Upgrade Error Catalina (-69808)

Okay, I found it. And it works for me as well. That seems to be it.

For everyone (like me) not directly understanding orsino’s suggestion, this is how it worked for me:

1. Do a backup (using Time Machine)!
2. Shut down and start Mac in Internet recovery mode (Option, Command + R)
3. Go to Disk Utility
4. Select “View” (top left) and “Show All devices”
5. Select the hard drive above “Macintosh HD” (it should be called a physical disk)
6. Erase the s*** out of it using APFS, GUID partition map and a name like “Macintosh HD”

Good luck with your update.

Thanks int the meantime I've managed to find it :-) except it was disk0s2 in my case it was the recovery partition which was causing the issue. Now I'm waiting the install to complete (crossing fingers)

For those who are suffering from the error "Some information was unavailable during an internal lookup: (-69808).

I had the same issue, MacBook Pro 13" 2018, 256GB model when updating form MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 Build 18G103 to MacOS Catalina Build 19A583. And I found out the workaround and let me provide it to you guys.

First of all, please execute “diskutil apfs list" on terminal and check if there are any negative figures (size in byte), "-69808" in every single disk volume. If you find it,  I 'm assuming it would result in the error. Actually I had "-69808" in "VM" volume.

The workaround is to format your SSD/Hard drive as physical disk format with APFS, naming such as "Macintosh HD", not to format "Macintosh HD", a logical disk volume. (Before that, please make sure to take backup!! ). It makes the entire disk formatted and Catalina installer will automatically recreate necessary disk volumes, not only the volume with "-69808" but also other volumes. I hope it will lead you to succeed in installing Catalina to your Mac. (I succeeded in installing indeed.)

Yesterday I reported the issue to Apple Support and told them the workaround. I hope Apple will address the issue.

It would be appreciated if my workaround would help you resolving the issue you're faced with!

Hey orsino,

thanks for your explanation. Still I’d like to ask you, if you could specify one of your comments a little bit closer:

„format your SSD/Hard drive as physical disk format with APFS, naming such as ‚Macintosh HD’, not to format ‚Macintosh HD‘, a logical disk volume“

How exactly would I do that?

Best regards,

licks

Same here. Same MacBook. Same OS. Same language. Same error code.

Dude, it seems like your machine is the evil twin of mine.

When restoring via TimeMachine, won't it install Mojave again?

Could you explain how did you delete your internal with disk util ? I'm experiencing the same but I need to remove recovery partition to properly install it without this error.

And another one: Same MacBook, same os, same language (German), same error code. Tried starting in safe mode, checking the disk with diskutil - nothing worked so far.

Hope you’ll find a solution without wiping your disk. I am afraid there is none other than waiting for another update.