Yosemite restart problem

I just upgraded my MacBook Air (11" - Mid 2012) from Mountain Lion to Yosemite (10.10.1) and face the exact same problem.

It doesn't happen only for Restart commands issued from the Apple menu though. It is also happening with Shutdown & Logout commands.

The Finder freezes and the menu bar & desktop icons disappear.

The Dock & Spotlight still works.

Finder can't be Force-quit/Relaunched. It totally ignores the command.

If you run any other app (using the Dock, Spotlight or Alfred) the menu bar of this app appears and so does the Apple menu along with it.

But re-issuing Restart, Shutdown or Logout commands using it, does absolutely nothing more than adding more loginwindow ERROR log entries in the Console.

These Console log entries are exactly as iMelekhov has posted above. They just say "Attempt to start a: Restart" or "Attempt to start a: Shutdown" or "Attempt to start a: Logout" respectively.

The only way to shutdown my computer (not that forcefully as the keyboard shortcuts do) is to use the Terminal.

sudo shutdown -r now

(-r for restart or -h for shutdown).

Also note that if you Apple menu -> Restart almost immediately after you login to the system, then it is working fine.

But if you start working and then try again after some time has passed the problem repeats.

I've been searching all over the net for the past hours but couldn't find any references regarding the "loginwindow" error mentioned in the Console.

I can't even understand what it means... "Attempt to start a: Restart, AFTER a Restart was already past the point where logout can change types"...

Really?!?!...

What "types" exactly does logout needs to change???

Please anyone share any thoughts. Any info or idea could do.

It's driving me crazy having to force the computer to shutdown/restart and I'm always concerned about files getting corrupted with the current workarounds.

Thanks in advance!

I just remembered that when I upgraded from ML to Yoesmite, at the end of the installation procedure and just before the first system restart, a window popped up asking my password for the "login" keychain.

Unfortunately, it didn't give me enough time to fill my password in, and the system proceeded to reboot without this pass.

I didn't notice anything strange though at that time and that's why I had totally forgotten about this.

Do you believe that this may have anything to do with the "loginwindow" error?

It's been 10 days now searching all over the Internet for info and I have found absolutely nothing...

I have exactly the same problem... no solution in sight

Try starting in Safe Mode. OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? - Apple Support

If that doesn't work, try booting into recovery and repair the disk using Disk Utility.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718

Same problem here...

Same problem!

Same problem here, but I restart the iMac with Terminal: sudo reboot, instead the power button....

sudo reboot from terminal worked for me-- had the same problem just now in Yosemite when it was trying to apply Security Update 2015-003 1.0. Thanks so much, Ono!

Same problem! is there any other way to solve this problem? (Yosemite 10.10.3 - MacBook Pro Retina 15 mid2014)

Installed fresh Yosemite 10.10.3 on my MacBook Pro Retina 15 mid 2014 - started to install programs and again! This error!

loginwindow[66]: ERROR | -[SessionLogoutManager startLogout:logoutSubType:showConfirmationUI:countDownTime:useTALOption:logoutO ptions:] | Attempt to start a: Restart, AFTER a Restart was already past the point where logout can change types

And i cant restart my computer! Problem is not in upgrading maverics to yosemite!

Any ideas?

So! Here is a big instruction how to solve this problem!
​

Originally Posted by 123jezza

1) Make a copy of your "home" folder and name it whatever you like.
2) Create a new user
3) Right-click on the new user account (in system preferences, where you created it) and choose "advanced options"
4) Change the default location of the home directory to the one you made a copy of in step 15) Right click on the copy of your Home account. Click on "Get info".
6) Click on the padlock (bottom right) and enter your administrator password
7) Click on the "+" button (bottom left) and select the name of your new user account from the pop-up that appears
8) Click on the settings button (bottom centre) and select "Apply to enclosed items"
9) Finally select your user account from the same settings button and select "Make {new user} owner" (or select 'Read & Write' in permissions in front of your new user account (This will allow your new user account access to all the same settings/documents as the original user)
10) Reboot and login to your new user account.
(You'll be asked to re-enter iCloud passwords etc but other than that all worked fine for me.

THE NEXT STEP: need to correct some applications permissions from old user account that YOU (user) installed.

In some applications, their ( individual ) rights . For example a program that works directly with the file system (like utorrent, Vox, DropBox and etc.) adapts itself the right account - so the parameters Vox - gone owner of the file (now it is 'fetching...' - look at the screenshot .

11) Just need to download Permissions Reset.app from MacUpdate - http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/317...missions-reset

12) Open Permissions Reset.app

13) Drag 'Applications' folder into Permissions Reset.app

14) Push the button 'Reset' - and wait for 15-40 minutes (depending on the speed of the hard disk and the number of programs installed in the system) - when it will be ready - program's window will be active

15) Yep, just for this step we recovered USER applications permissions (like utorrent, Vox, DropBox and etc.)

BUT!!! we corrupted system's application like notepad or itunes permissions

Look at screenshot! First screenshot is about what we did and the secound is about how it was before Permissions Reset.app

16) How to revert changes to system's applications and files from applications folder?

17) Just open 'Disk Utility' from applications/utilities/

18) select your hard drive (by default it is 'Macintosh HD') - and select 'Repair Disk Permissions'

19) Wait for 10-60 minutes while your system's applications permissions will be corrected to default (depending on the speed of the hard disk and the number of programs installed in the system)

20) That's all! Youк programs are ready to work at new user account! System's applications permissions are correct by default + you will not see 'fetching...' owner in application installed by yourself from old user account

Good Luck!!!

This is an older post - but I am having this problem right now. This seems like a lot of work, and I wonder if there has been anything new since? Has this worked for people? I don't see any other replies.

I never had this problem with any version of Yosemite:

10.10.0 → 10.10.5

Today I installed "Security Update 2016-004 10.10.5", and a few minutes after this update terminated

successfully, I tried a simple:

 > Restart...

and it failed with the error message found in /var/log/system.log :

Attempt to start a: Restart, AFTER a Restart was already past the point where logout can change types

Since I was locked in this situation and couldn't allow to crash a production system like this, I took advantage of this situation and wasted time to investigate it in depth.

Potential origin

A terminal opened with atop -o cpurunning bringed naked the clear culprit, I had a few tenths of mdworker running.

To better scale the size of the problem, I ran:

ps ax | grep mdworker | wc -l

which replied me with:

47

and some other varying values always bigger than 40.

To be sure I compared with what was actually running on another Yosemite 10.10.5 on which I didn't applied

the Security Update 2015-006. And the result of the same command was:

2

I guessed that the genius Spotlight was harvesting under cover an external backup disk I had left connected.

This was the origin of all these mdworker running and blocking any attempt to unmount the disk to perform

a clean shutdown.

The following command:

mdutil -s -a

confirmed me that I had caught the real culprit.

Easy workaround

When I had a possibility to restart the system without killing any work in progress, I opened a Terminal and entered

the following command:

/usr/bin/sudo reboot

Once rebooted, I configured Spotlight to stay quieter, and since, everything looks fine. A reboot is achieved within less than 2 minutes.

You are right. This is just a procedure. And a heavy one with a high risk of damage.

There isn't the smallest attempt to understand the origin of the problem.