FileVault stuck on "Encryption Paused"

Hello,

I have Sierrra. Enabled filevault and it got stuck.

Solution
:Open Terminal -> type: " sudo fdesetup disable " then paste your password or recovery keyword.

I pasted my recovery keyword and voila it worked again and the process was finished in a few hours :-D

Yay! 🙂

Thank me later 😉

I am not sure if this is what enabled it to work, but it worked.

Here's what happened to me:

1. Bought a 2015 Macbook pro w/ 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, and Intel Iris Pro graphics (in February, I think I was on 10.10.1)
2. Plugged the Macbook into an older MagSafe charger using the adapter
3. Booted into the setup wizard, started FileVault encryption from there
4. Noticed minutes later in the System Preferences window, the "Encryption Paused, please plug into power" message
5. Found this post, ended up using the repair tool to wipe the disk and reinstall OS X
6. DID NOT enable FileVault during the setup wizard
7. Waited for 10.10.3 to drop
8. Made a time machine backup of the drive
9. Plugged in the power supply that came with the Macbook (so the newer one, not the older one with the adapter like last time)
10. Ran Verify Disk and Repair Disk Permissions, some printer stuff came up funky and was repaired similar to what AnindoM said
11. Rebooted
12. Opened System Preferences and started the FileVault encryption process and walked away, checking on it periodically
13. In about an hour it reported that it was finished

I hope these steps help give context and help others get FV working on their machines.

Hello,

I was having the same problem, with the booting process taking around 2 HOURS to even see the desktop window.

I have reviewed comments posted by some colleagues here and finally was able to SOLVE THE PROBLEM!

FILEVAULT 2 was definitely the problem (And YES, similar to other forum members here I have accepted the full system encryption during installation of Yosemite).

Steps I took:

1. Booted my Mac by holding down ⌘-R (Command –R) to boot from the Mac’s Recovery mode.

2. Selected Disk Utility and continue.

3. Selected my hard drive.

4. Under the File menu (at the top), selected Unlock “Drive Name”.

5. Then, selected Turn Off Encryption…

6. When prompted for a password, entered the password of my main account.

Then I received a warning message that the decryption would run in background and would take a long time.

7. Clicked OK and restarted my Mac.

8. The booting process was then very fast (well, I was used to the 2 hours thing!)

Then after the reboot, I accessed the System Preferences / Security & Privacy / FileVault and noted the drive being decrypted.

It took approximately 5 to 6 hours to the full process to conclude.

Hope this post can help other people solve their problems.

Important: Always have a full backup of your files. Even if you don't use time machine, do it manually. Copy to an external hard drive, to the cloud, to whatever. But do it.

Last tip: If you are having problems even to get to your files to perform the backup, you can do the following:

1) Book your Mac normally by pressing the power button.

2) Press and hold the SHIFT key until you see that the computer entered in Safe Mode.

3) Copy your files! 🙂

That's my first post. Sorry for being too long. But hope it helps folks out there.

Thank you everybody for sharing your thoughts on the FileVault getting stuck issue. I literally tried every single trick in these comments before Nov 20^th. My brand-new MacBook Air 13” was pretty badly stuck. I suspect the problem becomes increasingly severe the later in the encryption process you get stuck – I did when the encryption progress bar looked like it had just reached the end. Sudo fdesetup status in my case only ever said “status: pending”, no percentage given on the completion progress, seems I got stuck even a little later than hogbobkillerbob. Sudo fdesetup disable did not do anything at all. Following scafede’s recommendations (in various combinations of power supply and wifi on/off/interrupted, and different orders for disk and permission repair on partition and disk) just took me back to where I was before: everything looks fine, but FileVault still stuck, no change (never kicked in even briefly like described by others). Maybe this had something to do with this msg during partition and main disk repair: “The volume disk1s2 cannot be repaired when it is in use”. From wherever possible, “disable encryption” was always greyed out, no chance here. After my last attempt, randomly switching from FileVault to the Firewall tab in Systems Preferences > Security & Privacy and then back again got me stuck on colourful circulating cursor, but no switch to FileVault tab. No change when I left it like this running overnight, forcing the machine to stay awake with playing videos and plugged in (just in case it was actually doing its encryption business). I was not going to wait any longer for the process to resume after this – too risky to end up with a dodgy system. Followed potsky’s and OrangesandPears guidelines. Now running a clean, crisp new install of Yosemite with encryption turned off (I’ll wait until problems are sorted before I try this again). Just in case there are other Mac newbies out there with the same problem and who struggle to immediately understand what is meant by some of the shorthand instructions on these pages, here are the steps I took in longhand, with some slight variations (maybe related to my machine being a mid 2014 MacBook Air 13”), and with a few additional links I found useful. For the full erase and reinstall Yosemite also see http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201376. Since I am just migrating from being a PC user, I had no prior restore point or Time Machine backup: the whole process took about 30min (similar to davidsdiego).

