start up fail!

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start up fail!

Help! MacBook pro tries to start up, shuts down and then restarts again, only to fail! It's done this about 50 times and won't stop. Even closing the notebook doesn't make it stop!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 24, 2012 1:19 AM

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Answer 1

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 1:27 AM in response to brazilbeat

update: holding down the power button made it pause this maniac process, and it looked like it could power off. But then, as if there's a ghost in it.. it powers up again! It gets to the grey screen with apple logo, then the blue screen and after about 1 second on the blue screen it cuts out and goes back to the beginning of restart.

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Answer 2

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 2:00 AM in response to brazilbeat

On each reboot do you hear the boot chime? If so maybe you can "sneak in there" by pressing the shift key to attempt to boot in safe mode. See if that breaks the cycle.

Alternatively if you can slip in your installer dvd and press the C key after the boot chime then perhaps it will boot from the dvd which would give you a chance to run Disk Utility to attempt to repair/verify your boot drive.

Other things you can attempt are a smc and pram reset(command+option+P+R keys, again immediately after the boot chime).

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Answer 3

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 2:29 AM in response to X423424X

Yes it chimes each time. I tried holding down shift and it does nothing.

Tried the installer dvd with C and sometimes it gets as far as the desktop, but then dies again or gives the message "Are you sure you want to Shut Down? Shut down, restart, cancel. If I cancel I can get a couple of minutes before it dies.

I closed it and turned it over to get the serial number off the bottom and for some reason it stopped the process.

I'm currently reading the thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2098873?start=90&tstart=0. There are a lot of people out there with spontaneous shutdown/restart problems.

Have tried resseting PRAM and SMC it did not work. Will try a few of the other things people have suggested like opening it up and cleaning out dust. Maybe a clean install of snow leopard?

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Answer 4

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 2:45 AM in response to brazilbeat

On the second installer dvd is the Apple Hardware Test. Try booting it (D key after boot chime) and let it check your machine, maybe with extended memory checking.

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Answer 5

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 3:00 AM in response to X423424X

yes i should have mentioned I did the Hardware test, the extended one. It took about an hour. It finished and reported "no hardware problems".

Do you know the best way to open up a MacBook Pro to clean out dust? I have never opened up a laptop before. Do you go in through the bottom or lift off the keyboard somehow..?

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Answer 6

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 11:12 AM in response to brazilbeat

Apple doesn't post any recommendations about cleaning the inside of a macbook pro. But apparently that hasn't stopped folks from doing it so here's two suggestions.

1. Google "cleaning inside MacBook Pro". There's plenty of hits on this topic including a youtube video.

2. OWC has plenty of instructional videos on things like adding hard drives to macbook pro's. So those videos obviously show how to open the machine to get inside which is all you care about to get at the dirt.

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Answer 7

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 5:36 PM in response to X423424X

After watching a youtube tutorial I cleaned the machine out with compressed air.

Now the startup goes like this: chime, grey screen with apple logo and timer (this goes for a pretty long time), blue screen for a split second, then it shuts down.

I was able to start it up from the snow leopard Install DVD, and went into some preferences, but then it shut down unexpectedly after about 5 minutes.

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Answer 8

pennbank

Level 4

1,688 points

Mar 24, 2012 5:42 PM in response to brazilbeat

Intel-based Mac: Startup sequence and error codes, symbols

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2674

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Answer 9

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 6:01 PM in response to pennbank

Hello and thank you for this @pennbank. I noticed on the page that the Products Affected are 2006-2008 models.

My machine is MBP 2010, running snow leopard, shipped with 10.6.4, currently on 10.6.8.

Would there be any difference?

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Answer 10

pennbank

Level 4

1,688 points

Mar 24, 2012 6:10 PM in response to brazilbeat

No

Products Affected

Mac Pro, Mac mini (Early 2006), Mac mini (Late 2006), Mac mini (Mid 2007), MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac (17-inch, Late 2006 CD), iMac (17-inch, Late 2006), iMac (20-inch Late 2006), iMac (20-inch, Early 2008), iMac (20-inch, Mid 2007), iMac (24-inch Mid 2007), iMac (24-inch, Early 2008), iMac (24-inch, Late 2006), iMac (Early 2006 17-inch), iMac (Early 2006 20-inch), iMac (Mid 2006 17-inch)

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Answer 11

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 6:45 PM in response to brazilbeat

brazilbeat wrote:

I was able to start it up from the snow leopard Install DVD, and went into some preferences, but then it shut down unexpectedly after about 5 minutes.

