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Macbook air login screen shows ‘update needed’ but cannot login

Hi all,

so when i turn on my macbook air the login screen appears with two logins, the guest login and my login, but with my login it appears as ‘update needed’ instead of my username and the icon has a silhouette. I can get as far as typing in my password and then it has the apple icon and loading bar and as soon as it loads the screen just goes black. The cursor still appears but is glitchy and when you press any buttons it makes noise. I can still login to the guest login. I have restarted my laptop now countless amounts of time, and even left it for days on end hoping if i just left it it might fix itself. I'm not sure how I’m supposed to update it though if i can’t even login to update it? Very confused, please help


Would really appreciate any tips or advice, thanks

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 10, 2019 4:34 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 10, 2019 8:52 PM

Hi mollie259,


It appears that you're using FileVault, which requires your password before the OS boots in order to access the encryption key. My guess as to what's going on is that your Mac is trying to update but something has gone wrong with the process. The guest user account continues to work though because (correct me if I'm wrong) it restarts your Mac and loads up Safari in macOS Recovery. If that isn't the case, let me know as your Mac isn't using FileVault then.


To resolve this issue, try reinstalling macOS. None of your data will be lost, unless you use Disk Utility to erase your startup disk.

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 10, 2019 8:52 PM in response to mollie259

Hi mollie259,


It appears that you're using FileVault, which requires your password before the OS boots in order to access the encryption key. My guess as to what's going on is that your Mac is trying to update but something has gone wrong with the process. The guest user account continues to work though because (correct me if I'm wrong) it restarts your Mac and loads up Safari in macOS Recovery. If that isn't the case, let me know as your Mac isn't using FileVault then.


To resolve this issue, try reinstalling macOS. None of your data will be lost, unless you use Disk Utility to erase your startup disk.

How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery - Apple Support

Macbook air login screen shows ‘update needed’ but cannot login

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