OS X Lion freezes at login screen + App Store is slow

If you still need, or want, to run Snow Leopard, beware that the current Mac hardware - built to run Mountain Lion - CANNOT BOOT from a Snow Leopard partition, either on an internal partition or on an external HD.

I've just asked the tech-guy at one of my (2) local Apple-only retailers. He confirmed that these Macs are "engineered" so as not to be able to boot Snow Leopard. One way around it is to use an emulator (Fusion, Parallels, Virtual Box) to run SL as a "guest" OS.

This is the last straw, for me. I've been a Mac "fanboy" since 1984 and owned most models over the years, but this one feels like a jail-cell. I am definitely going to investigate Ubuntu's LINUX. OS X is beginning to stink. 😟

Hi!

I'm considering to buy the corsair performance pro because it uses another chipset, a Marvell chipset intead of a Sandforce.

The Crucial, I think, uses too a Marvell chipset!

I will use it in an macbook pro 8,3 17" early 2011.

The corsair force GT that I have do not work correctly!

Thanks 😉

i just noticed that there are reports of a new OS X 10.7.5 developer release that asks to focus on "graphics performance & quality" – could this contain the long awaited fix, i wonder...😐

re. OS X compatibility – there used to be a "universal installer" in the boxed version; just wondering if the App Store installer now only detects and provides a version for a specific machine?

Metalizer: re. 10.7.5 - I'd still like to see it as a public download because it was reported to have fixed (for free!) the SBBOD problem for the MBP6,2. As of 10.7.4 - this machine/OS-combo fix was (I think) still moot.

Re. OS X compatibility - this is a hardware incompatibility with my brand-new MBP9,1 (at least according to my AppleCare contact). This Mac does not have the hardware necessary to even "run" the code for 10.6.8 - let alone BOOT it. I'm sure there must have been reasons for the decision but, to quote Hamlet, "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, that ever (he) was born to set it right". Or - to paraphrase - it comes too soon after Lion's non-confidence-inspiring year.

For the record, I've tried (unsuccessfully) booting SL from an external drive with both USB3 and FW800 cables. With USB3, the System Preferences > Startup Disk does not even list the SL boot drive, but with FW800 it does. And in either case, doing an Option-restart will display the SL partition but booting from it will lead the Mac to "freeze" at the Gray Apple screen.

Here's "seemed" what worked for me about this black screen after logon after Mountain Lion upgrade... haven't had an experience w/ black screen after sleep. So far after many restarts and reboots, I haven't had the black screen yet. This is worth a try on your machine...

>Download and install CCleaner from Apps Store (Go Categores>Utilities)

>Run CCleaner

>Click Tools, then Repair Permissions

>Click Verify Disk Permissions

>Click Repair Disk Permissions

I'm new to this thread but I'm seeing the same problem with my mid-2012 MBP running 10.7.4. I saw some reference at the top of the thread about some "kext info.plist" magic that was supposed to take care of the problem for some users, but I didn't see what the actual fix is.

Could somebody please point this out to me?

Thanks.

Hi. I'm having what I think is a similar problem. OS X Lion freezes on start-up...and I can never get past the white screen with the gray Apple icon and sundail progress bar. I even tried to reinstall from the install DVD, but when I restarted and held the "C" key (after the tone), I had the screen gray-over and the small box come up telling me to hold down the power key to shut off then restart.

So, not only can I not get in, but I can't seem to do a clean install either?

Am I doing something wrong? Anything else to try?

I suppose as a last ditch effort I'll just have to buy a brand new drive and physically replace the current boot drive, and install from there.

@naveenmedia: Whoa! Don't buy that brand new hard-drive (yet). 😀 And it would help (us) to know which version of Lion (OS X 10.7.x) you are using, and which MacBookPro(y,z) you have. For example, MacBookPro6,2 - you can find this in Applications > Utilities > System Information: Hardware Overview (Model Identifier). And, if your Install DVD is an older version of Mac OS X than the one on your Mac, your Mac will not let you (re)install from that DVD.

Recovery would be easier if you have a version of Mac OS X on an external HD that you can boot from (and then use to clean up the internal HD). But - assuming that is not an option - here's what I would try (first).

1) Boot your Mac in "Safe Mode".

2) Assuming this works as it should, reboot normally.

3) Use Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility to select your internal drive and "repair Disk Permissions".

4) Buy an external drive (I prefer FW800 + USB 3 drives). Install Mac OS X and DiskWarrior. (and also put a copy of Diskwarrior on your internal HD - for future tune-ups of external drives).

5) Another external-drive option (for flexibility) is to buy an external HD enclosure (SATA) and put in a 2.5" HD of your choice. OWC has some interesting enclosures that have both FW800 and USB3 ports. You can, if necessary, also find a FW800-to-FW400 cable. And the USB3 port is, of course, backward-compatible with the previous USB-spec.

Let us know what happens.

P.S. Mountain Lion seems to have resolved the "bugs" you are dealing with in Lion so it's worth the upgrade - assuming your hardware is Mountain-Lion capable.

@naveenmedia: Whoa! Don't buy that brand new hard-drive (yet). 😀 And it would help (us) to know which version of Lion (OS X 10.7.x) you are using, and which MacBookPro(y,z) you have. For example, MacBookPro6,2 - you can find this in Applications > Utilities > System Information: Hardware Overview (Model Identifier). And, if your Install DVD is an older version of Mac OS X than the one on your Mac, your Mac will not let you (re)install from that DVD.

