rob7997

Q: Will not boot into Safe Mode

MacBook will not boot into Safe Mode, only fills bar to about one third and hangs up.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Feb 19, 2012 10:36 PM

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Q: Will not boot into Safe Mode

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  • by JCC,

    JCC JCC Jul 31, 2012 6:30 AM in response to rob7997
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 6:30 AM in response to rob7997

    I am having this problem as well that is persisting with my recent Mountain Lion upgrade.  Was there a solution found for this?

  • by Graham Perrin,

    Graham Perrin Graham Perrin Jul 31, 2012 7:07 AM in response to JCC
    Level 2 (259 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 31, 2012 7:07 AM in response to JCC

    Sorry, I have no progress to report. I, too, have upgraded to Mountain Lion. 

     

    My hunch (given elsewhere, but I can't find a link at the moment):

     

    • firmware, or a file relating to EFI, does not cater for safe boot in edge cases.

     

    What makes these cases edgey, I'm not sure.

     

    With significantly reduced numbers of folders and files on my OS X startup volume (respectively 344,220 and 1,687,485 at the time of writing) I reproduced this bug.

     

    JCC, please, what model is your MacBook Pro?

     

    How many folders and files are on the startup volume?

  • by JCC,

    JCC JCC Jul 31, 2012 7:19 AM in response to Graham Perrin
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Jul 31, 2012 7:19 AM in response to Graham Perrin

    I'm using a MacBookProp 13" circa July 2011, 8GB Ram, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5. I'm not sure how to find out how many files/folders are on the startup drive.  How would I look that up?

  • by Graham Perrin,

    Graham Perrin Graham Perrin Aug 1, 2012 1:51 AM in response to JCC
    Level 2 (259 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 1, 2012 1:51 AM in response to JCC

    Probably easiest to use Disk Utility.

  • by JCC,

    JCC JCC Aug 3, 2012 7:16 AM in response to Graham Perrin
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Aug 3, 2012 7:16 AM in response to Graham Perrin

    I have 251,167 folders and 1,4113 files, according to Disk Utility.

  • by pkayatz,

    pkayatz pkayatz Oct 1, 2012 4:53 AM in response to rob7997
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2012 4:53 AM in response to rob7997

    I have the same problem with an imac 2011

  • by ScotKight,

    ScotKight ScotKight Oct 6, 2012 10:22 AM in response to rob7997
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 6, 2012 10:22 AM in response to rob7997

    Chalk up one more with the same issue.  MBP Retina 8gb/512gb.  

     

    The system actually works great, but I was trying to run through a safe boot to see if it would stop the lsbox sandbox errors that came with 10.8.2.  (supposedly it stops them for a week or so)

     

    Just to make sure there are no other issues I ran fsck -fy, and it shows no issues in single user more.  Safe mode either via holding shift or nvram boot args -x -v it ends up stalled on **checking extended attributes file trying to do safe boot.

     

    Left it there for 3 hours once. No joy.

  • by Cerniuk,

    Cerniuk Cerniuk Oct 10, 2012 7:47 PM in response to korm
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Oct 10, 2012 7:47 PM in response to korm

    Same issue. Rwm repairs, reinstall, no joy. 

     

    Replied on this thread here too. Very frustrating.

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4190808?start=0&tstart=0

  • by fernst,

    fernst fernst Oct 10, 2012 9:31 PM in response to Cerniuk
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 10, 2012 9:31 PM in response to Cerniuk

    Same problem here on a Mac Pro 2009. What are "rwm repairs", fsck_hfs -Re?

  • by jianglai,

    jianglai jianglai Nov 1, 2012 8:27 PM in response to ScotKight
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 1, 2012 8:27 PM in response to ScotKight

    I'm exactly in the same shoes here. Try to stop the lsboxd error by booting into safe mode suggested by others on the board, got stuck in "checking extended attributes file". 2010 MBP.

  • by Cerniuk,

    Cerniuk Cerniuk Nov 2, 2012 3:57 AM in response to rob7997
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Nov 2, 2012 3:57 AM in response to rob7997

    Looking for commonality amonst sufferors here.  Security features can sometimes upset the Apple Cart.  Has anyone here

     

    1. activated FIPS mode
    2. set a firmware password
    3. encrypted their disk
    4. decrypted their disk
    5. used any kind of smart card reader for authentication
    6. enabled "root"
    7. ... other security feature not used by default

     

    For ref:

    FIPS mode info : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5239?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  • by JCC,

    JCC JCC Nov 2, 2012 7:06 AM in response to Cerniuk
    Level 1 (44 points)
    Nov 2, 2012 7:06 AM in response to Cerniuk

    I haven't done, nor am I using any of the above.  However, I am using Intego's VirusBarrier X6 and its suite of virus, network and malware protection services.  I also use Paralles 7 quite often to run certain financial software not availabile for Mac OS.  Not sure if any of that has any relevancy to this issue.

  • by ScotKight,

    ScotKight ScotKight Nov 2, 2012 8:49 AM in response to JCC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 2, 2012 8:49 AM in response to JCC

    I have none of the above enabled.

  • by Graham Perrin,

    Graham Perrin Graham Perrin Nov 11, 2012 7:17 AM in response to Cerniuk
    Level 2 (259 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 11, 2012 7:17 AM in response to Cerniuk

    Yes to some of those questions, but my hunch is that none of those factors are contributory.

     

    For anyone who is willing to experiment (in addition to your own feedback to Apple), you might try:

     

    1. use Time Machine for a backup of your startup volume, without exceptions
    2. erase that startup volume
    3. use Time Machine to restore
    4. as soon as possible after restoration, try safe mode
    5. if safe mode succeeds that soon then a few days later, try again.

     

    From what I recall (long ago), safe mode may work for only a while following restoration.

  • by David Losada,

    David Losada David Losada Nov 14, 2012 7:00 AM in response to Graham Perrin
    Level 1 (18 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 14, 2012 7:00 AM in response to Graham Perrin

    Add me to the list. Since Snow Leopard, I have not been able to do a safe boot. The gray bar stops at about one third and it stays there forever.

     

    I thoyght that it was due to a vestige of some old junk, but I've reinstalled ML to see if I avoid the pixelated icons, and things are the same. I still have the icon pixelation and the inability to boot into safe mode.

     

    Up until half reinstallion of all my apps, I was able to safe boot. But there's a point where it no longer does it. And I can't tell what is triggering it.

     

    Could it be related to the number of files and folders?

     

    Mountain Lion 10.8.2

    Folders : 451.584  Files: 1.729.631

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