"It"? Are you referring to when booted from the snow leopard dvd or your booted from your MBP disk?

If it was while you were booted from the dvd I am suspecting some kind hardware error.

Did you verify the boot drive with Disk Utility while booted from that dvd?

Did you try running Apple Hardware Test yet?

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Answer 12

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 7:37 PM in response to X423424X

It does shut down unexpectedly when booted from the DVD. Booting it from the dvd makes it get past the blue screen and to the desktop. The message "Are you sure you want to Shut Down?" pops up often. Clicking Cancel gives a few minutes of work time. It actually shut down while I was in Disk Utility.

I was able to get the the log from Console utility and put it on a pen drive. I got the machine to boot on its own after resetting the PRAM again. It crashed soon after I got the log. Is it ok to post the contents of the log here?

(The reason I'm trying everything possible and haven't already taken it into an Apple repair is because the closest one is about 400 km away.)

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Answer 13

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 8:53 PM in response to brazilbeat

I see your problem with the distance to the apple store. But this does sound like hardware at this point.

You can post crash logs. Console logs can be pretty long and mainly meaningless for the problem at hand except for the final few minutes of the log. So perhaps you should only post that amount.

The problem here is if hardware is the cause then, yes, you may have a crash log but it would only be as a result of the hardware problem.

What about that Apple Hardware Test boot? Did it even boot that?

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Answer 14

brazilbeat Author

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Mar 24, 2012 9:42 PM in response to X423424X

Thanks again for your help.

Yes, it was able to boot from the Apple Hardware Test. It was able to carry out both the regular and the extended tests. Both came back saying no hardware problems.

Where would I find the crash log? The Console log is pretty long, but here are some excerpts from yesterday and today. the log mostly repeats what's below.

24/03/12 4:37:20 PM com.apple.launchd[1] *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
24/03/12 4:37:40 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[86] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
24/03/12 4:37:42 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[86] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[10 8]) Exited with exit code: 1

24/03/12 9:04:19 PM com.apple.WindowServer[70] Sat Mar 24 21:04:19 Mara-Weisss-MacBook-Pro.local WindowServer[70] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

24/03/12 9:18:27 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[91] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[11 6]) Exited with exit code: 1
24/03/12 9:18:32 PM com.apple.WindowServer[70] Sat Mar 24 21:18:32 Mara-Weisss-MacBook-Pro.local WindowServer[70] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

24/03/12 9:41:54 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[90] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
24/03/12 9:41:58 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[90] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[12 0]) Exited with exit code: 1

25/03/12 1:04:43 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[91] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
25/03/12 1:04:52 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[91] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[11 6]) Exited with exit code: 1
25/03/12 1:06:09 PM [0x0-0xb00b].com.apple.systempreferences[131] Couldn't find any matches.
25/03/12 1:06:22 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.xprotectupdater[20]) Exited with exit code: 255
25/03/12 2:11:37 PM com.apple.launchd[1] *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
25/03/12 2:12:00 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[88] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
25/03/12 2:12:04 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[88] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[11 9]) Exited with exit code: 1

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Answer 15

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 10:41 PM in response to brazilbeat

Yes, it was able to boot from the Apple Hardware Test. It was able to carry out both the regular and the extended tests. Both came back saying no hardware problems.

Well that's interesting. Maybe it isn't hardware after all.

Where would I find the crash log?

I would assume /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports.

The Console log is pretty long, but here are some excerpts from yesterday and today. the log mostly repeats what's below.

Told you they were long.😉

What you show is saying the com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist LauncAgent is crashing. That launchagent launches /usr/bin/kinit which is related to Kerberos. So that may be what is crashing but not why it is crashing. And it may be a false lead too.

I'm not sure what to suggest at this point. I suppose others might suggest you just do an update install. I generally never recommend that to anyone except those that really destroy their systems. But on the other hand I don't know what's causing these problems either. So I leave that decision to you.

What I would recommend is that if you had a working backup simply revert to that backup. Cases like this are good examples of why backups are important. I always have backups (two actually) so I never get into a reinstall situation. I suppose that is why I never want to recommend reinstalls.

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