Recovery would be easier if you have a version of Mac OS X on an external HD that you can boot from (and then use to clean up the internal HD). But - assuming that is not an option - here's what I would try (first).

1) Boot your Mac in "Safe Mode".

2) Assuming this works as it should, reboot normally.

3) Use Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility to select your internal drive and "repair Disk Permissions".

4) Buy an external drive (I prefer FW800 + USB 3 drives). Install Mac OS X and DiskWarrior. (and also put a copy of Diskwarrior on your internal HD - for future tune-ups of external drives).

4a) (I forgot to say 😊) Use DiskWarrior to rebuild the index on your internal Hard Drive.

5) Another external-drive option (for flexibility) is to buy an external HD enclosure (SATA) and put in a 2.5" HD of your choice. OWC has some interesting enclosures that have both FW800 and USB3 ports. You can, if necessary, also find a FW800-to-FW400 cable. And the USB3 port is, of course, backward-compatible with the previous USB-spec.

Let us know what happens.

P.S. Mountain Lion seems to have resolved the "bugs" you are dealing with in Lion so it's worth the upgrade - assuming your hardware is Mountain-Lion capable.

Thanks much Terry!

I'm actually not on a MacBookPro, but a MacPro (early 2008). I upgraded to Lion a few months ago. Everything was working fine until recently. As to the specific version of Lion? I think it's 10.7.4, but don't know for sure.

The thing is, I can't get into the system at all, not even through Safe Mode. When I try to enter through Safe Mode, the progress bar comes up and starts to fill in (this is the horizontal bar, under the sundail). About a quarter of the way through it disappears, and the sundial stops moving. And then...nothing.

The same thing is true of a regular boot-up, sans the horizontal progress bar. The Apple logo comes up, the sundial turns...and then freezes. At that point, nothing. Just the Apple logo and the sundial stuck in place.

My system never makes the switch to that light blue screen that appears before actually entering the system. So I literally can't change anything with my system. This is why I'm thinking of just getting a new HDD.

Thoughts?

@naveenmedia: OK. I think the next (simplest) thing I would try is to (as you previously suggested) replace your internal "boot" Hard Drive. Since your Mac is a Mac Pro (with bays for 3.5" drives) this should be pretty straight forward. If you drop in the new HDD then you should be able to boot up from your install-DVD, use Disk Utility (from the Installer menu) to format the new HDD (and I would probably partition it into 2 or 3 partitions, for potential dual-booting), then reinstall the version of Mac OS X that your Mac originally came with. For the OS X boot-partition remember to select [Mac OS X Extended Journalled] as the format.

I would leave your our old "bad" HDD uninstalled until you get the new one into bootable shape. THen I might try reinstalling it into your Mac Pro - in one of the spare drive-bays - for troubleshooting - using Disk Utility and/or Diskwarrior. It sounds like your old HDD may be corrupted or damaged. My next focus would be recovering as much of your data as possible.

Have fun. 😀

Thanks Terry! My old drive was actually partitioned and was a dual boot with Windows 7. Everything was going good...until it wasn't. Most of my data was kept on other drives in the additional bays, so everything should be ok. It's just going to be a matter of reinstalling all the old apps, print drivers, etc.

I went out and bought a new drive and will do the install first thing in the morning. Thanks much for the help. It's really appreciated!!!

Naveen

@Naveen: Good. And it's probably worth trying to recover your Apps, email, etc. from the crippled drive - unless you can recover everything from a Time-Machine (or other) backup drive. Diskwarrior can usually find most of the readable files and create a new index for the drive. (Then you could use Migration Assistant to pull stuff off it). But I would still plan to retire it when you've got all your stuff from it.

OK, now I'm scared. The rot may be deeper than I thought. Perhaps I need to start a new thread for this but here's my situation:

I took out the old boot drive and put a new, unformatted drive in it's place (Bay 1 on an early 2008 Mac Pro). I had a Snow Leopard install disc already in the optical drive. I restarted the system.

Same result as before: The gray screen with the dark gray Apple icon appears, with the sundial below it. After a few minutes, the screen grays over (the dark gray overlay) and the small box appears telling me I need to turn my system off or Restart (the one with the same message in multiple languages).

I thought maybe something was wrong with the Install DVD. Unfortunately the keyboard eject wouldn't work, so I had to shut the system off, open up the case, pull the optical drive out, restart, then do the force eject by pressing the paperclip eject button on the drive itself. That worked.

I put a different Install DVD in (the original that came with my system, OS X 10.5.4).

Restart, same result again. Gray overlay and small box telling me to restart.

I opened up the case again, took out a 3rd party video card (Kona 3 by AJA) just to be sure that wasn't causing the problem. I also checked every other connection I could see to make sure everything was secure.

Restart again...and same thing.

I suppose one last thing I could try is to remove the drives in the othe bays (Bays 2, 3, and 4). The only reason I don't do this is because the drives in Bays 2 and 3 are a striped array. If I pull them out, can I put them back in safely and still keep the data on there? But even then, would taking them out do anything to help?

And...is there some way to get the data off the array if, say, the board is shot. Can I hook them up to some kind of external raid and connect it to my MacBookPro or some other MacPro?

Any additional help is seriously appreciated.

Naveen

I'd add this. I just did a hardware test. That actually worked, restarting and holding down "D" (was worried that even wouldn't work). The quick hardware test said everything was fine.

I'm now doing an extended test, but at least the quick one was ok.

And just to be clear, I am using the original Mac OS X install DVD that came with my MacPro now. That's also not working and giving me the gray screen.

Aaargh.