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.'
- At the end of 2019, Mojave Installer will not work and may throw an error “macOS Mojave could not be installed on your computer – No packages were eligible for install” to fix this open Terminal (From Utilities Menu Terminal) and run the following Command. Date Successfully booted into Hackintosh Mojave Installer Screen.
- Ok, so i went to install mojave on my macbook air and it gave me the old certificate or cant install mojave because of damaged install package blah blah. I read a ton of ideas and how to’s. Heres what i did which was ridiculously easyno bootable drive, no hocus pokus. Went to applications and deleted the mojave installer. Emptied the trash.
- This page contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Now that the final version of macOS 10.14 Mojave, has been released, many people have installed the new OS on their Hackintosh.
I downloaded the free trial of Parallels 15 to try to set up a VM with El Cap for a couple of applications that won't work on anything after that OS version that I need for work stuff. I got Parallels installed (machine is running Mojave), downloaded El Cap from my purchases, created the blank VM and it saw the installer and made the image it said it needed. It boots up into the whole Mac. It will download and then try to install itself and then fail with no packages were eligible message with option to restart. Shut off wifi (top right) or unplug ethernet cord. Go to utilities -terminal- type this and only this, date. It will show new date with new time it should be jan 1.
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:
No Packages Were Eligible For Install Mojave Windows 10
Solution attempts that did NOT work for me:
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
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.
No Packages Were Eligible For Install Error When Attempting To Install Mojave
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.
Os X Mojave Installer Download
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.
Apple Mojave Download Page
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.