Image Freeze

[Osburn]

So I've run into a small problem. Brand new iMacs image with casper imaging without a problem. If you take that 10.9.4 machine and put 10.8 using our old image server they image fine. But after putting 10.8 on them you can not use casper. They freeze a little ways in to block for block copy. I can not bring up the log because it is a hard freeze. We just setup our server so I'm not sure where to look on our JSS. Again if I put a brand new iMac in the same location / connection and settings the image process completes without error. I've also used disk util before imaging to repartition the drive with no luck. I also imaged a brand new iMac, put 10.8 on and tried to image again and it freezes. external image link

external image link

[calumhunter]

Are your trying to put a 10.8 image on a brand new imac? Probably not going to work, the machine should only run the version of the OS it came from the factory with or newer, downgrading generally doesn't work.

[John_Wetter]

As @calumhunter mentioned- This isn't supported by Apple and generally will not work. Even if you got the image to work, you won't be happy with the results going forward. If you were to try and get 10.8 to work, you'd need to be sure it works in this matrix: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1159

[Osburn]

No Sorry. Our 10.8 image does work but that was not the goal. The problem i'm having is any mac we have currently with 10.8 we can not image. Only new iMacs will image without freezing, but even those will freeze if 10.8 is installed and then casper 10.9 is tried. Basically we have a iMacs a few months old that we can not image and brand new ones that are all the same specifications that will. Something is staying behind that freezes the processes. I have formatted, and re partitioned the hard drive several times. I can also repeat the problem by imaging a brand new iMac with casper, then image 10.8 on it, but when trying to go to casper 10.9 again it fails.

[jhalvorson]

Can you share the iMac model identifier with us? For both the New and slightly older new ones that you have.

Hold the Option key, and from the Apple menu choose System Information...

The results should be something like "iMac13,2" or "iMac14,1".

[Osburn]

iMac13,3
I'm on the phone with JAMF support now. I'll post what we find

[Osburn · Accepted solution]

Ok found the problem. 10.8 was not part of the problem. The problem was a we used a late 2013 i5 iMac for our net-boot image. The i5 iMac has a different chipset then the Early 2013 iMac i3 13,3 was trying to image. Our guess is the drivers are close but not close enough and it would freeze when doing a large file transfer. We did a Thunderbolt deployment to the i3 13,3 iMac instead and it worked without a problem.

[s]I'm setting up our image server to use only net-boot images for certain models and creating a new net-boot image from the i3.[/s]

I was able to create a single boot image.
Downloaded 10.9 in app store
Created USB OS X installer http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5856
Installed 10.9 on i5 14,1 iMac
Downloaded Combo 10.9.4 update
Used Casper Image Tool https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/viewProduct.html?id=13&view=info
Now I can netboot / image White MacBooks, i3 iMacs, and i5 iMacs without any problems.

[calumhunter]

yes, you will need to keep your NBI up to date for new machines, sometimes apple fork the OS thats another one to look out for. basically whenever you have a new machine, always check which OS and build number it comes with so you can make sure that your base OS and NBI are up to date and able to boot it.
happy imaging

[Sonic84]

I used to run into a similar issue once out of every 20 images or so. Imaging would't hard freeze, but the CasperShare would unmount without warning causing Casper Imagingto sit at whatever task it was working on until the Mac was rebooted. I had always assumed it was the switch in the data closet because the problem went away once I put a regular "dumb" switch between me and the server.