1. Boot from recovery (i.e. reboot holding down cmd+r from boot chime sound to recovery screen). Explained here: http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT4718
2. Select Disk Utility, click Continue.
3. Select Macintosh HD partition; File > Unlock; select Erase tab, choose “Journaled Only” from drop-down (!!); click “Erase”; (no separate formatting step).
4. Quit Disk Utility.
5. Reinstall Yosemite without restoring anything.
6. During set-up afterwards: make sure you de-select the standard, pre-selected option to use FileVault.

Here are some more useful Mac startup key combos: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255.

Insights on how and why to reset your PRAM (no, ladies: not the Bugaboo!): http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18761

And finally, as quoted before, “Der Flounder”’s very helpful pages: http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/managing-mavericks-filevault-2-with- fdesetup/; http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/using-disk-utility-to-unlock-or-decr ypt-your-filevault-2-encrypted-boot-drive/; http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/decrypting-filevault-2-on-mac-os-x-1 0-8-4-unlock-first-then-decrypt/.

Thanks to everyone commenting before – I’ve learnt a lot here (actual effort invested: 1 afternoon plus overnight waiting time plus 30min), and I am glad I did not risk grief with Apple support but did it myself. I have been pretty grumpy in the process, I must say. With a PC you know you might have problems (although things have improved enormously since Windows 3.1), but I thought this is not meant to happen with a Mac!

you have successfully solved an issue which plagued me for over a month since I upgraded to Yosemite on day two of release,I was waiting to buy a new drive to start over as some suggestions said but i was successfully able to get the file vault to start decrypting using his suggestion and after five hours my macbook pro was as new thank you very much

please note that when you choose encryption off in recovery mode it only starts when you reboot back to regular mode in the background but your macbook is operational from the reboot is done even before the decryption is completed. (this works even when the encryption is halfway or paused )

for those who missed it this is the solution which worked

SvPurrNov 21, 2014 4:42 AM Re: FileVault stuck on "Encryption Paused"
Re: FileVault stuck on "Encryption Paused"in response to zinnjd

Thank you everybody for sharing your thoughts on the FileVault getting stuck issue. I literally tried every single trick in these comments before Nov 20^th. My brand-new MacBook Air 13” was pretty badly stuck. I suspect the problem becomes increasingly severe the later in the encryption process you get stuck – I did when the encryption progress bar looked like it had just reached the end. Sudo fdesetup status in my case only ever said “status: pending”, no percentage given on the completion progress, seems I got stuck even a little later than hogbobkillerbob. Sudo fdesetup disable did not do anything at all. Following scafede’s recommendations (in various combinations of power supply and wifi on/off/interrupted, and different orders for disk and permission repair on partition and disk) just took me back to where I was before: everything looks fine, but FileVault still stuck, no change (never kicked in even briefly like described by others). Maybe this had something to do with this msg during partition and main disk repair: “The volume disk1s2 cannot be repaired when it is in use”. From wherever possible, “disable encryption” was always greyed out, no chance here. After my last attempt, randomly switching from FileVault to the Firewall tab in Systems Preferences > Security & Privacy and then back again got me stuck on colourful circulating cursor, but no switch to FileVault tab. No change when I left it like this running overnight, forcing the machine to stay awake with playing videos and plugged in (just in case it was actually doing its encryption business). I was not going to wait any longer for the process to resume after this – too risky to end up with a dodgy system. Followed potsky’s and OrangesandPears guidelines. Now running a clean, crisp new install of Yosemite with encryption turned off (I’ll wait until problems are sorted before I try this again). Just in case there are other Mac newbies out there with the same problem and who struggle to immediately understand what is meant by some of the shorthand instructions on these pages, here are the steps I took in longhand, with some slight variations (maybe related to my machine being a mid 2014 MacBook Air 13”), and with a few additional links I found useful. For the full erase and reinstall Yosemite also see http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201376. Since I am just migrating from being a PC user, I had no prior restore point or Time Machine backup: the whole process took about 30min (similar to davidsdiego).

1. Boot from recovery (i.e. reboot holding down cmd+r from boot chime sound to recovery screen). Explained here: http://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT4718
2. Select Disk Utility, click Continue.
3. Select Macintosh HD partition; File > Unlock; select Erase tab, choose “Journaled Only” from drop-down (!!); click “Erase”; (no separate formatting step).
4. Quit Disk Utility.
5. Reinstall Yosemite without restoring anything.
6. During set-up afterwards: make sure you de-select the standard, pre-selected option to use FileVault.

Here are some more useful Mac startup key combos: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255.

Insights on how and why to reset your PRAM (no, ladies: not the Bugaboo!): http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18761

And finally, as quoted before, “Der Flounder”’s very helpful pages: http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/managing-mavericks-filevault-2-with- fdesetup/; http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/using-disk-utility-to-unlock-or-decr ypt-your-filevault-2-encrypted-boot-drive/; http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/decrypting-filevault-2-on-mac-os-x-1 0-8-4-unlock-first-then-decrypt/.

