When trying to upgrade from OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan, I repeatedly encountered a frustrating error message: 'OS X could not be installed on your computer. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.'
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MacOS – No packages were eligible for install. I have an older, MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009) that I intend to give as a gift. For security reasons, I decided that I was a good to format the drive and reinstall OS X El Capitan. IMac – How to use a bootable disk drive to install Mac OS on an iMac 2011. No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installed to restart your computer and try again. However, if the model Mac is too new to allow the installation for El Capitan, then message given below will occur when trying to create the Install OS X El Capitan application. Feb 15, 2016 Mac Pro Mods PowerMac G3 B&W PowerMac G4 PowerMac G4 Cube PowerMac G5 Others Retail Cases Modders Tools. 'No packages were eligible for install'.
My end goal was to install macOS 10.13 High Sierra. I read online that one must upgrade to OS X 10.11 before upgrading to macOS 10.13 if one is starting from OS X 10.6. This upgrade route did not work for me no matter how many solutions I attempted. I eventually found a solution to this frustrating problem which I'll share below, but before I do that, I'd like to share what did NOT work for me to hopefully help others avoid unnecessary frustration and wasted time:
Solution attempts that did NOT work for me:
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns for all Mac users following the release of Big Sur. This, as users of older Macs started complaining of bricked devices. Many of the affected users were owners of the 2013/2014 MacBooks and here are some of their dreadful reports of dead machines.
I tried changing the time to the correct present time and to a past time when the installer certificates may have still been valid (mid-2016). The upgrade problem persisted either way.
Manually setting the date and time via the Terminal (see above link) to an earlier date is worth trying because it has worked for some people. Try this time: 1010101015
2) Erasing my internal hard drive using Disk Utility in Internet Recovery Mode
All this did was remove my data, but the persistent 'OS X could not be installed...' problem remained.
3) Booting from an external hard drive that was formatted to act as an installer for OS X 10.11
Macos Sierra No Packages Were Eligible For Install
4) Booting in the Internet Recovery Mode option to install the version closest to the operating system that came with my Mac (Shift+Option+Command+R).
My Mac came with Snow Leopard, which is not available to download, so it attempted to install Lion, but wasn't able to do so because I had not purchased it with my Apple ID.
Here's the upgrade route that DID work for me:
1) I purchased OS X 10.7 Lion with my Apple ID and downloaded it via the Mac App Store on another Mac (so it would be in my App Store download history)
2) I booted in the Internet Recovery Mode option to install the version closest to the operating system that came with my Mac by holding down Shift+Option+Command+R while my MacBook was restarting.
3) I selected 'Reinstall Mac OS X' in the 'Mac OS X Utilities' window that appeared when Internet Recovery Mode fully booted up.
4) When prompted, I entered my Apple ID information that was used to purchase and download OS X 10.7 Lion and allowed the OS X upgrade to proceed to completion. I then had a fresh version of OS X 10.7 Lion installed on my Mac.
5) The next step was to upgrade from OS X 10.7 Lion to macOS 10.12 Sierra using these steps.
6) Once macOS 10.12 Sierra was fully installed, I upgraded to macOS 10.13 High Sierra using these steps.
My MacBook Pro is now successfully running macOS 10.13.6 High Sierra.
Basically, what worked for me was circumnavigating the suggested route of installing OS X 10.11 before installing macOS 10.13. Instead, I followed this upgrade route: 10.6 to 10.7, then 10.12 to 10.13.
I thought it may be helpful to share what worked for me in case someone else out there is trying to upgrade from OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to macOS 10.13 High Sierra and encountering the issue I encountered. Please feel free to ask me any questions about this and I will do my best to help.
OS X could not be installed on your computer.
No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again
Oh dear… When trying to install OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) you may encounter this message. This happens because the the installer certificates are no longer valid when checked against the clock of your mac.
No Packages Were Eligible For Install Mac Pro
Don’t panic though as this is easily fixed using Terminal, so don’t restart immediately.
- Click Utilities on the menu bar
- Select Terminal
- Type date 062112422016
- Exit Terminal
- Click Restart
How To Fix No Packages Were Eligible For Install
When you restart the mac and try the installer again it will now believe the certificates are valid and will continue as it should.