If Your MacOS Catalina Installation Freezes, Try This Fix
Have you had any problems installing macOS Catalina? In particular, are you running into obscure scenarios, an update that shouldn’t take long to do – freezes much longer than what feels reasonable?
If so, then there is probably something wrong with your installation. And while you can wait and even let your Mac run overnight to see if this sluggish scenario gets better, chances are good you’ll have to stand up for your Mac.
If your Mac freezes at the Set Up Mac screen, which should appear shortly after the App Store Catalina finishes downloading and installing, you have one great solution to bend your Mac to its will again: reset it. Hold your Mac’s power button until it turns off, then turn it back on. As MacRumors describes :
“After your Mac navigates to the Set Up Mac … screen, the installation of macOS Catalina is mostly complete. We do not recommend restarting immediately, but if you sit on this screen for half an hour or more, turn it off, because it will not resolve on its own.
It takes a while to install macOS Catalina, so don’t restart before the setup screen appears, but from the many reports, resetting this way if it gets stuck seems like a safe way to start up your Mac. again.”
I wouldn’t normally recommend this as the first trick you try when troubleshooting your Mac, especially if it’s some kind of frozen install or update, but it seems to work wonders in Catalina’s case. Be aware that you run the risk of ruining your computer, losing data, or causing any other problems that can occur when the system is shut down abruptly. However, if you have no other hope of installing Catalina, it looks like it’s worth the risk this time around.
Also, this is why we recommend making a large backup before installing major system updates on your Mac. And if you don’t want to fuss with any of this, you can always wait a few weeks (or months) to see if Apple updates Catalina to fix some of these bugs. Sure, you’ll miss out on fun features like Sidecar, but you will live.