Restarts two times

I, too, have a mid-2014 MacBook Pro with this issue, otherwise seems normal. I do usually have an USB bridge with two USB HDDs connected, but experience this "slow double-boot" with the disks disconnected and even when booting repeatedly in Safe mode. My model is MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) with 8 GB original RAM and an internal OWC  480GB Aura Pro X2 SSD as my System disk. I orginally suspected this 3rd party hardware, but your experience indicates perhaps not.

I have run couple of months with Catalina, and booted to Big Sur 11.2.1 a few days ago and ran the upgrade to 11.2.2. Other than this boot issue, and ocassional unresposiveness of external disks, behavior is normal. The issue probably existed before the 11.2.2 update but I am not certain. Boot issue exists even when 3rd party software is removed, so I expect this is some low-level boot issue with mid-2014 MacBook Pros.

I attach requested full EntreCheck report. The 2021-03-01 15:31:24 Kernel Panic (2 times) is because the external disk(s) were hung, but this boot problem still happens when the USB Bridge with disks is not plugged in. (ANKER 4-port USB 3 hub, Product 0x0813 and Vendor 0x2109 (VIA Labs, Inc.) according to System Information.).

Apple is pretty vague about the MacOS 11.2.2 fix for USB hubs being only for more recent MacBook Pro models... as if the issue did no exist for the older models???

I cannot attach the EntreCheck PDF so do so as "Additional Text"

Thanks, I am glad you fixed your problem, but I already had FileVault off, but it was on earlier. It appears to me that perhaps restart always leads to booting twice, but power down may allow mid-2014 MacBook Pro to come up once normally.

Here is what I did:

• turn FileVault On and wait for the disk to get encrypted
• restart twice ( both time experienced the slow double-boot)
• turn FileVault OFF and wait for the disk to be decrypted
• restart (experience slow double-boot)
• Disk Utility verifies that Data volume is NOT encrypted
• restart (experience slow double-boot)
• shutdown so machine is powered off, and disconnect USB Bridge with external disks, close lid, wait 10 minutes
• open lid, power on, it did boot once and was up in one minute
• restart from login prompt, and it boots twice again...
• login and connect disks/power down by select Shut Down from Apple Menu, close lid
• press power button and boots once with login prompt in less than a minute

Today's (8-Mar-2021) update to 11.2.3 seems to have fixed the double-restart but Reboot still seems to take a long time

• 0 sec reboot from running 2014 MacBook Pro with SSD and two external HDDs.
• 35-40 sec with spinner until the screen goes bland
• 50-70 sec for gong
• 90-100 sec until login prompt.

I am satisfied with this, even thought it may be much longer than average-- at least is seems to do a single boot.

I think you make a good choice to wait for the M1 MacBook. We are very happy with our new M1 Mac mini, and glad that I made the decision to upgrade to 16 GB RAM and 1TB SSD. We, too, would be waiting for this year's M1 MacBook if this 'vintage' model was our main machine.

Hello, everyone. Have the same restarting issue with my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014).

I used to use the latest Mojave version with updates, then upgraded it to the latest Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91), together with Windows 10 on the second partition with Bootcamp: 200GB APFS Container + 300GB PCI Internal Physical Volume for Windows (NTFS). There is APFS (Encrypted) in the APFS Container, FileVault turned on.

After the upgrade macOS started to turnoff/restart longer, about +30 seconds, on the first boot after restart macOS restarts on the first login (user pick) screen, if I boot or reboot into Windows10 it restarts too, several seconds after Windows Login screen appears. After the restart, corresponding system boots up normally (macOS or Windows10). NVRAM reset did not take an effect.

On my second machine MBP Retina 15-inch, Mid 2015 with clean Big Sur wipe+install to a non-encrypted volume and FileVault activation there are no problems either with long and with double restarts. (no Windows/Bootcamp, only the one macOS installation)

I think this or next weekend I'll try to play more with my Mid 2014 and probably try to make clean reinstall, but looks like this is not a macos-dependent issue. Perhaps some efi/bootloader/power management issues?

I have this issue too on my 2014 15" MacBook Pro. I do also have FileVault enabled. When I restart, it takes a long time once the screen goes black before the Apple logo comes up. If I log in right away once the login prompt comes up, everything goes normally. If I don't get to it right away once the login screen comes up, after a short period of time it will reboot itself and come back up to the login screen again. It never did this until I installed Big Sur. I still have the original 1TB Apple SSD inside.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

The long restart could be due to something you have installed. My wife has a 2014 MBP and I don’t think restarting is any slower than before.

And while it may be true this is the last version to support it, there is still no official word on that. These have been great macs and will continue to work even if they can’t be upgraded to whatever comes next. They should at least get security updates for roughly the next two years.

Typical reboot for me is :

• 0 sec: reboot (screen goes blank)
• 40-45 sec: first boot chime
• 70-75 sec: second boot chime
• 90-100 sec: loading thermometer appears
• 120-140 sec: login prompt appears

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here.