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Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II

By | October 28, 2010, 7:00am PDT

I took delivery of my CTO MacBook Air yesterday and had a flashback to original Air’s release in February 2008. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the gorgeous design or super-thin and light profile, it was the craptastic Migration Assistant software that ships with MacBook Air. It has serious issues.

Apple’s Migration Assistant software lives (/Applications/Utilities) allows you to transfer your data, apps and settings from another Mac. In theory, anyway.

See my previous posts: Thoughts on migrating to a new Mac and MacBook migration strategies.

When you unbox a new Mac, you have a decision to make: to set it up as new, or to migrate from another Mac. I almost always migrate because installing and configuring my software can kill a week of productivity.

Because the MacBook Air doesn’t have a Firewire port — and Target Disk Mode doesn’t support USB — the Migration Assistant allows you to migrate your data over WiFi and Ethernet. The problem: it doesn’t work (at least for me).

See my previous post: MacBook Air Diary-Day 3: Migration assistance.

Here’s what you see on the new Mac’s screen when you attempt a wireless migration. (Sorry for the iPhone photo, you can’t take screen shots on a new Mac until after it’s set up.)

Then you see the following on the screen on the old Mac, where you simply enter the six-digit code from the new Mac. Easy enough, right?

Migration Assistant (on the MBA) says “preparing information.”
Migration Assistant (MacBook Pro) says “searching for other computers.”
This goes on for about 5 minutes, then the MBA displays a generic and unhelpful ”network connection failed” dialog:

I retried the WiFi configuration four different times with no success. I tried restarting both machines and even restarted the Airport Extreme just for good measure, and no dice. Same “network connection failed” error every time. (The Firewall was disabled on both Macs)

I even tried to migrate using Apple’s $29 USB > Ethernet adapter and an Ethernet cable between both machines — but that also failed (multiple times) with the same error.

I resorted to migrating from a Time Machine backup on an external USB drive and syncing email, contact, calendars and bookmarks over MobileMe because I couldn’t get Apple’s crippled Migration Assistant application to work over WiFi.

I’m not the only one, other users are reporting the same problem on Apple’s discussion boards. It’s not exactly a pandemic — only a small amount of people are reporting it — but not being able to transfer your data can really have a negative impact on your first experience with the new MBA.

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Topics

Apple MacBook Air, Apple MacBook, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 16 Talkback(s)

  • ...and yet you keep buying the trash
    Sorry Jason, but I don't feel even the slightest bit sorry for you, in fact I get a good belly laugh every time I read things like this.

    Good luck with the next shiny paperweight...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Scrat
    28th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    @Scrat Those grapes a little sour are they?

    Yeah, I've had the same weirdness (at work, not on my own systems). It's kinda weird. The Time Machine route seems to work flawlessly. I have also had it work, perfectly - can't explain it.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jeremy-UK
    28th Oct 2010

  • ZDNet Blogger

    RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    @Scrat
    But at the end of the day, I got it working. It was a pain though and I hope that Apple fixes Migration Assistant.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jason D. O'Grady
    28th Oct 2010
  • Time Capsule is the answer
    @Jason D. O'Grady Jason a Time Capsule working along with Time Machine is the perfect answer. Jeremy is right, it works flawlessly and it is very fast with the newest generation; the first generation was real slow. It can also double as a backup for your Windows or Linux machine, I have used it for both Mac and Windows machines. Additionally I have found it to be one of the fastest routers out there. Hope this helps.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    MichaelWells
    29th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    @Jason D. O'Grady The good news in Time Machine works so well in this role. Saved my bacon when upgrading the hard drive in my MacBook.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    fireyouritguys
    30th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    @Scrat Just, out of curiosity, what isn't trash to you?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ctxppc
    29th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    Helps to know what you are doing.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    james347
    28th Oct 2010
  • Did you call Apple?
    Just out of curiosity.... did you call Apple? They may have a very simple solution.... you are certainly covered by the warranty... which includes software issues. In the few times I've had to call AppleCare the hold times were far less than the time you took to do your own "work around".

    I do have sympathy for you ... it should have worked out of the box. But to write a negative review without taking the first basic and primary step to resolve the issue is not balanced reporting. imho, of course.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    snberk341
    28th Oct 2010

  • ZDNet Blogger

    RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    @snberk341
    I was setting the new MacBook Air up at about 11pm ET and Apple's telephone support line (1-800-SOS-APPL) was already closed. Telephone support is available from 8-8 CT.
    The recorded message referred my to its "support Web Site - Apple.com." Which is what I did -- hence the link to the forum posts with the same issue.
    I spoke with Apple support today and a phone rep. said that most likely a "reset of hardware" (not a software restart, mind you) on one or both of the machines would have fixed it. Unfortunately, you have to do this over the phone with a technician. Ultimately I did get it set up from a Time Machine backup on a USB drive, which the technician assured me was the best way to go, as WiFi migrations can take "as long as 24 hours."
    - Jason
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jason D. O'Grady
    29th Oct 2010
  • Jason is a journalist, snberk341
    It's his job to turn a molehill into a volcano.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Laraine Anne Barker
    29th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    I've set up new Macs several times, and I have always simply copied my user folder to an external hard drive and reinstalled applications one-by-one. Even Macs can accumulate errors and bad apps, and the oppornity to start fresh on a new machine has always been worth the effort for me. I guess this reflex is because of my experience with Windows boxes, which I always had to take down to the bare metal on the hard drive and reinstall every three months until I got my own PowerBook 9 years ago.

    Reinstalling also gives you time to reflect on the software that you have installed, and which you plan to have on your new machine. You can ask yourself: "Do i really need this?" I've ended up ditching dozens of apps that I no longer use each time, which I would not have the opportunity to do when migrating from one machine to another. Many times I try out apps, conclude they might be useful enough not to trash immediately, but then never go back to really use them.

    Of course, the most painful part of the process is reinstalling the Adobe Suite. It takes forever, and requires several updates in order to get it fully updated. Several times the updates hang, and I have to go back and reinstall the offending app then go through update hell again. Why Adobe doesn't make rollup updates to their apps I don't know. I'm talking about CS3. Does anyone have any wisdom about CS5 for Mac? I generally don't use my Adobe products enough to spend the cash for the CS5 upgrade, but if the experience is any better, I might take the plunge when I upgrade to Lion.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ssaha
    29th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    I just got a new MacBook Pro and just migrated using Migration Assistant from a old MacBook Pro last night without any problems. I used an Firewire 800 cable and it was done over night with 290GB of data transferred.
    I tried wireless Migration Assistant only once at work and it slow it limited to 54Mb/s and t saw the same errors that Jason experienced but it that AirPort Extreme Basestation was the issue which it doesn't like large and continuous traffic. I use Retrospect for backing up our MacBooks* /PowerBooks here and it exhibits the timeout issues due to large and continuous traffic through the AirPort Basestation. I haven't tried it on another wireless router/hub so I can't tell if this specific to AirPort basestations or is some wireless networking issue like radio interference, the MacBook*/PowerBook has some network card issue or something else.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    phatkat
    29th Oct 2010
  • Does calling your network "Fluffhead" have anything to do with it?
    Just wondering happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mattmuir
    29th Oct 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    "Does calling your network "Fluffhead" have anything to do with it?

    Just wondering happy "

    lol

    I would have done clean install of all the apps and then just transferred the data.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Goldie07
    1st Nov 2010
  • RE: Migration blues with the MacBook Air - Volume II
    Yup, working as intended.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    surfasb
    3rd Nov 2010
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