time machine restore freezes my MacBook Pro

I’m restoring files from Time Machine to my MacBook Pro. I’ve tried restoring to Mountain Lion and Sierra. (I need the older operating system to run an app that no longer works on my current OS’s.)

The restore completes successfully but when the MBP restarts I get the Apple icon and a progress bar, which continues until the progress bar is complete, at which point it freezes and never continues. (I’ve left it running overnight with no further progress.) If I restart the same thing happens. I ended up having to reinstall the OS just to get it running again.

is this a known problem and is there a solution? Thank you.

Scott