Q: Boot up after installing El Capitan

The problem will be related to obsolete applications that can't be properly authenticated by the boot loader.

Try booting up with Verbose mode turned on (Command-V). This will tell you where the process hangs.

In my case, it turned out to be the Eltima SyncMate app, but for good measure, I went through the apps and removed anything that was ancient, unnecessary, etc. I then went through Application Support, Launch Agents and Preferences folders in both /Library & ~/Library and removed anything that was no longer relevant (i.e., for all the apps I had removed).

It would be awesome if these tasks happened automatically when removing apps, but at least I know that I've done some housecleaning. If I had done that prior to using Migration Assistant, there would have been no issues. And the system now boots remarkably quickly (27" 5K Retina iMac, 32GB RAM & 3TB Fusion drive).

According to apple care it has noting to do with any of that.  Because it happens even after doing a clean install of el capitan on a formatted drive.  You have to format the drive, install an older version of the os then install  el capitan over it.   It is  a problem with the installer.  A bug, that does not happen if you install over a clean install of an older OS, but can happen during a clean install as well as on a normal install over a "non clean" system

Indeed. According to Apple care it can  happen even after doing a clean install of el capitan on a formatted drive.  You have to format the drive, install an older version of the os , then install  el capitan over it.   It is  a problem with the installer.  A bug, that does not happen if you install over a clean install of an older OS, but can happen during a clean install as well as on a normal install over a "non clean" system

Chiming in here for all the people who have been able to successfully install OS 11 off of the original 11.0 installer: I am up to 9 successful upgrades from 10.10 and one from 10.7. These are all upgrades over far from clean installs. These systems have both Apple and Adobe software and one still contained PowerPC applications (that obviously don't run but are littered about.) The systems range from laptops to desktops, from 2009 to 2014. There seems to be a lack of consistency to this "bug" then.

If the old apps you didn't clean up are Apple or likely to be well-supported by Apple (even ancient PPC versions, which would be another issue unrelated to kext-files), then I'm guessing that the installer knows what to do with those.

This issue that I experienced was my first problem with the El Cap install over a large number of hardware and OS versions as well—I think my upgrade count is around 12 or so systems so far.

This was the first one that had really, really old & obscure apps installed, which had likely been through several previous upgrades without cleaning them up.

Because this happened to work does not mean it solves the problem. Think about it. How could installing one OS and then another OS on top of it really be better than installing an OS to a truly EMPTY hard drive? I had this issue and resolved it by truly wiping the drive clean and installing El Capitan from scratch. I've seen people then restore or migrate their data which seems to then re-introduce the problem due to then bringing back the problem software. I ended up re-installing all of my apps from scratch and then just copied over my data. Life has been fine ever since.

Regardless of the person at Apple that suggested installing an old OS and then upgrading it, I think they may have tried it and since it worked, they then said "that is the way to do it". I (who do not work for Apple) suggest that there is no need to install an old OS first. Installing El Capitan to a truly empty disk is sufficient. Do not then do a restore or migration of apps since you will probably bring back the software that is causing the issue.

A.

Very logical. Doing the app install on the new OS, then migrating only the data would guarantee that you're not going to screw up the OS. I may retool my migration approach to doing it this way. Apps either come from the Apps Store, or from downloads from the major providers (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.), which have all moved to subscription models or User ID to download. Even Office 2011's recent challenge was solved by the latest update (14.5.7).

Sounds logical, I agree, but I called apple because I had the problem even after doing a clean install on a just formated drive.  Install, first boot ok, all working, then after sitching off , impossible to boot again.  And that was BEFORe even migrating my apps and docs over from my back up.   I redid formatting and clean installs again 4 times and no go  till the Apple employee told me to reinstall the original os from internet recovery and then install el capitan over that.  He said he had has 10 people with the problem this week and they all were solved in this way.  He seemed as ****** off as we are...  And by the way, after doing this  I migrated lal my old apps and settings and docs  in exactly the same way I had initially, without deleting any kext files or "touching" my extensions folder or removing any old potentially incompatible anything.

and it works perfectly

it sounds crazy.  but hey,  it worked.   It is not good.  it is not logical,  it is not acceptable,   but I can get on the plane tomorrow with a fully working computer after a week end from ****.

That is so weird. In the end I guess the only important thing is that it works (even if it makes no sense).

Well at least now we have two different ways for people to try to alleviate this issue.

A.

I also can confirm that this has to do with third party plugins. Both of my customers Mac's, one from 2011 and 2013 had both the same issue. Very, very unlikely.

On page 3 or page 4 I cited a code that let me able to boot in again, and then I deleted all old software and plugins that may prevent the boot up process. Emptied the loginagents, and since then my customer hasn't called me back. I have done several reinstalls, and install over installs and that didn't fix it.

Hi,

I have the same problems but even more I have a File Vault encryption. Nothing seems to work. do you have any suggestion?

tks,

irina

OK - I'm done with El Capitan - Not going to bother anymore.

I wiped the SSD, did an internet install with a pristine version of Lion. Installed the release version of El Captian (10.11.1). Tested the reboot - worked fine.

Did a migration of all my data and apps - will NOT REBOOT.

The only other thing I can think of is to manually bring everything across one at a time and see if I can find what causes it.

But seriously - I work - I have 3 kids under 9 and I look after my mother who has dementia. I cannot do Apple's work for them.

I was on the Windows Insider program - and had early builds of Windows 10 that were better behaved than this.

Sorry Apple - you've lost me now - I'm not bothering to upgrade my 2012 Macbook Pro retina now - it can stay with Yosemite until next year's iteration - and if that doesn't work - then it can stay with Yosemite until it's end of life.

I know you have sworn off the new OS, however it seems to me that the "a migration of all my data and apps" stage is causing this issue (with you and many others who have commented here.)

While walking away and spending your free time with your family is certainly a viable and preferred option (although I don't know your family first hand), have you considered doing a clean install, migrating your data (not preferences), and re-installing your apps? A one at a time install of apps, while annoying, will certainly identify which of your applications are causing the problem.

Just a suggestion...

Yeah sorry about my rant - its frustrating - as this is the first upgrade in three years from Apple that has stalled.

And yes - I have indeed tried a clean install and just migrating my account and data only. No apps at all - same issue.

As I say the only way this may work is to do a clean install - and set up everything up manually again. Trouble is without knowing what is causing the boot stall - I could install something and it would stall again. And I'll be back at square one.

The frustrating thing is - I can go and reinstall El Capitan from recovery and it installs just fine - and runs perfectly fine - I did that for over a week - no issues - until I go to reboot. It is crazy.

And Yosemite boots and reboots and runs just fine too.

Nope - I'm going to wait now until Apple acknowledge a fix for this.

I'm now restoring back to Yosemite - and staying there.

You may wanna do a EtreCheck and post the result in here: http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck