FileVault is stuck in "Connect power adapter" state

Encryption is a must, this is a corporate computer. If it fails, we have backups.

Apple should really reply to this thread. I purchased two MacBook Airs for my kids and both have the same issue. I'll return these within the week if I do get a response from Apple on the fix.

Follow-up to my previous message. I spent over an hour with Apple Support trying to resolve this issue on two brand new MacBook Air's. After getting nowhere, my case was escalated to a senior advisor who was to call me the following day. Apple did call when scheduled, but my call was transferred three times and then I was hung up on. When I called Apple back, they said I lost my slot and I should reschedule my call.

Sorry Apple. After spending over $3,000 on two computers, I am not going to play beta tester for your products. My next call was to Customer Service to return the computers.

I am so sorry to hear that you are having a similar experience to my own! I would guess that the Apple support team is absolutely slammed with calls on very basic stuff at this time of year due to all the Apple Christmas gifts. I did not have the option of waiting, but guess that this will eventually get fixed a couple of months out when their seasonal peak has passed and they get back to focusing on the difficult problems instead of helping people move files between computers and so on.

I am guessing that most users, even though they select File Vault, have no idea that it fails during setup. With that, they also don't realize that the file system may be unstable. One Apple tech told me not to put much effort into adding content as he thought the fix would eventually require a re-install of OSX.

One other thing that really chapped my hide was the date of these "New" MacbookAirs. I received Mid 2013 models. These machines are over 1.5 years already. Considering Early 2014 models are readily available, Apple should be selling these old units on the clearance shelves, not pawning them off on unsuspecting customers.

Apple's success has seemed to move them into a new phase of operations, "Customers are being born faster than we are ******* them off".

Defective hardware, old stock, crappy support, NO EXCUSES.

I was advised via Apple web chat to boot into the recovery and turn off FileVault from there. I did this, which froze my new MBP for over an hour, but upon restart it appears that FileVault is now working correctly.

Cheers

C

In a chat session via https://getsupport.apple.com/ProductSelector.action a first Apple support representative advised me to turn off encryption in recovery mode, but that function was greyed out. So I could not use that solution.

Then I opened a second chat session with another support representative, who was a very nice woman who concluded that this was a problem better solved on the phone. She directed me to set up a telephone appointment. Every time my issue was redirected to another Apple representative, they knew about my case right away, by using a support ticket number. In the confirmation e-mail I received I found the appointment in a iCal file. Very convenient.

On the assigned time, my phone rang. The guy I spoke to soon recognized he could not resolve this particular problem himself, but he had heard about it. It seems it is a problem many people have encountered. He indicated that system engineers are working on it, and that the problem may be resolved in an upcoming system update. He gave me good news and bad news… Good: the problem can be solved, bad: the solution includes erasing the drive. The process involved some low level terminal stuff in recovery mode. Just DIskUtility to erase the main volume is not sufficient. So I got transferred to some high level system engineer who talked me through wiping the drive with some Terminal magic. The Apple engineer also confirmed some people were working on it to solve the problem. Then I restored my machine using one of the Time Machine backups I ran just before. All in all that took a few hours at night.

The problem is now solved, although I now have no FileVault encryption. I will consider turning it back on when it‘s updated.

All in all, unlike some in this thread, my experience with Apple support is quite positive. All the people I spoke to were very professional, polite and knowledgeable. No machine of this complexity is perfect, all in all, my uptime percentage has been only just below 100% in more than 25 years of using Apple products. So this glitch is no biggie for me.

It seems odd that the solution that they offered you appears way more complex than the one I got, Perhaps we have different causes?

I would have preferred to have been warned that the operation could take a while. Anyone who was not familiar with Mac's could have done a force shut down thinking that there was a problem, whereas I figured that there was likely to be some heavy processing occurring.

As a technologist (CTO), it is always worrying to me when my developers come up with inconsistent reasons for something happening. It tells me that the root cause has not yet been determined. Some bugs are flaky and very tricky to pin down. I wonder if this is the case here. Maybe that's why it's taking some time to get the release together.

I, too, received wonderful help from Apple when online and on the phone. Not so much in the store - it was like I was committing heresy by returning the product when it did not meet a critical requirement for me. Hopefully Apple get their act together for all the silent sufferers ... fashion has it's price, I guess.

I would have to agree there, it is somewhat strange that there are different fixes.

I tried to start a new post last night regarding what I perceive as a slight decline in th equality of the keyboard, and it was taken down within minutes. Worrying times at Apple.

Hi All, I have the same problem with the brand new macbook pro 13. Is there any official exit from Apple?

Wait for the next big Yosemite update. Hopefully then - but no sound of anything prior to that. Yosemite was released to consumers in Oct 2014 - so allowing for a 6 month initial release, maybe an April update will happen?

But this is Apple - if you have a problem you must be imagining it ;-)

I see the only way resolve it now is to re install OS..... dont really understand why Apple put not-properly working stuff on the start first page..( i tried just due to my curiosity and was punished )