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David Biddix Author

Level 1

139 points

Can't open system preference panes after upgrading to El Capitan

I ran the upgrade on my mid-2008 MacBook Pro to take it from Yosemite to El Capitan. I've had two major issues. First, El Capitan forgot all my e-mail passwords which I have tried to manually re-enter into Mail. But the more troubling problem is with System Preferences. When I try to change the loudness of sound on my MacBook Pro, it shows that the sound is muted and the screen flashes. I went to the Accessibility pane to try and turn off the flash and see if that would fix the sound, but the pane will not open. I click on it and after a period of several minutes, the OS responds that it cannot open the preference pane. I then tried to open the Sounds preference pane and the same thing happens...after several minutes, the OS says it cannot open the preference pane. I've tried re-starting the MacBook Pro to no avail. I see that system preferences cannot be repaired. I have no idea on how to fix the preference panes to open properly. I tried re-booting to the recovery partition and running Disk First AId. It found no problems, but it didn't fix anything either.

Any ideas on what I can try to get the functionality back on my machine?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11), 4 Gb of RAM

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 1:37 PM

23 replies

Feb 22, 2016 10:09 AM in response to Baldie 752

Did you find a solution? I seem to be in a similar position to you. I finally upgraded to El Capitan from Mountain Lion on a 2012 MBP a couple of days ago and after everything appearing to go fine, I now have System Preferences stuck in the Network pane. I've tried most of the solutions listed above - deleting Cache files, deleting plists, Safe mode boot, checking for the 32-bit checkbox in Finder (it wasn't checked) - and nothing has made any difference. If I open System Preferences, it reopens in the Network pane and then locks up. I can't test a guest account as I can't get to the User accounts section to create one.

Mar 14, 2016 11:55 PM in response to caldoverde

Hi I had this problem with my preference panes.

I had changed my Apple ID password on my iPAD, when I opened my iMac, the old password was glitching the preference panes.

Once I updated the password, the problem was resolved.

Hope this may help.

Mar 15, 2016 1:12 AM in response to caldoverde

I have solved my particular problem thanks to the help of Cory Cooper over on the Mac Help forums who spend the best part of an entire afternoon talking me through possible solutions until we got it sorted. Anyone who is having the same or a similar problem could try the steps he recommended I take to solve the issue. I can't link the URL here but go to mac dash help dot com and search for "system preferences freezing after el capitan upgrade". The thread reference number is 221832.

May 5, 2016 12:48 AM in response to aberg2000

Get Info, check 32 bit, close window, get info, uncheck 32 bit, repeat 2 mores times for a total of 3.

It works. Why? only Apple knows and they never tell.

Thank you, Two hours of dead ends and this worked.

sandrobz

Level 1

4 points

May 28, 2016 7:03 AM in response to carms89

Great answer Carolyn. Solved the problem on Yosemite 10.10.5 too!

Oct 4, 2016 6:06 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

CArolyn, a wuick thanks for the extra diligence and care displayed when you added this bit of detail:

You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the startup tone, but not before.

Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress indicator.

I only became a mac enthusiast in early 2011, and I read things very carefully and watch how people choose words. I cozld tell that in this area, I was getting something wrong. Turns out I _was_wrong. And now I have yet another "... of course I admit when I''m wrong!" anecdote ti share.

Jan 29, 2017 11:48 PM in response to aberg2000

This solution worked for me and it's trivially simple! Thanks.

gilianne

Level 1

18 points

Apr 17, 2017 5:54 AM in response to Everett Dick

Tried all the other steps, but yours worked! Yippee!

Can't open system preference panes after upgrading to El Capitan