Q: FileVault stuck on "Encryption Paused"

Talked to tech support advisor this morning who verified that, yes, FileVault is not working properly but suggested I give the Air about 6 hours to run in order to see if FileVault is actually encrypting the drive.

6 hours later (after running *with the power cord plugged in*), the Air still says encryption is paused until the power cord is plugged in. Sigh.

According to the advisor, the next step may be a restore from Time Machine but I'd like to speak to the tech before tackling that. Due to time differences, the tech support I spoke to is off duty & now I'm on hold with the Apple general tech support number.  Adding to the urgency is the fact that I'm leaving on a 2-week trip tomorrow & wanted the (working) laptop with me. What a royal pain.

Same problems , same isssues, same blocking bug for me

@Apple : please a fix asap

thanks

a.

+1

Early 2011 MacBook Pro. 'Encryption Paused' although power adapter is plugged in.

- PRAM Reset no good

- SMC Reset no good

- 'sudo fdesetup disable' no good

- Turn Off Encryption via Disk Utility no good (both normal and recovery mode)

@apple: please fix asap

According to tech advisors I spent three hours on chat with last night, the only solution was to do a Internet recovery, erase the SDD (on my MBA), reinstall Mavericks from my back-up disk, then reinstall Yosemite AFTER CHECKING THAT FILEVAULT WAS NOT LEFT AS THE DEFAULT. It took all night and a few hours this morning, but around noon Yosemite was running and the cursed FileVault wasn't.

In my case, it hung and then came up with a random number for the time encryption would be complete. Numbers were weird, varying from a couple days to as many as 600 and changing every few minutes. On top of that, encryption began heating up my machine so the fan kept going. Like everyone else, I found there was no way out of FileVault until the encryption was complete and so long as encryption couldn't complete, it kept going. Catch 22.

The two tech advisors, and the two sr. advisors I had to deal with to get some solution were unanimously skeptical about FileVault being of much value to anyone not acutely worried about someone stealing data on a machine and advised against using it at all. And all said they thought it was a mistake by Apple to make FileVault on by default in installing Yosemite.

@assignment: hudge workaround

FYI, what I've tried with NO SUCCESS:

- I've run Disk Utility : Verify Permission + Repair  + Verify Disk + Repair Disk: error found so :

- Booting using the cmd+R then  Disk Utility : Verify Permission + Repair  + Verify Disk + Repair Disk : no more error on my disk

- Then I restarted and ...... still the message on filevault : need to plug power cord ...blabla....  no success

- Finally, I've tried to re-install Yosemite (using cmd+R when restarting)

=> no SUCCESS too 

unfortunately, Since I don't have a maverick backup, I have to wait a fix by Apple

a.

Hi,

same problem, i've try the command in terminal but no way

i've resolved the issued doing this:

restarting my mac book pro ssd 500gb

reset pram with option+cmd+p+r

booting with cmd+r the utility disc (i've macintosh hd and one partition encrypted (the one with encoding paused)) >select the partition encrypted>click file and unlock>repair the partition disk>repair permission on partition>repair macintosh hd

restar

the encryption was resumed, after almost 9 hour the encryption ended.

Hope this can help you.

Federico

Thanks Federico,

Just did exactly what you described and the encryption has resumed.

Did these exact things and my encryption resumed!  Nothing else before this worked.

Wow, thanks.  Hopefully it finishes

From a terminal session I did "sudo fdesetup disable" this turned off FileVault and started the decryption process.  I am seeing some increased responsiveness.  I can actually see letters as I type them.  5 hours of decryption to go.  Apple never should have turned the default to FileVault to ON. 

Thank you, Scafede.  I followed your instructions and they worked perfectly.

When I chatted with Apple tech support yesterday, their only proposed solution was restoring the hard drive from a Mavericks backup and then reinstalling Yosemite, something I was unwilling to do.  I hope they read this forum and take note of your fast, relatively simple remedy for this serious flaw in Yosemite 10.10.

Once again, thank you for your help.

thanks scafede. finally encryption resumed…

i think the combination of PRAM reset with the immediate reboot into recovery-mode might have done the trick.

Thanks Frederico,
Your solution appears to have solved the issue for me as well.

After performing your steps, the encryption is continuing with the next steps.

/Jens

Resetting the PRAM seems to have solved all of my issues.

Sadly the PRAM reset and CMD-r fails for me it starts but then sticks again

Try Scafede's solution.  It will work.