OS Startup woes

[pspdfppdfxhd]

So every time I have to restart, the progress bar under the apple logo freezes at about 70 percent.

Lately i have only been able to boot in safe mode.

If i reset SMC it starts up fine for one or two times then goes back to the same problem.

I am dealing with apple support on this issue and will be talking to them tomorrow. They seemed to be thinking an OS reinstall might be necessary.

Thing is, I need to use time machine to restore the multitude of apps on this work horse computer and would not that just reinstall the old problems.

I don't need this shit happening so close to christmas, but it is a covid christmas I know.

[Joe]

Have you booted into recovery and performed First Aid on the hard drive? I would try that first as it should tell you if the hard drive is bad or fix it if it is something it can fix.

If you do need to re-install the OS and you have a time machine backup do a fresh install of the OS, not a TM backup, and then you can run the migration assistant to restore your user account and applications from the TM backup. When you do that you still have a clean OS and the only way you would bring the problem back would be if the problem is from an app or an app preference file which isn't likely.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Thanks Joe, i have done recovery, first aid, onyx and all other that is imaginable..... I will see what the Mac support person suggests tomorrow. There is definitely not any hardware issues here so an OS install seems imminent.....

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Spent 2 hours with applecare support on wednesday and after a reinstall and finally a hard drive erase and reinstall, they came to the conclusion it was a hardware problem. Took the computer to a mac service guy who said we needed a new hard drive. Picked up the computer thursday and did the migration thing before i left thursday afternoon. Came in today, fingers crossed. The migration was sucessfull, setup this password etc. and restarted. Same shit, no startup, hung up at about 70% on the status bar. Was on applecare support troubleshooting for about 5 hours today. No luck. Can boot up in safe mode and luckily able to get work out at this busy time of year with some odd short comings in safe mode. Called the guy that put in the new drive and he will come in on monday to try and figure it out. I think he might be some kind of mac ninja so i am hoping it will be sorted out. At least we have upgraded to a SSD which seems a lot snappier at opening up apps. One thing in safe mode is the USB ports dont work so the dongle for fiery xf wont work so we cannot run the Epson.  No wonder I 

[Joe]

So did you install the OS fresh and then migrate your user account and applications (GOOD) or did you just restore the whole mac back using the migration assistant (BAD)?

Never bring the whole system back from a backup on a system already having problems. Always install the OS fresh and then bring back just the user account and the applications.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

 :facepalm:My bad 

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Uder the diagnosis of a faulty hard drive and the guidance of the applecare tech, i ASSumed we were good to go. 

[Joe]

Which tells me they have no idea what was wrong and took a shot in the dark to replace the hard drive. Seen it more than once.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Yes now I have seen it once, hopefully not again.

To be fair though, the drive was making noise near the end, could have been multiple problems happening here.

[Joe]

Yes the hdd could have been going south and corrupted data. And then restoring the corrupted data brought the problems right back. That is my theory. Note: I have been wrong many times before. 

[pspdfppdfxhd]

I will refer your comment to my lawyer when my boss comes down on me when he finds out the "Mac ninja" is charging 180 dollars per hour. Happy Holidays! 

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Interesting development in this case, will update after the Mac ninja leaves tomorrow, stay tuned.

[pspdfppdfxhd]

Long story short, Mac Ninja had an accident and never showed up.

I read the verbose startup log out of terminal and happened to see alot of negative things regarding "sandbox". Deleted the .plist files from sandbox and it booted normally.

Ok, so I have no idea if I did something useful or if it just decided to startup on it's own. I have not shut down the Mac since last weekend out of fear and we've managed to pump out a lot of work before Xmas.

Somebody gave me a lead to another Mac Ninja which we'll try and contact next week.

Happy Holidays!

[Joe]

OMG!!!! You deleted the .plist files from the sandbox????? WOW! Good luck recovering from that!!!!!!!

(PS: I have no idea what those are but Merry Christmas)

[David]

he has unleashed the Kraken!!!

run for your lives!!!