Safe boot???

I've been having this issue. Do you by chance have a magic trackpad or the wireless bluetooth keyboard?

I have been starting with both off until the computer comes up and haven't had a recurrence. I just reinstalled the magic trackpad software and am going to try turning on the keyboard and trackpad before starting to see if it continues to happen.

glor

I'm not sure why it's doing that but I'd start with doing a SMC reset and also begin following Apple's instructions about leaving the computer on 24/7 as stated on page 16 of the owners manual. The manual says:

_Putting Your iMac to Sleep_

*If you‘ll be away from your iMac for less than a few days, put it to sleep. When your iMac is in sleep, its screen is dark. You can quickly wake your iMac and bypass the startup process.*




*SMC RESET*

• Shut down the computer.
• Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Release the power button.
• Attach the computers power cable.
• Press the power button to turn on the computer.





*PRAM RESET*

• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

With regards to the other post, I have never left any of my equipment on at the mains at night, do I really need to do that? It's just my preference to power things down at night

It's your choice of course however I can tell you that in over 3.5 years of use of my current iMac I only turn it off to do updates or if I'm going to be away for extended periods. The computer has never given me any trouble following this process. I'm simply following Apple's directions figuring they know better than me.

As for the Magic Trackpad (love that thing!) I also have one and also leave it on.

Yes it will use power of course but probably less than $.01 per day. I would recommend looking up the power consumption specifications of your iMac. That information is readily available and easy to find. For example I found this in less than 5 seconds by doing a Google search:



http://images.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/iMac27_inch_Environmental_Report2009.pdf

The difference between the power used off and the power used in sleep is miniscule. Off it uses like .88 watts and sleep like 1.46 watts.

Try reinstalling the magic trackpad software. You can also verify by not turning on the trackpad until the computer boots up. If you don't get the safeboot, it is that. Doing a smc reset, zap pram, restore software won't help. I've done it all. I even switched out ram. I believe it was an issue with the trackpad since I haven't seen it since I started turning the trackpad on after startup.


Glor

Hmm I have the same problem too. 27" iMac with Core i7 processor bought last November. Wireless keyboard and magic trackpad. I always turn the trackpad on, then the keyboard and then the iMac and I would say every 5th or six boot, the iMac automatically goes into Safe Boot mode. I'll try turning the trackpad on after it's booted from now on. I too am unhappy with the idea of leaving my machine in sleep mode 24/7. Does anyone know why Apple would recommend this over shutting it down properly?

Does anyone know why Apple would recommend this over shutting it down properly?

We have no idea as Apple doesn't print that information. My best guess and it is a guess is that it makes the whole system more stable in the long run. Many of the people on these forums leave them on 24/7 and most of never have any problems.

Message was edited by: rkaufmann87

Note to Roger: no need to read this 🙂

I prefer to shut mine down; not only to (a) conserve natural resources, but also (b) because quite often here while trying to help with a problem, the poster suggests a restart which then fixes the minor problem (the Mac runs certain checks in the startup sequence) and finally, (c) a senior Apple tech told me some time ago that it really is up to the user and he in fact shuts his down every evening. About once a week or whenever I remember to do it, I will let it sleep so it can run its' diagnostics during the night (or I'll use something like Maintidget to run them manually).

Since I've been turning my magic trackpad on after start up, I haven't had a safe boot. You can look in the console logs and see where it says something about wrong 2nd click option?

I've tried reinstalling the trackpad software, but to no avail.

Glor