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catalina does not complete shutdown

Catalina does not complete shutdown on iMac. Desktop and menubar disappear, but Catalina Island background wallpaper remains on screen. Just sits there.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 11, 2019 7:15 AM

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73 replies

Nov 1, 2019 4:29 PM in response to greekgoddj

Im having the same issue. Everything was just perfect before my upgrade to Catalina. (MacBook Pro Mid-2015)

I noticed first that it was slower than usual, almost like it was thinking a tiny bit where I had not experienced this before. When I went to shut down, got to apple icon, then hit shutdown... Then it removes all icons on screen, just has the island photo, and a little spinning circle set of bars. They then stop spinning and after about 1-2 minutes screen goes black and then immediately has an error message in many languages stating it had an issue starting up???? Says it was forced to restart. It then after 20 seconds goes to my very first log-in start screen.. From there I then click the power icon on lower right under where I'd enter my password. only way I can shut it down. Getting tired of this, and no idea how to fix. Furthermore it runs pretty slow now compared to before. Getting tired of companies making fixes and updates to better systems that work perfect.

Nov 25, 2019 8:41 AM in response to antonello56

I have had the same problem as described: Macos Catalina 10.15.1, 2 external monitors on 27" Imac, Catalina is on an external USB3 boot SSD drive. I tried everything mentioned including the SCM reset. Nothing worked, regularly had the system crash on shutdown. Then I remembered that the external USB boot drive was on a powered USB3 hub and thought. I wonder if having power on the USB was causing the SCM reset to fail. All of the crash logs seemed to be indicating an SCM failure so the reset should fix it. Anyway I did the SCM reset again but this time I unplugged the USB hub as well. This time the fix seemed to stick and so far my shutdown crashes have subsided. I know I just jinxed it but maybe it's a real fix, we shall see. Now if I could just get the system to remember my display brightness settings for my Imac. Have to reset that every time... No wait I had assumed it was wrong but that stuck as well. Looks like a solid fix all around...life is good.

Nov 25, 2019 9:13 AM in response to bobandris

FWIW - I had a very similar problem (with Time Machine backups on an external USB disk).


For me, the Dock was still active. So I opened a Terminal window from the Dock and in it typed sudo reboot, which resulted in a completed restart. Ever since then when I Restart... from the Apple menu my iMac restarts fine every time now.


.... Well... It seems Mac OS X and Chrome don't play well together. On every restart I get a message that the iMac can't restart because Chrome didn't respond, even though Chrome does close. I just choose Try Again and the iMac completes the restart.

Dec 23, 2019 1:58 PM in response to Bryan Harding

Just a follow up on what I said about fixing the shutdown problem. This SCM fix only stuck for a day or two. After much searching and testing I decided to re-build my system from the ground up w/o migrating old data from my old system. It was time. I have been updating since 10.1 I think it was. Long time over many very stable updates this was the first time I had to do a full re-build from scratch. I figured all of the artifacts from old 32 bit software were getting in the way. Anyway this seems to have fixed the shut down problem permanently. It did not however fix the problem of the display brightness settings in my Imac re-setting to max after boot/reboot. FWIW this is a on a late 2015 27" imac with two 27" Apple external monitors. I'm sure this has something to do with the external monitors but who knows. Only the Imac fails to retain the brightness settings. Historically this has been a bug that crops up from time to time with new OS releases, all though I've never seen it on this Imac. I suspect it too will be squashed in the next release or two. Hope this helps someone else fix this problem.

Dec 29, 2019 8:09 PM in response to bobandris

I have a A1708 model. Upgraded to Catalina and this was the first issue I noticed. Accompanied by some distorted colors that the island wallpaper left before the screen went black, the island wallpaper appeared even if it wasn't the active wallpaper and the distorted colors would last about 1/4 of a second. I tried everything, even installing Catalina fresh without 32bit software and it would still freeze at shutdown. Only thing that would work was booting in safe mode, for some reason that kept some process from hanging at shutdown. I ended up going back to Mojave as it runs with no problems. I haven't tried Catalinas latest updates like the 10.15.1 or the 10.15.2 , maybe they patched it and didn't included it at the notes just to keep it a secret. Hope they fix this soon as I always like to keep my devices at the latest firmware.

Jan 11, 2020 12:51 PM in response to jap0nica

What external devices are connected to the iMac ? I literally had a Thunderbolt 2 dock connected to my iMac. Once I disconnected it would shutdown. I moved the devices from the TB2 dock to a USB hub and it still works. Rather it shuts down properly. It may be an external device that is causing the issue. Or the OS. In fact the random overnight crashes have stopped as well. Probably just jinxed myself.

catalina does not complete shutdown

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