Q: OS X Mavericks freezes during start up.

same problem .. how can i fix it ?

I have clean installed after there was a update of 10.9.1.

This problem has not occurred until now from then...

My imac is also freezing. I did a safe mode reboot.  It reopened with the option of all users so that I could log on.  It was still unresponsive.  I clicked on my picture but it would not go to the password sign in.  Now what?

If you're running Sophos antivirus software, reboot in Safe Mode, run the uninstall Sophos application (otherwise, delete the Sophos package) and restart - that's what worked for me.

No, I'm not running Sophos. Even if I were, I can't even get my computer to let me log on. It is still frozen after a safe mode log on.

Hi all,

I've been following this post and have tried just about every suggestion I have found here and elsewhere, without sucess. I finally threw in the towel and did a clean install of Mavericks 10.9.1 from a USB key, as explained in many places such as here. The login freeze problem went away after the the clean install.

I then did a Time Machine restore from a Mountain Lion backup of my Applications folder in order to "re-install" all of my applications in one go, and the login freeze problem came back. So the problem is being caused by one application, but which one is unknown.

So... I again did a clean install of 10.9.1, but this time re-installed all my applications individually directly from the Apple App Store or elsewhere for third-arty apps, and the login frezze problem has not re-appeared.

The brute force approach is the only one that worked for me.

Inbox4, You Rock. I've uninstalled Sophos Anti-virus and now have my sweet machine back again. Thank you!

After reading some forums I have seen that the problem is on the Airpot configuration. I have found the solution on http://superuser.com/questions/666651/mavericks-freezing-on-boot and I decide to repost it here to try help in the solution:

Repost of the solution that works for me:

"After four days of testing, I found out that it was when I turned off the wireless (Airport). My laptop would totally freeze within seconds and every time I would try to reboot. When it still froze even after I rolled back to 10.8 I knew it wasn't a hardware issue.

I found a fix on day 5: Do not turn off your Airport, Turn off your modem!

Seriously, if it happens to you, get your Mac on target mode and browse your hard drive to:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

and rename the file "com.apple.airport.preferences.plist" to something like "com.apple.airport.preferences.plist~bad" and reboot."

I hope it helps you!

.....and it worked for me. No updates or mentions of this on the sophos site though.

Wow..I've been struggling for weeks with a problem where my Mac won't boot—always gets stuck on the grey screen with the Apple logo and spinner. Previously the only way I could find to get it running again is to reinstall OS X. This time I used Terminal from recovery mode to delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist… and it booted perfectly after that. Thank you.

Wow, this worked for me, can't thank you enough. Thought my MacBook Pro was dead, wouldn't even start up after resetting PRAM, SMC, and re installing Mavericks, not even in safe mode!!!! NOTHING!

I am now back up and running, although after everything I have done, I do have a bit of sorting out to do!

Thank you again.

I had the same issues with a MacPro 2009 that was updated to Mavericks... it would freeze at random places in the boot process.

I tried the suggestions above such as resetting PRAM and eliminating the apple airport prefs.. no luck. Booting in Safe mode didn't help.

BUT -

I installed Mavericks on a separate, clean drive. It was booting fine!

SO

I concluded that there was some kind of carry over from the previous OS that was still affecting things, even in safe mode.

THEN

I compared all the items in /Library for the two drives.  Based on this, I did a few things:

1. Remove anything in /Library/LaunchDaemons

2. Replace the OLD(bad) /Library/Preferences with the one from the fresh install (making a backup copy, of course)

3. Empited /Library/Startupitems

That did the trick.

So, if your system is STILL having freeze-on-boot after trying the above suggestions, this is a last ditch thing you can do - try to eliminate all old files, extensions, and preferences from /Library

Note: I also had removed old extensions from /System/Library/Extensions before trying the above. That did not make a difference for me during boot.

Hope that helps someone else who's in this predicament.

Hi Apple Community,

Want to say this first. I don't usually post on Apple discussion forums.  But I also have this same problem with my 13 inch MacBook Pro Retina model bought in December 2013 (OSX Mavericks pre-installed), just a few months using it.  I have tried several fixes but none of them worked for me.  They are:

1. Leave WiFi on.

2. Leave Bluetooth.

3. Deleting the file in Library as mentioned one of the person's reply.

Finally, I think I found a fix that works for my rMBP.  I did not have this problem initially, only starting to have this about 2 months using my rMBP, so I started to think what changes I have made during the first two months.  I realized that one of the things I did was to diable SpotLight mdsworker. I found it annoying when mds worker starts randomly and use up my CPU power.  So I went into the terminal and diable the function. 

So I went to terminal and re-activated SpotLight mdsworker.  The code I typed in is (without quotes):

"sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist"

Then my rMBP will be busy for about 30 minutes, indexing my files.  Once that is done.  I restarted my rMBP and do not have the freeze problem anymore!

So, for whoever have this start up freeze problem and who also disabled mdsworker, I would recommend you guys re-activate it and see if this fixes the freeze problem.

Good luck!!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

It worked.

Great.

Hey guys!

Had the same exactly problem!

Freezing after enter in OS Mav.
Freezing in safe mode.

Started in recovery mode and I found some problems on system partition.

Run repair. the problem still remains... grrrr

I don't have sophos.. but I turned off the wifi and bluetooth (!? ... wt...)

Tricky one..

And I found a different solution!

So.. Start up the mac in single-user mode to reach the command line... and hit:

/sbin/fsck -fy

fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation.

Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found:

• The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK

Or if it finds some problems will return:

• If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command you typed in step 2 until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).

And problem solved! (thank you Good Lord)