BigSur 3.7 v126 SD runs but doesn't start copying

[gadgetdoctor]

I'm still on BigSur on an iMac 2017 5k. I really need to update it and I was hoping to use SuperDuper! before I run the update.

I haven't run it for a few months but I opened it up, let it do the upgrade but when I try to start a copy, nothing happens.

I did a manual reinstall from a new download.

It asks me for my password but once I've hit the Copy Now button and said yes, it goes back to looking exactly as it did. Nothing seems to happen.

The target drive looks fine and does contain a backup from the last time I used SD.

[dnanian]

Assuming you've restarted your Mac and have checked to see that you're running SuperDuper from the startup drive, please send a support message to me via email and we'll work through whatever might be going on here.

[gadgetdoctor]

I gave it another try and booted to safe mode. That seems to have worked. Copy is happening now, will report outcome.

[gadgetdoctor]

Oh well it happened: exactly what I was afraid of. I got the Big Sur backup to work and then upgraded to Venutura.

For two weeks everything was ok but then on Dec 24 the machine went nuts and started spamming me with a message about background items added and the entire system is completely unstable and crashes 10 mins after log on.

https://piunikaweb.com/2022/12/09/ma...ication-issue/

So I just tried booting from my Big Sur backup and it gets most of the way through the startup bar but then it stops with this message:

Unrecoverable Error
SecurityAgent was unable to create requested mechanism builtinrelogin

Is there anything I can do?

[dnanian]

Your backup's "data" does not match your backup's "system". It's unclear to me what's on the "Big Sur Backup", but it seems like you installed updates to the OS and then didn't copy them to the backup.

You can install a current version of Big Sur over the backup to bring it up to date (assuming the data isn't from a later OS, like Ventura) and then it should boot properly.

But it seems it would be more sensible to install the 13.1 update, where Apple has fixed the notification issue.