Progress bar stuck at 100% after installing macOS High Sierra? You're not alone

Severest of the matters be, Cupertino based company Apple just remains unperturbed, or at-least it seems so. This has happened many times in the past, and is happening yet again: neither acknowledgement nor a silent fix, rather ignorance (apparently) is what they have settled for.

Following is the problem in question.

A very large number of macOS High Sierra users are complaining that installing the OS has rendered their system useless. This morning, a Redditor’s post (timed a few hours ago) caught our attention, for they claimed High Sierra killed their’s or for that matter, hundreds of other users’ MacBooks.

Given the gravity of the problem, we tried digging in deep, and were astounded to see that not hundreds but thousands are actually affected. A quick glance at the number on ‘I have this question too‘ button on the threads discussing the problem will give you an idea about on the severity of the matter.

Basically, users report that after upgrading to High Sierra, their Macbook/iMac will turn on and load the progress bar, but not boot up. Rather the progress bar gets stuck (mostly at 100%), due to which the system startup process never completes and the login screen never shows up.

While complaints started to pour in right after High Sierra arrived, even the latest versions of the OS (10.13.3) have failed to fix whatever’s causing the issue, as users continue to report the same till date. Following is our selection of user comments explaining the problem in question:

Same here. Stuck on progress bar at 100% after software updated while the machine was sleeping. Been like this for four days. Had 10 calls to Apple. Tried safe mode, restore mode, first aid, saving files to external hard drive then reinstalling OS on the MacBook. Nothing works! So frustrating and I’ve lost days and days of work as a self employed person. Not at all happy. (March 05)

I have the same problem. I couldn’t even boot to Safe Mode. I’ve tried everything that was suggested in this thread. After three days of trying, it is now stuck on 98% percent. I can’t afford to lose all my files. I don’t have time machine back up. Please help. (Feb 28)

Hi, I tried these two sets of commands as suggested, unfortunately, did not work.

thanks for sharing this and giving us hope. I am cognisant of the fact that hope is not a strategy – so going to reformat my drive and go back to an older time machine back up.

Responding to an earlier post, I do not think Apple cares about us.

Take care. (Feb 26)

Hi, thank you for the information but I still can’t access my desktop. Have you heard of anything else to erase this problem? Apple aren’t helping at all! (Feb 25)

500+ people have said they have this issue and still no clear answer? I tried to read the whole thread but so far it hasn’t helped. Why don’t they just say “hey we have a new OS… but it only works on the following products…” This is just like how they are killing off old iPhone after a few years. I am so glad that this happened on my old macbook, while my two other PCs are still working awesome! My Dads 2008 Dell is still running XP better than my 2012 Macbook trying to do high sierra…. (Feb 21)

Thanks for this. After installing High Sierra I had the same issue. My 2010 MacBook would not load. After trying everything ( recovery mode, first aid, safe mode) My computer would not boot up. All I get is the white screen with the black Apple logo. The progress bar goes 3/4 of the way then craws. When it finishes it does ever move to the login screen. I even left there overnight still no success. I had to choose time machine from recovery mode, plug. in my externail hard drive that i saved my backups. Once I restored From the backup like you I’m back to Sierra where plan to stay. Clearly High Sierra is for the new MacBooks and iMacs. Interesting enough after reinstall Sierra is actually snapier. (Feb 18)

High Sierra has bricked my laptop. I had my computer in sleep mode. Opened it back up and it was on the Disk Utility screen for no reason. Repairing the Disk did nothing. Resetting SRAM and Pram did nothing. Time Machine can’t be found. Finally decided to reinstall the OS in spite of probably losing all my files, which froze. Upon restart, I can no longer install the OS, something about the server being unreachable. I tried a hard reset, and now the progress bar shows up, loads very slowly and gets stuck at 100%.

Apple needs to fix this. For free. I did nothing to warrant this. Never had these kinds of problems before. Your update fried my drive. There needs to be a reckoning with customers, because this is totally unacceptable. (Feb 09)

What if I told you that I have 5 2010 iMacs at our school currently exhibiting this problem of frozen startup where the machine continues to get hotter and hotter. For us, a hard shutdown and then turning the machine on again eventually leads to the machine successfully booting. Held off on updating these machines until last month and they exhibit the problem with 10.13.3. There is definitely an issue in High Sierra. (Feb 07)

Worst update released. Can’t even boot up, so I can’t finish my university coursework! Thanks Apple for harrassing me to install this terrible update that has caused more than myself the same problem. Pathetic. (Feb 04)

I have the same behavior with almost all updates since High Sierra came out. I tried a lot, but at least one thing I found out helped a bit: when starting in verbose mode (cmd v) my MacBook Pro (2017) boots into the normal desktop. But it does not heal the problem. It’s getting stuck at 100% progress bar on the next normal reboot and after logging in.

The only help for me was to reinstall from scratch and migrate back my user and data from a Time Machine backup. (Feb 03)

Here’s what Apple Support or Genius bar has been doing to entertain those affected:

Hey man, I had the exact same problem. Took mine to my local Apple store and they fixed it. They turned my macbook into an external hard drive through their system and backed all my files up. They then reformatted my macbook and uploaded from my back up but they put my OS to Sierra. High Sierra is the problem! The chap in the store basically said stick with Sierra for a while and only go to High Sierra if you want. You will not get charged by Apple as the issue is software not mechanical. I know this doesn’t help you right now but it might get you back on track for the future. (March 05)

I totally agree. I basically spent 5 days a couple weeks ago dealing with this issue, and not working, which doesn’t seem like much, but it’s definitely crippling when you are trying to run a small business.

I did use this as an excuse to upgrade to a new iMac, which is fine since it was long overdue, and the tech at the genius bar was super helpful and issue on the laptop was dealt with, but I still don’t have a clear reason as to why / what happened. They never really told me what cause the issue, and essentially denied that it was the upgrade to high Sierra. In fact, the tech even told me that some of the newer Macs are having trouble with High Sierra. (Feb 22)

I had to take mine to the Genius Bar (I was there for over 5 hours !) in the end they wiped it after trying to back it up and re-installed just Sierra. They stated that they had seen many of the older Mac machines with the same issue and they suggested I just leave it on Sierra for a while and then make sure I back up on Time Machine before embarking on the upgrade if desired. It was all really annoying I had no intention of upgrading it and came over and found it upgrading I must have accidentally pressed ok to a later upgrade. (Feb 16)

In my case, service center guys formatted the hard disk and reinstall the is again. According to those guys,os was corrupted while installing new os (Feb 12).

I had a chat with an apple advisor he basically said because my imac is a 2009 version it will struggle with high sierra and just wipe it thanks apple. (Jan 31)

A good number of complaints can be seen on micro-blogging site Twitter, and following are some of the recent ones:
https://twitter.com/mrandrewdknight/status/969677631959523329
https://twitter.com/OSX_rulez/status/965913768403316736
https://twitter.com/_Ericccccc/status/962926534955708416
https://twitter.com/OSX_rulez/status/961988274557304832
https://twitter.com/ProtoN4reel/status/957701026928197632
https://twitter.com/ayn/status/957350486591418368
https://twitter.com/thecrownwings/status/954742049256951809
https://twitter.com/gavevans10/status/942452342837989376

A corrupt installation or a corrupt update, we can’t comment on that. Whatever the case be, the glitchy High Sierra updates have been troubling many Macbook and iMac users. For all the botheration users are going through, Apple should at least address and give more clarity on the matter.

Stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) to hear about all related developments as and when they occur