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Mac migration, day 6
Day 0: Receive newer machine (yay!), discover it needs a video connector I don't have. Oops; should have noticed that in the specs.
Day 1: Get cable, start Migration Assistant. It announces this will take 16+ hours because, despite being plugged into the LAN and wireless being turned off on the other machine, it's using wifi. Oh well.
Day 2: Migration hangs; aborted around the 24-hour mark. Connect the two machines directly via ethernet and make sure wifi is turned off on both. This time Migration Assistant says 1.5 hours.
Day 3: Hung at "4 minutes remaining" for 12 hours. Since the previous day I've been attempting to get support online; at this point I wait through the support phone queue, spend an hour or so with a first-level technician who can tell me nothing new, and finally get escalated to the next level, where we spend another hour debugging. He convinces me to try again even though we've changed no settings ("but isn't it deterministic?", I asked) and I wait up for the completion -- or, rather, the hang at 3 minutes remaining. By the time this happens that second-level support person has gone home for the night. I leave voice mail, to which he never responds.
Day 4: It always hangs when migrating apps. What happens if I migrate everything except apps, and I'll try to solve that separately? That works. Migrating apps by themselves still hangs (but it only takes about 15 minutes to get to that point now). I ask a question on Ask Different which, like my previous attempt to go to the elves for counsel, has not gotten much traction. (Actually, that's not fair; last time my question was completely ignored; this time somebody answered to say "it depends". Progress.)
Later in the day I try to copy individual files in the Applications folder directly (using a network share). The copy operation says no to Firefox, claiming the file is corrupted (err, works just fine on the source machine); upon trying to do a fresh installation I learn that Firefox has dropped support for my OSs (both). Huh, Chrome gave me notifications when that got close; Firefox never breathed a word. I will be upgrading the OS on the new machine, but I'm not going to do that mid-move. I find a Firefox download that's still available and, oh glorious day, when I start it up it has my state from the other machine! I didn't have to use sync or anything! So I still don't know where user application data is stored on a Mac, but apparently the migration got it. Yay.
Most applications can be copied but a few fail, claiming permission problems (even though the permissions are fine). The iWork suite copies fine but does not run; might be an OS incompatibility. Shabbat arrives.
Day 5: Shabbat. After, I learn that the files that couldn't be copied across a network share can be copied just fine using a USB drive. No idea why that makes a difference. I begin testing whether applications actually run. Spend way too long finding an activation code from the original CD packaging for one of them. Note to self: add activation codes to the file of important information you'd be sad to lose.
Why are printer drivers so difficult? Apparently that's something that didn't come over in the migration. Spend an hour or so hunting the driver I need online after failing to find it on the source machine. (It's a driver. That means it's a file. That means I should be able to find and copy it, right?) Just as I reach the "it'd be less frustrating to buy a new printer even though this one works fine and meets my needs" point, I find the driver and print something.
Day 6 (today): Still haven't tested all applications, and I'm not touching the scanner before Rosh Hashana. Spend lots of time tuning video. I initially set up the new machine with a different monitor (so I could retain easy access to the old machine); when I couldn't get it tuned to a good balance of brightness, contrast, and color temperature I swapped monitors. And the old monitor is wacky too. So it's something in the OS, I presume. I spend lots of time in advanced calibration settings and reach a point that seems workable. It's not the same as the old one (Stack Exchange and LJ colors are slightly off, but not in a way I can fix in hardware or calibration), but presumably I'll get used to it. I now realize that I have no idea what the true colors of any web site I use are, because they look a little different on every device I use, including ones where I've never adjusted any display settings. Some day I should line up the two Macs, my work (Windows) laptop, my tablet, and my phone and have a show-down. (I used some photos to sanity-check all this.)
But, all that said, it sure is nice having a newer machine! I had not previously appreciated solid-state hard drives, and now I'm not resource-starved. I wish Apple had updated the product (they haven't since 2014), but I couldn't wait any longer and this used machine will do just fine.
