FileVault is stuck in "Connect power adapter" state

Because @markcleonard mentioned it, the setup process / account creation was extremely buggy for me as well. It froze a few times on me, each time showing me the loading spinner for 20+ minutes. Restarting was the only way to proceed. After finally getting through the process (and deleting the other half-initialized users), restarting my computer showed some strange behavior: it dumped me into setup again as if it was the first time I had ever booted the machine.

There are no success stories on this thread... has anyone been able to overcome this issue? How can we be sure this is not a hardware issue?

Also happened to me. Brand new MBP 13 Retina. 1TB SSD. My first Mac product, thought I would step into the Mac panacea of bug-free existence! Not v impressed... Any solution warmly received!

Same exact thing happened to me. I just purchased a brand new Mac Book Air. On initial set up it asked to set up Fire Vault so I began the encryption. It then said to connect the power adapter to finish encryption which I did (and is now 100% charged) and it has not done anything since. Keeps saying to connect power adapter (even though it is) and it is now three days later with no change. This is my first Mac Computer and am extremely disappointed with my initial experience and lack of response from Apple Support.

Yes, I'm also no longer impressed. Mac used to be always works seemlessly. Recently with each new product and updates, seemed to break more in many ways. iPhone buggy, Yosemite buggy, even the hardware quality has degraded in quality, breaks down easily compared to my old Mac. :/

I have exactly the same problem. I have a brandnew 13" MBP retina 3.0Ghz i7 / 16Gb / 1 Tb.
None of the remedies posted here works for me. A reformat without Filevault is no option for me.

This needs to be resolved, Apple! This bug is eating my battery.

Same problem - MacBook Air - brand new. Call to the AppleCare helpline is met with a busy signal.

I am thinking of returning this MacBook. I don't play games with encryption - it's too much of a pain in the butt when you lose all your data.

Very disenchanted with Apple.

Patrick

On hold ... 15 minute wait time. It also ***** that the very first question on the helpline is "Are you using Yosemite 10.10?"

That tells me two things:

1. Apple has lost it's friendliness to non-geek users. As a new user, I had no idea.

2. There are problems with Yosemite 10.10!

Listening to Stevie Wonder on hold right now ...

Update - spent an hour or so on the phone with Apple. The rep I worked with was knowledgable and helpful. Here's what we tried:

1. Fix the Disk - no errors came up. No change to primary error.

2. Fix the configuration - a short list of minor errors fixed. No change to primary error.

3. Sent a copy of the logs to Apple for their engineers. Not a resolution step - but a "help the rest of us" step.

4. Erased the disk and switched it back to Journaling only (no encryption).

5. Currently trying to reinstall OS X, but estimate for download is 65 hours on my DSL connection.

The idea is that a fresh install of OS X (10.10) might resolve this. I am not so sure - my MacBook was brand new. As it stands, since this will take so long on my internet connection, unless they can ship out discs then I will likely return the MacBook and stick with Windows machines for now.

I'd like to stress that my eventual experience with the support team was very good. It's just highly frustrating that Apple is shipping something that is obviously buggy / broken. I'd rather that they hire good testers - not rely on users like me.

Closing out this thread for me. I ended up returning my MacBook Air. Really disappointed with this outcome, but was not making progress.

Phone support was fantastic - but the guys at the store let the team down. I kept thinking that if this is how it's going to be in the future, this support experience is way too painful. I have many friends with MacBooks, but none with the exact same needs that I have. Unfortunately, the product is not functioning as advertised. I suspect poor QA.

The response from the people at the Apple Store? "Have you considered using it without FileVault?" <happy apple smile>. No, I have not - have you considered that this MacBook is supposed to work as advertised with FileVault? I was not impressed that I was made to feel like it was my fault for wanting to use a feature that should work.

Hope the rest of you have better luck - maybe Yosemite 10.11 or some later release will fix this for you guys. I am going back to Windows for my laptop needs - I was willing to pay a premium for a hoped for better experience. I ended up paying a premium for a more painful experience.

