melerwin80
Level 1 (4 points)
Mac OS X

Q: Many Problems after El Capitan then downgrade to Yosemite

Hello, I am on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011), refurbished

2.2 GHz Intel Core 17

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

I have 859.48 GB free out f 998.07 GB

SATA disk

Running (barely) on OS X Yosemite Version 10.10.5

 

This is a refurbished MacBook Pro I purchased a little over a year ago with absolutely no problems until I attempted the El Capitan update a week ago.

First, the update took several hours overnight to download. It then took more than 14 hours to install. After finalizing installing and restarting, the machine seemingly was fine, but I had only surfed the web normally on Google Chrome.

The following day, shortly after turning the machine on, going through a considerably faster booting and log-in process, and beginning again to surf the web via Chrome, everything went haywire. The MacBook froze up, I got a gray screen, then it crashed and turned itself off.

At this point, it refused to so much as boot up and instead stalled on the white pre-Apple logo screen. After I held down the power button to force it to turn off, waiting a minute, and then turned it back on, it would only boot as far as the Apple logo screen with the progress bar and then hang. I tried leaving it to see if it would eventually finishing the boot, no dice.

 

LONG VERSION:

I began to trouble shoot all the typical post El Capitan boot fixes.

1. It will not enter Safe Mode by holding the shift key in start up. I do not have FileVault enabled. I do not remember if I have a firmware password set.

2. I was able to boot it into the Recovery Mode using the Command + R while restarting - exactly ONCE. At that point, I used Utilities and my external back up (Passport for Mac) to restore it back to pre-El Capitan Yosemite. Again, things seemed fine that night and I was able to use Chrome normally.

3. The next day the same problems started up all over again, however, now it will no longer enter into Recovery Mode. Either again, I would be stuck on the white pre-logo screen, or stuck on the logo screen, or sometimes it would boot through then hang on the white screen again.

4. Next I tried to resent the NVRAM upon rebooting. This works sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes it again just hangs up on some portion of the booting process.

5. I booted it into Single User mode and went through a trouble shooting series of commands there. Again, that worked - exactly ONCE. Since the one time, it will boot to Single User mode most of the time, but following the directions from before will not yield any results.

6. I have booted it into Internet Restore Mode using Option + Command + R. Repeat: this worked exactly ONCE. I was able to restore to Yosemite 10.10.4, thought it was good, but nope, 3rd day, crash, no booting. None of the previous fixes were working. Also, now, Command + R on start will automatically go into this mode, and not recovery mode. When Internet Recovery Mode finishes, it again hangs up on the white screen and refuses to boot.

 

I am no longer able to access Recovery Mode to use Utilities to erase disk.

 

7. After resetting the SMC (shift+control+option+command while holding the power button) AND the NVRAM, I am able to boot the machine and enter to Utilities from Finder and run Disk Utilities. I have run all disk permissions, I have repaired all permissions,  I have repaired the disk. Repeatedly. Same things happen, I do much more than surf the web and it crashes. No booting. No Recovery Mode. Internet Recovery Mode hangs up. Single User Mode doesn't yield results. Also, I can no longer erase MacIntosh HD.

 

8. I use Time Machine to restore to my most recent back up. No dice. Same deal as all of the above.

 

9. Eventually it does reboot after resetting the SMC and NVRAM again. I then upgrade from Yosemite 10.10.4 to 10.10.5. Now, I continue to have all the same problems as above, but I can no longer run Google Chrome or Spotify. With both apps, I get an immediate error message stating "Chrome/Spotify has unexpectedly quit" before anything starts at all.

 

10. I removed Chrome and attempted to reinstall, same issue.

 

SHORT VERSION:

1. I updated to El Capitan and the next day my MacBook Pro began crashing and shutting itself off, then refusing to reboot.

2. I followed all the directions on Apple's Support forums including attempting to boot in Safe Mode (fail). I was able to enter Recover Mode and restore to an earlier version back up exactly ONCE. Now, it will no longer reboot into Recovery Mode.

3. I followed directions for booting into Single User Mode. This worked exactly ONCE.

4. I ran Disk Utility First Aid and checked/repaired permissions and repaired the disk repeatedly. Problems persist.

5. I booted into Internet Recovery Mode. This worked exactly ONCE, and now instead of regular Recover Mode booting on command+R, it goes right to Internet Recovery Mode. After that finishes, it hangs on the white screen indefinitely, then sometimes it will go to a totally black screen indefinitely or shut itself down again.

6. I used resetting the SMC and NVRAM and managed to boot fully. I then upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.5 and lost my Chrome and Spotify. The MacBook continues to crash and shut down at random. Resetting the SMC + NVRAM seems to help with the booting, but the crashing while using anything besides Safari persists and reinstalling Chrome still leads to an instant "Chrome has unexpectedly quit" error message before it even starts.

