Creating Bootable Clone from Apple Silicon Mac

[mschmitt]

Update: I got an external SSD and tried again to create a bootable clone from a M2 MacBook Pro running Ventura 13.6.2.

First attempt: SuperDuper erase-then-clone (ASR): same problem where ASR didn't update the dyld cache.

2nd attempt: Update Ventura on the 1st clone, using the full Ventura installer. This didn't work because Apple hasn't posted 13.6.2 yet to the App Store, and you can't downgrade. So, putting this idea aside until there's an App Store version >= what's on the source drive.

3rd attempt: While waiting for above, tried erasing the drive, installing Ventura 13.6.1 using the full installer, then Smart Update over it.

I know that's not recommended but I figured won't hurt to try it.

What happened is when I try to use System Settings to start up from the clone, it asks me to authorize users, then it asks me to select an owner, then to authorize users, then to select an owner, over and over. Is this something you've run into? Google returns no hits on that problem. (Note that I didn't get into that loop in attempt 1.)

(Planned 4th attempt will be to erase, use full Ventura installer, boot from that, and then migrate the data from the internal SSD. And hope that after doing that, it will continue to be a bootable clone after a later Smart Update puts the data back 100% in sync with the source.)