Mountain Lion won't boot after restart (SSD problem?)

As Binitbob already mentioned it is the BootCache.plist that causes the freeze if present.

on the web I found a easy way to create a AppleScript deleting this file and shut the Mac down after.

Create a Apple script with the following content (make sure to enter your username and password between the "":

do shell script "rm -f /private/var/db/BootCache.playlist" user name "YOUR USERNAME" password "YOUR PASSWORD" with administrator privileges

tell application "Finder"

shut down

end tell

Compile and export as program. Run this program when you want to shutdown your Mac.

To boot the mac next time, start in single user mode (CMD+S) and type exit in the command line. Your mac will come up normally.

I have tested this several times and it works.

If you did not shut down this way, your mac will probably freeze next time you start up, but this is no problem:

1 Start in single user mode (CMD+S)

2 at the prompt type the following commands EXACTLY as noted here:

/sbin/fsck -fy

/sbin/mount -uw /

rm -f /private/var/db/BootCache.playlist

exit

And your mac will boot as usual.

Torsten, that is spot on. Worked a treat, ideal as a temporary fix whist witing for a complete solution from either the SSD manufacturers or Apple. Thank you.

You're right... it's not an OCZ issue. One of our other Macs now requires force quit and other tricks to get it to reboot. And this machine has a factory hard drive. This Mountain Lion upgrade worked well for more than a week, with several reboots, before going sideways.

Every one of the machines we updated to Mountain Lion now hangs on shut down (the shut down spinning asterisk and grey screen will still be there in the morning) and must be manually restarted with the power switch.

Hmm... I remember why we switched to Macs about 7 years ago. After upgrading Windoze we couldn't reboot our machines and I'd simply had enough of half-baked OS releases that didn't work properly. Funny how things come full circle... I still had Lion bugs that never were fixed. Support told me I should do a clean resinstall of Lion, so I did. Nothing improved. I hoped Mountain Lion would perhaps address some of the Lion problems, but now we have an office full of Macs that won't shut down or boot without consulting forums, a bag of tricks and perhaps an exorcism.

Have the same issue with Smasung 830 128GB :-(((((

My MacBook Pro 13 2010 would not wake up from sleep.

I have tried several times, once I was successful and it started up, but it was only exception (in ML fail)...

Anyone can test with Mountain Lion 10.8.1 developer update?

In desperation I switched my newly acquired OCZ Octane with a new Kingston V200+, and booom... No problems. Everything works. Its much faster, cheaper, and a far better choice in all aspects.

I use my Macbook Pro for work, and downtime is not an option.

Lession learned:Never again OCZ!!!

It's not an OCZ issue as other manufacturers seem to have this issue. SSD are cheaper now overall, so I would be surprised if you paid more to get a device with the same specs. 🙂

I'm not an OCZ fanboy, but deleting the bootcache plist works for me. As stated before, I replaced my SSD with my old HDD and it worked, but it was so slow, so I reinstalled my SSD.

Apple has already commented (In the Private Apple Paid Developer Forums) that this is an Apple Problem and they said that the people who are blaming Seagate for the problem is a Red Hearing! They are currently working on a fix that they invited everyone in the Private Paid Apple Developer Program to help test the fix! Just FYI! Hopefully this comment will put this discussion to a rest!

"Hopefully this comment will put this discussion to a rest!"

That would be the first time in the history of the Internet.

Installed an OCZ Octane 256GB today in my MacBook... same problem as you guys, running on 10.8.1

rm -f /private/var/db/BootCache.playlist did the trick for me. Hope that Apple solves this problem in 10.8.2..

The size of the 10.8.1 Update was less than 50 MB, most likely too small to fix that kind of issue. The Beta Versions of 10.8.2 (which I have access to because I paid the 99 U.S.A. Dollars to join the Paid Mac Developer Program), is more like 650 MB's, so it should include a whole lot more fixes than 10.8.1! Just FYI!

P.S. The 10.8.2 Beta Changes Screen says TBA when installed, as normal, so don't ask me what is in the Update, even if I knew, I am NOT allowed to tell you, Under the Terms of my NDA, Just FYI!

NDA's aren't with a ****. I was held in an intel NDA only to have the info I was told was confidential publicised in PCWorld 14 days after a seminar releasing the next 12 month upcoming products to Intel authorised suppliers. You may as well spill as it will be on a blog in 7 days with no repurcussions from Apple anyway.

I have this same issue but the suggested work around does not work. The issue started with Lion all of sudden.I was going to upgrade to Mountain Lion anyway so did that and it not solve the issue. I have tried about 20 different things to get this thing to boot with varying success but now it seems grey screen dead. Only thing I can do right now is get it into Single user mode. I get this stupid BootCache.playlist not found error.

Tried the solution above and it does not work (Macbook Pro Early 2011) and no SSD just a regular hard drive.

Tried resetting ACLS and cant even get into Repair mode to run disk permissions as suggested by other forums.

I had to wait 6 months to Install Lion on my IMac as the wireless wont work. This macbook pro had to have a new HDD and fan within first year. Now I cant even boot the thing !.

Apple = Microsoft it seems. Just gets worse.

Hi everyone,

I own a Macbook 5.1 (Late 2008 Unibody). I installed an OCZ Octane S2 earlier this morning.... To be honest I saw issues with 10.7 (Lion) when booting - it didn't always freeze but I thought I would update to ML. That's when I couldn't get it past the grey screen. Not even once.

Only like 15 minutes ago I upgraded the firmware of my OCZ to 4.14.1 using instructions on this page: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?103483-MAC-ONLY-Firmware- update&p=754161&viewfull=1#post754161

Issue gone! Tried shutting down, restarting about 4-5 times. No problem whatsoever. I hope it helps the OCZ owners at least....