Stuck at full bar, in logo screen after system restore from TM backup
My machine is a 2015 13" MB Pro.
A couple of days ago, out of the blue, while it was operating normally, suddenly it got the "Black screen with a folder icon blinking"
I got a new compatible SSD, fresh installed Catalina, and everything worked fine.
Then I proceeded to restore the system from a TM backup. The restore process went fine, and completed successfully.
The problem is that when the system boots, with the backup external drive removed, the bar in the logo screen loads really slow in the last 1/3, and then after it seemingly fully loads, it gets stuck there.
I have tried disk repair, which completed with no errors, I even tried to restore from an older backup, but the problem remains. Note, that new installations of the OS work fine.
Right now I have booted in verbose mode and the last lines are these:
ALF, old data swfs_pid_entry <ptr> updaterules_msg <ptr> updaterules_state <ptr>
DK: AppleUserUSBHostHIDDevice-0x100000382 user server timeout
DK: AppleUserUSBHostHIDDevice-0x100000385 user server timeout
IOUSBHostInterface(0x100000385): matching deferred by IOUSBHostHIDDevice
I got a new compatible SSD, fresh installed Catalina, and everything worked fine...Then I proceeded to restore the system from a TM backup...The problem is that when the system boots...loads really slow in the last 1/3, and then after it seemingly fully loads, it gets stuck there.
This is key. If after a clean install everything is great but you subsequently restore from Time Machine, you may have a corrupted backup from the failing drive.
Instead of a restore, try doing a data migration Using Migration Assistant instead. This will copy over your data and settings over but leave the OS untouched. I prefer this method especially when upgrading to a new OS.