Mac Os X No Packages Were Eligible For Install

When trying to upgrade from OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan, I repeatedly encountered a frustrating error message: 'OS X could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.'

Mac No Packages Were Eligible For Install
Mac Os X No Packages Were Eligible For Install Windows

Install older OS X onto an external drive. The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks. Start your Mac holding down Command + R. Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage). Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X. Select external drive as a source. Enter your Apple ID. It installs an app named Install Version Name. Open that app from your Applications folder to begin installing the operating system. MacOS Sierra 10.12 can upgrade El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, or Lion; OS X El Capitan 10.11 can upgrade Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard. An existing computer with Windows, Linux or Mac: This is the computer where you will download and set up macOS Mojave.The computer can run either Windows, Linux or macOS; any operating systems will work. A Hackintosh-compatible computer with an empty hard drive: This is the computer where you will install macOS Mojave.It can be the same computer as the one mentioned in the previous point.

My end goal was to install macOS 10.13 High Sierra. I read online that one must upgrade to OS X 10.11 before upgrading to macOS 10.13 if one is starting from OS X 10.6. This upgrade route did not work for me no matter how many solutions I attempted. I eventually found a solution to this frustrating problem which I'll share below, but before I do that, I'd like to share what did NOT work for me to hopefully help others avoid unnecessary frustration and wasted time:

Solution attempts that did NOT work for me:

I tried changing the time to the correct present time and to a past time when the installer certificates may have still been valid (mid-2016). The upgrade problem persisted either way.

Manually setting the date and time via the Terminal (see above link) to an earlier date is worth trying because it has worked for some people. Try this time: 1010101015

2) Erasing my internal hard drive using Disk Utility in Internet Recovery Mode

All this did was remove my data, but the persistent 'OS X could not be installed...' problem remained.

3) Booting from an external hard drive that was formatted to act as an installer for OS X 10.11

4) Booting in the Internet Recovery Mode option to install the version closest to the operating system that came with my Mac (Shift+Option+Command+R).

My Mac came with Snow Leopard, which is not available to download, so it attempted to install Lion, but wasn't able to do so because I had not purchased it with my Apple ID.

Here's the upgrade route that DID work for me:

1) I purchased OS X 10.7 Lion with my Apple ID and downloaded it via the Mac App Store on another Mac (so it would be in my App Store download history)

2) I booted in the Internet Recovery Mode option to install the version closest to the operating system that came with my Mac by holding down Shift+Option+Command+R while my MacBook was restarting.

3) I selected 'Reinstall Mac OS X' in the 'Mac OS X Utilities' window that appeared when Internet Recovery Mode fully booted up.

4) When prompted, I entered my Apple ID information that was used to purchase and download OS X 10.7 Lion and allowed the OS X upgrade to proceed to completion. I then had a fresh version of OS X 10.7 Lion installed on my Mac.

5) The next step was to upgrade from OS X 10.7 Lion to macOS 10.12 Sierra using these steps.

6) Once macOS 10.12 Sierra was fully installed, I upgraded to macOS 10.13 High Sierra using these steps.

My MacBook Pro is now successfully running macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra.

Basically, what worked for me was circumnavigating the suggested route of installing OS X 10.11 before installing macOS 10.13. Instead, I followed this upgrade route: 10.6 to 10.7, then 10.12 to 10.13.

I thought it may be helpful to share what worked for me in case someone else out there is trying to upgrade from OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to macOS 10.13 High Sierra and encountering the issue I encountered. Please feel free to ask me any questions about this and I will do my best to help.

; Date: Sun Oct 16 2016

Tags: Mac OS X

A key step for upgrading the disk on a MacBook Pro is to install a new operating system on the new drive, and then use Migration Assistant to copy over the old data. Depending on how you went about the work, installing Mac OS X on the new system may give you a message: OS X could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install.

This is what it looks like in the installer. Upon seeing this I went 'HUH?' because the installation was from a thumb drive I'd used many times to install Mac OS X (El Capitan) successfully.

The above image came from an attempt to install El Capitan. I just got the following message, macOS could not be installed on your computer, while trying to install macOS High Sierra.

In both cases there was the same cause. In the El Capitan case, as I say in the next paragraph, the hardware clock had reset to zero because it did not have a battery pack. In the High Sierra case, I had performed a hardware reset of the computer in an attempt to fix a bootup problem. I had found advice to disconnect the battery, the power supply, then hold down the power key for a few moments. In both cases the hardware clock had been reset to zero, and macOS refused to boot.

After some yahoogling (duckduckgoing) I came across a simple solution. This particular computer had been running with no battery, and therefore the hardware clock was reset to zero, and Mac OS X had a test against that condition.

Mac os x no packages were eligible for install windows

Mac No Packages Were Eligible For Install

We've discussed elsewhere the process to install Mac OS X onto a computer, and transfer information from an old drive. It's during that process when the above message appears. A couple steps prior is where you can take action to correct the problem.

At this step, click on Terminal ...

Then change the operating system date.

Mac Os X No Packages Were Eligible For Install Windows

When running this particular Terminal session, you are ROOT meaning you can change anything on the computer. Normally we type 'date' at the command line just to find out the current day/month/year/time. But, the date command can be used to change the time registered in the system clock.

As I said above, for this particular computer the system clock had been reset to zero because the battery pack had been changed. In fact, the computer had run without a battery for many months because the old battery had gone bad.

As you see on the screen, the date had been January 1, 2001. I then changed the system date to the current time as of the writing of this posting.

To understand the second command, go to a terminal window and type 'man date'.

In the synopsis section you'll see this as an option for the 'date' command:

That's a little obtuse, but further down the manpage is this key:

In other words, the date code for this purpose is month-day-hour-minutes-year ... hence, that's what I entered and it changed the system date to match.

Afterward I closed the Terminal window and was able to successfully install Mac OS X on the computer.

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