robertk1

Q: Fix for El Capitan stuck at login

Last month I updated to 10.11.1 and my system would no longer log in.  I would enter my password correctly and then the cursor would change to the spinning pinwheel and just sit there forever.  The only way out was a power off reboot.  I later found that when it was in this state I could SSH into it from another machine, and the system log revealed that /usr/libexec/lsd (the Launch Services Daemon) was crashing repeatedly.  I searched these forums and others and found lots of ideas, none of which helped. 

 

No problem, though, I've got hourly time machine backups, right?  Well, no.  Apparently El Capitan had not been doing the hourly backups so my most recent backup was from sometime in October, which was a month old at the time.  Not good.

 

Fortunately, I had an older boot drive that I put in an external enclosure and was able to boot from that to experiment.  The drive I normally boot from was fine -- permission checks and disk repair and all that all came back good, and I could read and write files to it just fine.

 

After lots of experimentation and frustration I was just about to give up and add another drive to do a clean install and start moving everything over -- a process that I *really* hate doing.  But one last web search and a bit of luck gave my one last shot at fixing it.

 

To do this, you'll either need to be in a recovery console, or ssh into the machine, or boot from an external drive, or otherwise somehow get to a command prompt.  Once you are there, do this:

 

find /private/var/folders/ | grep com.apple.LaunchServices | grep csstore

 

Note that if you boot from an external drive, you need to run that command against the boot drive you are trying to fix.  Just add the /Volumes/Whatever_Your_Boot_Drive_is to the path, like so:

 

find /Volumes/YourBootDriveHere/private/var/folders/ | grep com.apple.LaunchServices | grep csstore

 

That will find the cache databases that Launch Services is using.  They will have long and random-looking names that end in csstor.  Make a note of every file shown, then delete them, by a command like this (obviously using whatever paths the above command found instead of this example):

 

rm  /private/var/folders/cd/someLongRandomNameHere/someFolderNumberHere/com.apple.L aunchService-whatever.csstore

 

If you're more cautious, you can rename them instead of deleting them, so you can put them back if necessary.  That would look like this:

 

mv  /full/path/like/shown/above/to/whatever.cssstore /full/path/like/shown/above/to/whatever.csstore.backup

 

After removing or renaming those files, restart your Mac.  You should now be able to log in.  Or at least, that's what finally worked for me.  The login did take longer than normal -- a few minutes -- to rebuild those files, but the desktop finally appeared, and now I'm back to running on my normal boot drive. 

 

Hopefully this helps someone.

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 13, 2015 3:47 AM

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Q: Fix for El Capitan stuck at login

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  • by roolo,

    roolo roolo Jul 6, 2016 2:02 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 6, 2016 2:02 PM in response to robertk1

    You saved me. I'll make our major to name our village after you!

  • by miglosch,

    miglosch miglosch Jul 7, 2016 8:02 AM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 7, 2016 8:02 AM in response to robertk1

    Thank you very much! This solved my problem with 10.11.6 (Beta)   Fortunately I had a very fast external HD with 10.11.4 so I could do this very easy in Terminal and Finder

  • by zoominmike,

    zoominmike zoominmike Jul 19, 2016 1:46 AM in response to miglosch
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 19, 2016 1:46 AM in response to miglosch

    thanks i found this to day 19th june after update of 10.11.6 last night i have this problem, but i can get to guest user but terminal won't accept my main user password, so i can't su to main user.Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 09.36.57.png

  • by spacebuoy,

    spacebuoy spacebuoy Jul 19, 2016 7:03 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 19, 2016 7:03 PM in response to robertk1

    Updating from 10.11.4 to 5/6

     

    Wahoo! After four days and two visits to the genius bar I also was about to dredge through a manual recover. I am hugely relieved to have found your post.

     

    It appears that the Utilities option in the command R recover window has been removed. I could not access terminal in this window. However, I was lucky to have a workable guest account so I opened terminal and SU'd to my main user account and sudo'd the csstore files as you suggested. Yeah

  • by jcjost1,

    jcjost1 jcjost1 Jul 20, 2016 8:03 AM in response to spacebuoy
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 20, 2016 8:03 AM in response to spacebuoy

    This worked for me!  I booted into recovery mode. Went to utilities/terminal and was able to delete the six csstore files.  Robertk1 is a lifesaver, especially for us iMac newbies.

     

    Thanks,

    John

  • by findering,

    findering findering Jul 22, 2016 1:29 AM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 22, 2016 1:29 AM in response to robertk1

    Hello,

     

    this one solved the problem for me.

     

    Thank you so much!

  • by kneeL23,

    kneeL23 kneeL23 Jul 22, 2016 12:35 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 22, 2016 12:35 PM in response to robertk1

    didnt fix my issue but this at least gets my drive mounted and visible to disk utility again.   But after rebooting I still get stuck in the progress bar of "unlocking" the drive after login

  • by fatbeets,

    fatbeets fatbeets Jul 22, 2016 6:52 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 22, 2016 6:52 PM in response to robertk1

    Nice! fixed my issue after updating to 10.11.6 on 2008 Mac pro. I executed this from the terminal in Recovery mode.

     

    user account login since update to OS x 10.11.6

    helped also.

