No Packages Were Eligible For Install Mac

Installing El Capiton on an old Mac Book Pro today, I received the error:

No Packages Were Eligible For Install Macos Big Sur

If you are experiencing this issue with your update, here are a few tips that you can use to address this issue. Before proceeding with the steps below, we suggest that you ensure your Mac’s clock is correct. If your Mac’s Date&Time do not match your current timezone or date, macOS often won’t install. Go to System Preferences Date & Time.

OS X could not be installed on your computer

No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

  1. The simplest way to set it (if you have no OS installed on the machine) is to boot the install media, open the terminal and check the date (type date). The following information was found on someones site (sorry I forget which), but I have included it here to make it easier to correct this issue.
  2. Nov 12, 2019 After a good night's sleep I read a list o Mac OS/OSX versions, then realised that Mavericks is older than Yosemite, which I managed to install in 2016.

Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again.

I checked Apple’s support Matrix (it is a very old macbook pro) at https://support.apple.com/kb/SP728?locale=en_GB and it was listed as supported.

After lots of Googling and investigation, I discovered that the date and time were not set to current, the macbook thought it was year 2000.

You can easily reset the time and date by following the steps below:

  • Click Utilities on the menu bar
  • Select Terminal
  • Type date
  • Confirm the date is wrong
  • Type date 062112422016 (example: June 21st 12:42 2016)
  • Exit terminal
  • Click Restart

Once the Date and time are configured you will be able to install OS X.

Hackintosh No Packages Were Eligible

Easy fix, for a ridiculous error!

No Packages Were Eligible For Install Mac

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.

My first effort was thwarted by an error:

This item is temporarily unavailable.Try again later.

After reading Wiped drive, now can’t reinstall El Capitan from Recovery because the “item is temporarily unavailable”, I supplied a different set of icloud credentials, and the process continued.

Eventually, however, the installation failed with a different message:

No packages were eligible for install. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. Quit the installed to restart your computer and try again.

I tried using 'Internet Recovery' (Option+Command+R) and a bootable USB drive that contained El Capitan, both of which ultimately failed with the same message.

Is there a way to get this to work?

To create a bootable USB drive, I needed the Install OS X El Capitan.app package.

Using my MBP 16', I used the Download OS X El Capitan link on Apple's support site to get the installer.

Unfortunately, running the InstallMacOSX.pkg package in the DMG failed:

This version of OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer.

How Do You Fix No Packages Were Eligible For Install

I 'found' a Install OS X El Capitan.app package and was able to create the bootable media.