startosinstall not working on random machines
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Posted on 10-28-2019 05:46 AM
Been trying to mass upgrade some machines, and running startosinstall with the agreetolicense flag worked for about 90% of them. however the other 10% doesn't work. in fact, in the jamf policy log, it never starts the install and says going down for install, it does nothing at all. is there any kind of log or something i am missing here? i do not want to have to manually upgrade the remaining devices, but will if I have to

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Posted on 10-28-2019 07:09 AM
@hdsreid Do you have McAfee ENS installed on these machines? I've seen the problem you describe and removing the ENS software seemed to make startosinstall more reliable.

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Posted on 10-28-2019 07:12 AM
Might be possible that the Install macOS <NAME>.app was signed by the expired Apple Update Cert? have you downloaded a fresh OS as Apple have updated the certificate and re-signed the files now
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Posted on 10-28-2019 07:39 AM

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Posted on 10-28-2019 07:53 AM
@hdsreid Correct, Mojave and Catalina installers were signed today with a new certificate by Apple

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Posted on 10-28-2019 07:57 AM
@hdsreid installinstallmacos.py is a great utility for downloading full Apple macOS installers.
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Posted on 10-28-2019 08:35 AM
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Posted on 10-28-2019 10:00 AM
i downloaded a new macOS Mojave DMG from the installinstallmacos python utility and was able to upgrade a machine with it, thanks for the tips guys! really appreciate it, i had been pulling my hair trying to figure out why these suddenly no longer worked after i had hit the first 30 or so with no issue
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Posted on 10-29-2019 05:39 PM
Also want to say thanks! I could not work out why my updates stopped working, but this seems like the solution.
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Posted on 10-30-2019 02:33 AM
Thank you for the responses everyone! I have just spent 2 days tearing my hair out trying to work out why my installer just all of sudden stopped working!
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Posted on 10-30-2019 01:58 PM
FYI,
I am seeing issues with the 15.1 installer, can't verify want to move to bin pop up window.. It does work if I run the installer from GUI..
C

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Posted on 11-01-2019 08:24 AM
Can anyone think of another reason why this script does nothing? I first set up a policy in Jamf after attending the webinar regarding "one button wipes" but even just trying to run the script itself on a test machine without Jamf it does absolutely nothing. Here's exactly what I'm seeing:
- Open Terminal
- Run command "/Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --eraseinstall"
- When prompted to type A and hit return to continue, I do so and absolutely nothing happens.
I've tried rebuilding my Mojave installer and it still doesn't work. I've also uninstall Sophos Endpoint to see if its my AV, still nothing. Anyone have any ideas?
UPDATE: The computer I was testing from needed to restart. I guess the unsigned stuff was still in RAM/mounted. After the restart things started working, I just had to rebuild the package to get it working. Before doing that I was using an "old" version of 10.14.6 from a USB I created when that particular update dropped.

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Posted on 12-10-2019 10:08 AM
startosinstall just doe not work. Current machine has Mojave. I have been using this process only adapting for Mojave:
https://www.jamf.com/blog/reinstall-a-clean-macos-with-one-button/

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Posted on 12-10-2019 11:26 AM
I had formatting issues with my command
