slow boot after upgrading

How about a boot time of over half an hour? I updated some software two weeks ago on my mac mini, and I have not yet upgraded to Lion. It just freezes with a gray screen. I walk away to do something else, and much, much later, it has finally reached the login screen.

To speed things up, go to System Preferences, General, and near the bottom of that window uncheck the box that says Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps. Close out of everything and do a restart. You may see a big improvement.

In the kernel.log (one may use the Console app to look at it), do you guys get the following messages near the end?

kernel[0]: nstat_lookup_entry failed: 2

...

kernel[0]: display: Not usable

It seems they take respectively 8 and 15 seconds to show up, slowing down the whole booting process. If anyone has any idea about what they mean..

Also when I get the login screen, after clicking on my user I have to wait even 20 seconds to have the password box showing! Anyone else is facing this issue? That's pretty annoying.

Can't clear cache. Warning message says system uses the cache and so it can't be modified or deleted. I have a 75 sec. boot after i went from sl to lion.

I've done all the cache clearing, permission repair, etc., and I still feel that Lion is a much slower boot that SL. And the multiple boot screens (with the Apple Logo in the center) is odd too. Anyone know what that is all about? I did, however, notice that after deleting the cache folder (I had previously used Onyx to do the cache cleaning) the first app I launched - System Preferences - just popped up so quickly I was amazed. Never opened that fast before. Obviously there was some need to clean something out. I can live with the one minute plus boot time, just curious as to why it grew from the last OS. Probably has to do with the OS differences and what loads, etc. I do like Lion very much. All the features are worth a bit longer boot time.

Tom

Another thing that fixed few things for me (weird enough) has been to reinstall Lion... over Lion. Just get the Lion installation program from the Mac App Store and run it. It should take 30-40 minutes (usually. Even less with SSD). Reinstalling 10.7.0 and then reapplying 10.7.2 would do (I did it. I don't update the Lion package). I have an old late 2006 white MacBook wih an hybrid Momentus XT HDD (it has 4GB of flash SSD as a cache) and the boot is pretty fast for my system now. One thing that may take a while to load are the network interface definitions for Parallales/Vmware and an Internet key I have got.

I changed my DHCP in netwok tcp/ip settings to manual, this fixed my boot time settings from 2 min

to about 30 sec

I did a reinstall of Lion over itself, with some improvements. I also did a very deep clean of caches. The boot time is still substantial, IMHO, but tolerable. I would hesitate changing any network settings since my home network runs through DHCP set up. The main router may be able to have its settings changed, but I'm not going to chance that.

Since rebooting is not an everyday thing, it is not a high on the list issue really. But I was curious about the change from Snow Leopard to Lion and if others experienced it too. The one thing no one has commented on was the multiple screens during the boot process - first the Apple logo with the spinning thing, then another off white (almost gray) with the Apple logo, then the blue screen. I think I have that right. I'll reboot and pay more attention. In SL it used to be just the one Apple logo w/spinner then the blue then the desktop.

Minor issues, actually I'd call it nit picking IMHO. Since overall Lion is great.

Tom

Both my MacBook Pro and iMac was slow on boot. My MBP came with Lion. And I updated my iMac to Lion.

Before making a clean install just try the following two things:

Boot time before cleaning:

MBP: 240 sec.

iMac: 65 sec.

1.Install "CleanGenius Pro" and clean folders.

Boot time after using "CleanGenius Pro":

MBP: 40 sec.

iMac: 55 sec.

2.Install "Clean Memory" and run it:

Boot time after using "Clean Memory":

MBP: 40 sec.

iMac: 40 sec.

I had a 30 seconds delay between the startup sound and the apple logo appearing on the grey startup screen. In verbose mode there was the same delay between the startup sound and the first output appearing on the screen. I actually had to keep cmd-v pressed for those 30 seconds to get it into verbose mode.

I found that in the startup disk preference pane, my hd was not selected, although it is the only disk in my machine. After selecting the hd the 30 seconds delay was gone.

Interesting note about the Startup Disk preference pane. I too checked it and my boot drive was not highlighted. I highlighted it, have not rebooted to see if there is any difference. I don't know why it wasn't chosen as the boot drive, it is always - unless I've rebooted into TechTool Pro's E-Drive (or my SSD e-disk), but a reboot from them always takes me to my boot drive (a single 750 GB drive partitioned into three; one for boot, one for data, one for a "mirror").

I found the previous post interesting too. Although I would think "CleanGenius Pro" utilities are alredy in one of my current apps (TTPro, Drive Genius, Coctail, Onyx, etc.)

Tom

This fixed the issue for me on my new Mini - startup from chime to desktop went from a couple mins to 18 secs (with SSD) by choosing the startup disk. Thanks!

Nothing drasticly noticed by the selection of the boot drive in "Startup Disk" in reference to the boot time. Since I don't reboot very often, the subject of the boot time is almost moot. It is what it is. A developer of one of my favorite utilities, AppleJack, has not updated to Lion compatible. Some of the discussion on SourceForge has been dealing with how much Lion's innerds (for lack of a better term) are different than SL. So, that being said, the boot time difference is probably in that category - the new Lion system boots different, loads different, etc. Not being a programmer I can't even guess what that might be. With Mountain Lion on the horizion, we'll see if that's one of the improvements.

Regarding my post of Mar. 7, 2012, I referred to TTPro E-Drive on an SSD, I should have said an SD (the flash memory cards like for cameras, etc.) - wanted to be clear since SSD refers to Solid State Drives.

Tom

My "issue" with SSD's is their cost. Since in a laptop you can only have one drive, if you choose an SSD you better be ready to shell out some $$$ for more than a drive for booting.

OWC had a special on using the optical drive space for an SSD, with it came an enclosure to put your optical drive. I haven't installed it but am looking forward to doiing it and seeing if the SSD as the boot drive is all that they are cracked up to be. I don't know if it being in the old optical drive position in the drive chain will have any effect on making it the boot drive - we'll see.

Maybe I should check with Apple to see if this in any way voids AppleCare. Since changing hard drives or memory doesn't I wouldn't imagine it would but who knows.

I'll report back...

Tom