  • by Michael Newbery,

    Michael Newbery Michael Newbery Jul 22, 2016 8:23 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 4 (2,424 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Jul 22, 2016 8:23 PM in response to robertk1

    Excellent! Thanks it worked perfectly.

  • by grobbs,

    grobbs grobbs Jul 25, 2016 12:53 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 25, 2016 12:53 PM in response to robertk1

    Thanks Robertk1, stumbled across this post following my login screen just cycling back to the login after password entry on Sierra public beta 2. Have had to go back to beta 1 from time machine. Alternative account and guest account worked however.

    Any reason this work around you have explained would be different on MacOS Sierra?

    Thanks

  • by John Taylor,

    John Taylor John Taylor Jul 26, 2016 6:36 AM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 26, 2016 6:36 AM in response to robertk1

    Hi Robert, Thank you so much, this rescued me on my mid2012 mbp 15" retina with 16b memory. I was migrating from 10.11.5 to 10.11.6.

     

    I had to login as guest, create a new administrator account, and use sudo from terminal in the new account to get through deleting all of the csstore files.

     

    Apple - this looks like something microsoft used to do to people back in the day!

  • by Simon Knight,

    Simon Knight Simon Knight Jul 26, 2016 3:09 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 26, 2016 3:09 PM in response to robertk1

    I had the same problem after updating to El Capitan 10.11.6.

    This fix of removing the com.apple.LaunchService....csstore files worked for me too.

    I booted from my back drive and used the "Go to Folder..." option under the Go menu in Finder to locate the files before dragging them to a desktop folder.  This avoided going into the Terminal app and using the command based approach.

    Thanks a million for the solution.

  • by smulvey7272,

    smulvey7272 smulvey7272 Jul 27, 2016 6:53 AM in response to Simon Knight
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 27, 2016 6:53 AM in response to Simon Knight

    Hello Capitans of the mac.  Reading these posts my bald spot got bigger, there is no way I can do this.  Then I found one posting that went step by step for us mac idiots.  Once I went over the directions 10x I gave it a shot and it seems to have fixed the problem.  I restarted and things ran so much faster.  I shut down at 2am from exhaustion and such a feeling of YES!  This morning turned on my mac and I got the grey screen again.  I do not know why.  I rebooted and had to press the space bar.  2 accounts came up, mine and the one I created last night because I thought I had to to access terminal.  But didn't need to I was able to access through the admin account.

    Why do I still have to hit the space bar?  Did I miss a step?  I read it needed to rebuild the files and may take longer, I gave it 5 minutes but grew impatient.  I downloaded (from apple) the combo pack would this install help or should I not do? 

     

    To the savor that posted this THANK YOU SO MUCH I HAVE BEEN TORMENTED FOR OVER A MONTH WITH THIS ISSUE!!!!  Newbie that just know how to turn on/off follow these direction posted by the savor....

     

    [DocumentBodyStart:fe826d40-b5b7-427f-bb80-f03ff9b288b7]

    i'm also a novice but with some patience worked it out. copy and paste this line 'as is' into terminal and enter:

     

    sudo find /private/var/folders/ | grep com.apple.LaunchServices | grep csstore

     

    copy the list that is revealed in terminal into textedit, then copy and paste the line below into terminal, copy each line from textedit (one at a time) and paste directly after sudo rm / and run each line one at a time.

     

    sudo rm /

     

    example:

     

    sudo rm /private/var/folders/cd/blahblahblah/blahblahblah.csstore

     

    MINE LOOKED LIKE

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//_r/g7p10qhs6z166sscv1whp_xw0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-107501.csstore

    /private/var/folders//_r/g7p10qhs6z166sscv1whp_xw0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServic es-134501.csstore

    /private/var/folders//ng/6zd5smxj4k13y54bwfmy9d580000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServic es-107501.csstore

    /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.LaunchServic es-1070.csstore

    /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.LaunchServic es-1340.csstore

    /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000084000021/0/com.apple.LaunchServic es-1070.csstore

     

     

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//_r/g7p10qhs6z166sscv1whp_xw0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-134501.csstore

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//ng/6zd5smxj4k13y54bwfmy9d580000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-107501.csstore

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-1070.csstore

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-1340.csstore

    sudo rm /private/var/folders//zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000084000021/0/com.apple.LaunchServi ces-1070.csstore

     

    See wasn't that hard everyone....just take your time.  If anyone can please help with the issue I am still having it would be appreciated.  thank you.

  • by Edison517,

    Edison517 Edison517 Jul 27, 2016 6:34 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Jul 27, 2016 6:34 PM in response to robertk1

    Thank you!! This fixed my iMac (11,1) after it wouldn't boot, after updating to 10.11.6. *** apple?!  I moved my files, just to make sure I could put them back. Worked perfect!

  • by Gator TPK,

    Gator TPK Gator TPK Jul 30, 2016 9:18 PM in response to robertk1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 30, 2016 9:18 PM in response to robertk1

    Wow, that's awesome.  Your solution worked perfectly!  I updated to OS X 10.11.6 (or macOS before Sierra?) and then I had the issue of hanging after I typed my login password.

     

    I happened to have another internal volume with Sierra on it, so I booted from that.  I used the terminal commands to rename the offending LaunchServices | csstore files.  I could have just used the finder to do it, however using the grep command really made it easier to find them.

     

    Thanks again!

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