My 2017 MacBook Pro stopped charging and refused to accept power from any power supply on any port. I was restoring my My computer to my previous laptop, a 2015 MacBook Pro and encountered the above. I tried using the day-before's back up, but this didn't work.

I received the following message when booting from a Time Machine drive:

An Error Occurred Restoring from Backup

An Error Occurred Restoring from Backup

To Try Restoring from a different backup, click choose other Backup.

To reinstall macOS, click install macOS. During the install you can chooes to restore your information from a Time Machine Backup.

To Boot from an existing macOS installation...

I've seen some high tier fixes, like harryfear.co.uk's fix but there's an easier route and the clue is in the error message.

More carefully reading the message, I booted off the Recovery partition and then reinstalled macOS. Then once completed, on the Migration Assistant I selected the option to transfer information over from my Time Machine drive. This isn't a true 1:1, I noticed some things missing such as /etc Apache2 modifications but some of the geek stuff like, HomeBrew and its many CLI applications (Heroku) made the cut. Beyond renewing SSH keys and running Docker builds, my computer was good to go. Standard Mac applications had no issues.

Summary

If a restore fails, fear not. Restores are faster but you will not lose your important files.

  1. Boot off a recovery partition, reinstall macOS
  2. At the end of the installation, you will see the Migration Assistant. Select transfer files from another computer/device/Time Machine then select your time machine drive

I suspect for most users, self-included, the harryfear fix is overshooting the problem and Apple's solution is "good enough".