First Aid: deferred repairs failed error message

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Level 1

8 points

First Aid: deferred repairs failed error message

I have seen several posts on this topic but I have a more narrow case.

When I run First Aid via the disk utility from recovery mode I do not get any errors and I get the green check mark. All looks good there.

But, when I run First Aid from the disk utility in normal mode, this is the result:

I see the "deferred repairs failed" message, but I also note that it says "operation successful" and at the top of the window I see the big green check mark.

My MacOS version is 10.15.5

My question is, in this context, does anyone know if the "deferred repairs failed" message is something to be concerned about?

Thanks much for any advice anyone has.

MacBook

Posted on Jun 6, 2020 9:08 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

69,170 points

Jun 6, 2020 5:08 PM in response to mlemmert11

I've encountered a similar issue with several of our organization's Macs which makes no sense why errors are shown while booted to macOS, but are not present at all when booted into Recovery Mode (those errors are not even listed much less repaired in Recovery Mode).

I have found Disk Utility to be very unreliable over the years, but it is even more unreliable with checking APFS volumes. I recently had a volume Disk Utility reported as "OK", but when checking the details it showed hundreds of errors which were not fixed. These errors were so bad it prevented booting into Internet Recovery Mode and even crashed another Mac when trying to mount the drive with the laptop in Target Disk Mode.

If you are not having problems, then you may be able to let it go. If it concerns you (it would concern me), then backup everything and boot into Recovery Mode or from a macOS USB installer to use Disk Utility to erase the physical drive as GUID partition and APFS (top option) so it creates a brand new fresh file system hopefully without any errors. Then reinstall macOS or restore from a backup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

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