 

This Mac came to me with Yosemite already installed and I have no disk to use to install it after a clean wipe. I am able to surf the web and that's mostly it.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Aug 5, 2016 1:27 PM

by JimmyCMPIT,Solvedanswer
JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT
Level 5 (6,732 points)
Mac OS X
A:

unless 10.10 is backed up on an archive, available to you from a Time Machine backup or in your App store purchases there is no legal way to obtain it any longer.

if you have the disks that came with the computer as it predates internet recovery you can recover to that OS but you are limited to upgrade to OS's in your App Store account. If you do not have any that option is strictly 10.11.6

Posted on Aug 6, 2016 9:23 AM

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melerwin80

Q: Many Problems after El Capitan then downgrade to Yosemite

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  • Helpful answers

  • by JimmyCMPIT,Solvedanswer

    JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT Aug 6, 2016 9:23 AM in response to melerwin80
    Level 5 (6,732 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 6, 2016 9:23 AM in response to melerwin80

    unless 10.10 is backed up on an archive, available to you from a Time Machine backup or in your App store purchases there is no legal way to obtain it any longer.

    if you have the disks that came with the computer as it predates internet recovery you can recover to that OS but you are limited to upgrade to OS's in your App Store account. If you do not have any that option is strictly 10.11.6

  • by melerwin80,

    melerwin80 melerwin80 Aug 6, 2016 9:32 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 6, 2016 9:32 AM in response to Eric Root

    Thanks! I haven't had time in the past 24 hours to look through all the material, but I will definitely check into it and see if there's an option in these articles that I haven't yet tried.

  • by melerwin80,

    melerwin80 melerwin80 Aug 15, 2016 1:14 PM in response to melerwin80
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 15, 2016 1:14 PM in response to melerwin80

    Update on the situation:

    I was finally able to get my refurbed 2011 MacBook Pro to boot into Recovery Mode, though it still seems that when it decides to allow this to happen is somewhat random. I connected my external MyPassPort drive, hold the Option key during start up, and it slowly booted to the point where I was able to use the MyPassPort as the start up disk. This then immediately booted it into full Recovery Mode where I was able to fully use Disk Utility. After Verifying all the Disk Permissions, Repairing all the Disk Permissions, Verifying the disks and then Repairing the Disks, the final result shows that as far as Disk Utilities is concerned, I have no hardware issues - at least that it can detect and fix.

     

    After this, I was able to Restore my most recent back up from Time Machine and downgrade back down to Yosemite 10.10.4., however, the biggest problems persist. All seemed normal - I was again able to use Chrome as my preferred browser and my Spotify was intact. However, when I used Spotify, everything was normal until I tried to also open Photoshop. At this point, Spotify would continue working and Photoshop would start and open the intended file I wanted to work on, but would hang up after the image opened and leave me with the spinner. Finder would show "Adobe Photoshop (unresponsive)" and I would force it to quit. At this point, I shut all programs down fully, waited a few minutes to allow any behind the scenes stuff to finish out, and then shut the machine down.

     

    The booting issues returned. Same drill as above - no one single "step" or "key command" would work twice in a row. I could get it to boot up in Safe Mode one time, then after restarting, Safe Mode couldn't be accessed. Recovery Mode would boot once, but not again. Clearing the SMC and NVRAM would work once, but not again. I wound up again eventually forcing it to shut down with the power button several times in a row with MyPassPort connected and got the Recovery Mode to boot. Once again, I used Time Machine to erase and restore. Again, I used Disk Utility to Verify, Repair, so on and so forth. And again, after a day it acted normal and then froze up and force itself to restart, then hang on some part of the booting process.

     

    What I have found is that it's easier and quicker to just catch it when it hangs on booting and forcing it to shut off manually with the power button, then trying to start up again. It will then either immediately boot normally, or I will have to rinse and repeat 4-5 times and it will eventually boot through normally. I can use Photoshop and Spotify, but not at the same time. I can surf the internet with Chrome normally, but sometimes YouTube videos will initiate a freak out and crash. Also, when I used Time Machine, files I had created in the meantime I assumed would be erased were still intact.

     

    Now what I notice is a "freak out to freeze up to shutdown" is often proceeded by the screen attempting to "split," like some remnant of El Capitan remains and is trying to force it into split screen mode. I don't know, I never got far enough into El Capitan before downgrading to use that function. But that seems to be the initiator of the symtpoms - something seems to get scrambled on the screen, then meltdown follows. Machine shuts itself off, I try to boot, it either does or I force it to shut down and boot again until it does. So on and so forth.

     

    Remaining options - I haven't done a total erase/reformat and reinstallation of iOS, which IS backed up on MyPassport. I can do that I suppose and then manually (and painstakingly) restore my individual files piecemeal. That's not going to be fun but it's the last step before I break down and schedule a Genius Bar appointment and/or start looking at hardware (specifically GPU related) replacements.