from updater and App Store it all looks as though it’s working till the very end and it just restarts in big sur I may have to bite the bullet and try recovery mode

So try starting in Safe Mode first. Just reboot and hold down the Shift key. Safe mode will not only start you up with extensions disabled, so you minimize the possibility of system extensions interfering with the update/upgrade if indeed the problem is with an errant extension. It also performs a number of repairs to the system, mainly checking the health of your startup drive by performing fsck. Once in Safe Mode, try the installer once more.

If this fails, you may have to try Recovery anyway. It’s not really all that difficult to navigate. The initial screen will guide you through the steps, reinstalling macOS being one of them.