Tonight begins Rosh Hashana. I will pick this up in a few days.
Day 1: Get cable, start Migration Assistant. It announces this will take 16+ hours because, despite being plugged into the LAN and wireless being turned off on the other machine, it's using wifi. Oh well.
Day 2: Migration hangs; aborted around the 24-hour mark. Connect the two machines directly via ethernet and make sure wifi is turned off on both. This time Migration Assistant says 1.5 hours.
Day 3: Hung at "4 minutes remaining" for 12 hours. Since the previous day I've been attempting to get support online; at this point I wait through the support phone queue, spend an hour or so with a first-level technician who can tell me nothing new, and finally get escalated to the next level, where we spend another hour debugging. He convinces me to try again even though we've changed no settings ("but isn't it deterministic?", I asked) and I wait up for the completion -- or, rather, the hang at 3 minutes remaining. By the time this happens that second-level support person has gone home for the night. I leave voice mail, to which he never responds.
Day 4: It always hangs when migrating apps. What happens if I migrate everything except apps, and I'll try to solve that separately? That works. Migrating apps by themselves still hangs (but it only takes about 15 minutes to get to that point now). I ask a question on Ask Different which, like my previous attempt to go to the elves for counsel, has not gotten much traction. (Actually, that's not fair; last time my question was completely ignored; this time somebody answered to say "it depends". Progress.)
Later in the day I try to copy individual files in the Applications folder directly (using a network share). The copy operation says no to Firefox, claiming the file is corrupted (err, works just fine on the source machine); upon trying to do a fresh installation I learn that Firefox has dropped support for my OSs (both). Huh, Chrome gave me notifications when that got close; Firefox never breathed a word. I will be upgrading the OS on the new machine, but I'm not going to do that mid-move. I find a Firefox download that's still available and, oh glorious day, when I start it up it has my state from the other machine! I didn't have to use sync or anything! So I still don't know where user application data is stored on a Mac, but apparently the migration got it. Yay.
Most applications can be copied but a few fail, claiming permission problems (even though the permissions are fine). The iWork suite copies fine but does not run; might be an OS incompatibility. Shabbat arrives.
Day 5: Shabbat. After, I learn that the files that couldn't be copied across a network share can be copied just fine using a USB drive. No idea why that makes a difference. I begin testing whether applications actually run. Spend way too long finding an activation code from the original CD packaging for one of them. Note to self: add activation codes to the file of important information you'd be sad to lose.
Why are printer drivers so difficult? Apparently that's something that didn't come over in the migration. Spend an hour or so hunting the driver I need online after failing to find it on the source machine. (It's a driver. That means it's a file. That means I should be able to find and copy it, right?) Just as I reach the "it'd be less frustrating to buy a new printer even though this one works fine and meets my needs" point, I find the driver and print something.
Day 6 (today): Still haven't tested all applications, and I'm not touching the scanner before Rosh Hashana. Spend lots of time tuning video. I initially set up the new machine with a different monitor (so I could retain easy access to the old machine); when I couldn't get it tuned to a good balance of brightness, contrast, and color temperature I swapped monitors. And the old monitor is wacky too. So it's something in the OS, I presume. I spend lots of time in advanced calibration settings and reach a point that seems workable. It's not the same as the old one (Stack Exchange and LJ colors are slightly off, but not in a way I can fix in hardware or calibration), but presumably I'll get used to it. I now realize that I have no idea what the true colors of any web site I use are, because they look a little different on every device I use, including ones where I've never adjusted any display settings. Some day I should line up the two Macs, my work (Windows) laptop, my tablet, and my phone and have a show-down. (I used some photos to sanity-check all this.)
But, all that said, it sure is nice having a newer machine! I had not previously appreciated solid-state hard drives, and now I'm not resource-starved. I wish Apple had updated the product (they haven't since 2014), but I couldn't wait any longer and this used machine will do just fine.
Tonight begins Rosh Hashana. I will pick this up in a few days.
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