Hey Patrick, I understand your sentiment, but I do not agree. As a long time Apple user (20+ years, not a fanboy by any standard, just a calculating professional user) despite various bugs and some minor disappointments, I still consider the experience of using Apple products vastly superior to using Windows. Having observed many staunch Windows users, among them a couple of family members, accept a incomprehensilble level of structural inconvenience from Microsoft products that is wholly unacceptable to me, it seems to me that many migrators in contrast, expect nothing but perfection from Apple, compared to the mostly cumbersome experience of using Windows. Unlike Windows devices (which are not expected to run flawlessly 110% 24/7) Apple products are held to a standard that is often unrealistic… Any flaw, and there will be some in any contraption of this complexity, adds to a disappointment and resentment that is characteristic for migrators from other systems, and is unjustified in my opinion.

Long time Apple users like me are useually a little more forgiving. When there are glitches, even inconvenient ones, I find solace in the fact that the system saved me hundreds or even thousands of hours of aggravation when it was functioning properly, which is almost all of the time. I experience no more than a couple of hours down time on a yearly basis, and that is a very good track record, which is worth the money, even the extra expense.

Jean,

Thanks for the reply and yes, you are entitled to your opinion also. I have had multiple Apple devices (and multiple generations of them - phones, tablets and desktops), but this was my first laptop experience with them. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect an experience commensurate with the price premium - something which did not happen.

I also have multiple Windows devices and have used them for years. My experience has been that if they are kept current, have the right hardware and are administered well then the issues are minimal (close to zero in my case). I have the advantage of sys admin level knowledge across Unix and Windows systems - so know that this is not reflective of the average user. Despite all the good vibes, I still wanted to try the MacBook. It's a cool piece of equipment.

Sadly, Apple just didn't come through for me. A huge miss was the requirement that to make any progress I would need to download a whole fresh copy of Yosemite. This is outrageous on a machine that is days old. Even if I cut some slack, then surely the fix is just a small amount of the overall code (OS X is based on Unix after all) or a config setting, not a complete erasure of the hard drive and reinstall. Thank goodness I had not tackled migrating data yet. I don't get it. And while my phone support guy was a true hero and exceptionally helpful, the Apple store folks did not really care (they have been great for iPhone service in the past, but were pretty useless with this issue).

So, back to Dell I went - and now have an XPS 13, a 24" monitor and a desktop all coming my way for the same price as the MacBook plus monitor. I can't say at this point that the setup on Windows PCs is harder than Macs because it took me two days to make no progress on the MacBook. It will take a few hours to set up the Windows machines, but I have a high level of confidence that the encryption will work.

Yes, everyone's mileage will vary. But again, for something not to work that is advertised as being an easy to use option (FileVault) on a brand new machine, (with nothing else configured on it) - that's a huge QA issue that Apple needs to fix. Judging by these forums I am far from alone. This is a pretty basic expectation. And then to not be able to resolve it in a reasonable timeframe without a 5GB download - and for the people at the store to be pretty unhelpful? That's not excusable, so I returned the MacBook. Caveat emptor.

I have the same issue, machine is less than 2 months old. I have an SSD drive so don't know if it's churning away in the background, would say no because my battery still lasts quite well.

If I try and stop encryption it tells me I have to let it finish first. I've rebooted a few times but still no change.

Was thinking of taking it into an Apple shop but I know what they're going to say - reset it to default... but with so many people with this issue it's unlikely to be my machine is it?

I am pretty much convinced this is a software, not a hardware issue. Apple does not seem to think it is a priority, though - so be prepared for a long wait. I suspect it will be rolled into a minor dot release for Yosemite. Apple never (purposely) puts much of a fanfare around issues they fix in a release.

Best wishes with it!

I am experiencing the same issue. I just got off the phone with Apple Support and got escalated to a senior technician. Long story short, its purely a cosmetic bug. If you reboot and you are able to login with your username and password, the encryption is finished. He said there will be a patch for this in the near future.

That's good to hear for you. That was not the case for me - and it seems others also. Even after reboot, the encryption was not complete and remained hung. It wasn't a cosmetic issue.

I don't mess around with encryption - I don't know how much experience you have with it, but it's an enormous pain if the encryption system fails. There's no way to recover data easily. I wasn't prepared to take that risk.

I am sure that this is a software issues and that there will be a patch. I would not call it a cosmetic issue though. Encryption is pretty low level functionality.