Upgrading the OS on an older MacBook Air - Help

September 15, 2024 6:32 AM

Older MacBook Air running Catalina 10.15.7 and trying to update to BigSur to update Chrome with no success...

Greetings - I have an old MacBook Air that I use on a daily basis. It works perfect for my needs (email, surfing online, banking, etc), and I was hoping not to have to get a new computer.

I use Chrome as my default browser (as I use it on my work computer and iPad and iPhone, etc) and I am always updating Chrome to the most recent versions (mostly due to security concerns, etc).

This week, I got a notification that Chrome couldn’t be updated as I need to be running MacOS 11 or later. I am currently running:

MacBook ir (13 inch, mid 2013)
MacOS Catalina 10.15.7

I tried to update the OS based on the software recommendation - Big Sur - but sadly I ran into an issue.

I went through the download and installation process and now caught in a loop and can’t get out of it. During the updating/installation process, the first prompt I get is: “all other applications must be closed before you can install MacOS” (everything IS closed) and I even click on “Close Other Applications”. Then I get a “Install MacOS Big Sur Interrupted restart” prompt and it will never get me out of this loop. I’ve tried restarting, and going through this process 3-4 times with the same results. Now its just stuck there on the dock.

Any help/hope with this, or am I doomed?

Thanks,

posted by konaStFr to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Open up Activity Monitor and see if there's some background process that running that you could quit.
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:56 AM on September 15

Try starting your Mac in Safe Mode, then run the installer. Safe Mode disables a lot of background stuff that might be interfering with the installation. Not guaranteed, but it might help. This should be the correct way to start Safe Mode on a Mac running Catalina:

https://support.apple.com/en-om/guide/mac-help/mh21245/10.15/mac/10.15

Now that I've answered the question, some advice: I have a couple old Macs (2011, 2015) that have reached the end of their upgrade path, and since Apple provides security updates only for the most recent 2-3 versions of MacOS, I would really suggest upgrading. Your machine has given you good service for 11 years. Even the most basic M1 Macbook Air would be an amazing upgrade. I can't find anyone who wants to take my old Macs, even for free.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:40 AM on September 15 [2 favorites]

If you like the hardware but it's no longer compatible with Apple's own upgrade treadmill, you could always install something Linux-based on it and jump on the free-software one. Chromium runs fine on Linux, whose long tail of still-supported hardware is way longer than Apple's.
posted by flabdablet at 9:45 AM on September 15

I have experienced this behavior when there is an application that is hung up and refuses to quit.

The solution that has worked for me is to manually quit every open application one by one. If the application won’t quit, you can either select it in Activity Monitor and choose “Force Quit”, OR hit Command-Option-Escape and then force-quit it via the list that pops up.
posted by mekily at 10:33 AM on September 15

It may be that you actually can't. I'm on a 2015 macbook with Big Sur, and I've already had one app I tried to get (I forget what it was) tell me I need to upgrade to whatever the new hotness is, but the software update app tells me it's not possible on this machine.
posted by ctmf at 11:42 AM on September 15

Probably a bit glib of me to just dive in here and airily mention installing Linux as if it were the easiest thing in the world for somebody with only Mac prior experience to do. It's been a long time since I did it myself, and the Yellow Dog Linux distro I used back then is long discontinued, but Apple has also moved to Intel processors and UEFI since then and mainstream distros like Ubuntu and Mint now support 2013-era Apple hardware quite well. Newer machines might run into trackpad issues.

This tutorial looks to me like it covers the basics pretty decently.
posted by flabdablet at 1:29 PM on September 15

Glancing at Everymac, I think this is the model in question - which can run Big Sur, MacOS 11. I think it's been unsupported for about a year now.
posted by Pronoiac at 4:22 PM on September 15