Thanks to everyone commenting before – I’ve learnt a lot here (actual effort invested: 1 afternoon plus overnight waiting time plus 30min), and I am glad I did not risk grief with Apple support but did it myself. I have been pretty grumpy in the process, I must say. With a PC you know you might have problems (although things have improved enormously since Windows 3.1), but I thought this is not meant to happen with a Mac!

Fixed:

1. create a bootable OS X El Capitan USB Drive, (Here's how: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372) Note: you'll need a mac with El Capitan already installed to do this... or if you've got a friend with a working El Capitan system, have them do it.
2. Boot up you Mac from the Bootable USB Drive (plug in the drive, turn on your mac and hold down "option" as soon as you hear the startup chime) Select the "El Capitan" disk to start from.
3. When the installer loads, don't install El Capitan, just select "Disk Utility" from the "Utilities" menu, or select it in the options window that loads.
4. Once Disk Utility loads, select your startup disk in the sidebar and select "unlock" from the file menu. Enter your password when prompted.
5. Select Disk First Aid and run "Repair Disk" Wait for it to finish. Select Shut down from the apple menu, remove the USB drive, and turn your mac back on. You should now see Encryption resume and complete when looking in System Preferences and Security.
6. Pour yourself a drink, you've earned it.

Hope you can all make sense of my directions.

I am unable to erase my hard drive in disk utilities and I'm wondering whether it's because of the fire vault encryption pause. I'm frustrated because I have a buyer tonight for my device but it's not clean to sell.

After upgrading to Yosemite, I have exactly the same problem and have tried all the obvious, like restarting, resetting the SMC and resetting the PRAM.

Still stuck on "Connect power adapter to resume encryption." while powered and on 100% charged battery.

Same problem for me. I found that if i reboot the macbook without the power adapter connected, I get a notification saying that the encryption needs power to continue. If i then plug it in it will resume for about 1 minute and then get stuck again.

Hi,

same problem, i've try the command in terminal but no way

i've resolved the issued doing this:

restarting my mac book pro ssd 500gb

reset pram with option+cmd+p+r

booting with cmd+r the utility disc (i've macintosh hd and one partition encrypted (the one with encoding paused)) >select the partition encrypted>click file and unlock>repair the partition disk>repair permission on partition>repair macintosh hd

restar

the encryption was resumed, after almost 9 hour the encryption ended.

Hope this can help you.

Federico

Just got off the Apple support line with a senior technician, they are very aware of the issue and are working on a patch/fix, in my case, its strictly "cosmetic" with no apparent downside or degradation ... just the persistent message .... my display of storage is in this state ..... so we wait for the fix.... if your having additional noticible degradation I would call Apple or followup on some of the outlined fixes if you have the technical expertise...... in all cases we need to lodge a TICKET so it gets noticed by Apple and tracked ..... regards Fred

Logical Volume:

Revertible: No

Encrypted: Yes

Encryption Type:

I too have just noticed this issue with my new MBP however let my battery get to 100% and still no change but what i did notice is when i unplug the magsafe and click on the battery icon it now says used Apps using significant energy - "Converting to FileVault". In Filevault in preferences it still says to plug it in.

Is it still doing something? I think i'll leave the machine on and disable all the power saving to find out.

I purchased a brand new Macbook Pro and had the same issues with FileVault. I have now reinstalled the OS X and managed to get the system back to where I could start initial setup from beginning.

Could someone please tell me if the Disk Utility section is correct? Should I have the "disk 1" and "OS X Base System" listed under the "Macintosh HD"? Do I have something duplicated?

Here is a picture:

I have tried everything online reset nvram, repaired permissions, repaired disk, tried to disable filevault from terminal. none of them worked, I couldn't disable or finish encryption so I couldn't install el capitan. finally I solved the problem like this

1-I created a bootable disk with the DIY option at this link http://lifehacker.com/how-to-burn-os-x-el-capitan-to-a-usb-flash-drive-173342513 3 the el capitan app is already downloaded so I used this.

2-I booted to usb with pressing option key at start up.

3-after language selection I clicked on disk utility

4-I unlocked the disk and while it is selected I clicked the first aid button at top.

At the process it said something about paused encryption and expanding partition. At that point I realized the problem is solved. I restarted the mac regularly and then I saw encrypting instead of paused. after the finished process I was able to install el captain and I was able to get rid of this paused encryption problem.

I ran into this same problem after installing El Capitan on a blank SSD on my Mac Mini. I enabled FileVault, restarted, and it stayed stuck at "encryption paused" no matter what I did. I tried resetting the PRAM, running First Aid on the unlocked partition, reinstalling OSX--everything suggested in this thread. After several days of trying, I finally had the thought that the UPS might be the problem, since OSX will pause the encryption based on the power source (usually this would only affect laptops, but there's clearly a bug in El Capitan). I unplugged the USB connection to the UPS, restarted and sure enough, the encryption process finally started. So for anybody that runs into this problem on a desktop connected to a UPS, try disconnecting the data cable and restarting--even if it doesn't say anything about connecting to a power source.