Mac crashing instantly on reboot

Question

Level 1

4 points

Mac crashing instantly on reboot

Hello, I have an early 2015 Macbook Pro (I think it’s running on Catalina, if not, not the latest OS). Recently it’s crashed twice but without any of the hallmark forewarnings I’m used to, and didn’t have an error report on rebooting, I thought it was strange but just tightened up on my RAM usage and it was fine until today, where it suddenly crashed and hasn’t let me login.

I have tried to reboot it multiple times but when I get to the login page (or before) the screen goes black (Instantly, or halfway through inputting the password). I press the power button again, it tones, apple symbol appears, screen goes black, and the cycle repeats itself. Sometimes it boots up with a blaring fan before crashing. The keyboard backlights haven’t come on.

It has been running well recently, I don’t visit dodgy sites and have an anti-virus installed.

Any help/advice would be appreciated :-) I can’t afford a new one at the moment and it is an important machine.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 31, 2023 5:03 PM

Reply

Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

63,896 points

Dec 31, 2023 6:46 PM in response to foursTrial

Try booting into Safe Mode to see if you can make it to the Desktop. If this works, then most likely some third party software is interfering with the normal operation of macOS. The anti-virus software is a likely culprit, so are any cleaning/optimizer apps and third party security software.....none of which are needed on a Mac.

If you cannot boot into Safe Mode, then try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. Unfortunately the diagnostics don't usually reveal issues, but it never hurts to check.

You can try booting into Recovery Mode (Command + R) and Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) so you can run Disk Utility First Aid on the hidden Container. Just make sure the online installer version is the same or newer than what you have installed on the internal SSD since older versions of macOS won't understand the new drive layout and APFS file system used by macOS 10.13+. Within Disk Utility click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Even if First Aid says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If so, then run First Aid again to see if they are repaired.

Here is an Apple article with instructions for dealing with various boot issues:

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way - Apple Support

Reply

Quick Links

Mac crashing instantly on reboot

Similar questions