iMac won’t start up
iMac 27″, macOS 10.15
Every now and then mine will do the same. Mine are the BT mouse and keyboard connection feedback images. For some reason, both will occasionally lag a little in connecting and the images show, but it's no big deal.
Every now and then mine will do the same. Mine are the BT mouse and keyboard connection feedback images. For some reason, both will occasionally lag a little in connecting and the images show, but it's no big deal.
Thank you for your quick response.
I’d been happily using the iMac with a with a wired extended keyboard and Magic Mouse, then after I’d left it for a couple of hours, I came back to it and it shut itself down.
On restarting, it looked like it was taking a bit longer than usual so I left it for a bit and when I came back, it was showing the mouse and keyboard diagrams alternately.
So, I googled this and tried a number of suggestions and at one point managed to get as far as the first aid window to check the volume - seemed ok.
I got as far as the Restore from Time Machine options. But this only gave me the option to restore to an external volume.
So this morning I’ve done as you suggested and got as far as the Apple logo and progress bar which held for a few minutes before shutting itself down again (all while still holding down the shift key).
Then I tried another normal restart (still with both wired keyboard and mouse) and after about five minutes, the screen showed the Apple logo and progress bar again before it shut itself down once more… Stalemate! 😟
Do you have a wired USB keyboard and mouse you can use to try to get past this hiccup?
If not, can you borrow them?
If rebooting your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer to safe boot (10 min) so be patient.
How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support
Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do. Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.
Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?
Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again.
If the problem is still unresolved, please return here and post a reply and we’ll see what else we can come up with for help.
Another update - after yet another failed restart, I got the "question mark in the folder" icon with the Apple support info at the bottom, so I'm assuming it's dead.
At least that's until I get to an Apple store which is at least a four hour round trip away, so that's not happening anytime soon!
Had a good 7 years out of it, though...... so, biting the bullet and ordered a brand new iMac!
iMac shows image of mouse and keyboard on startup
