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Boot up after installing El Capitan

HI,

I've got stuck with white screen with Apple logo and empty progress bar underneath after installation of El Capitan. Booting up in safe mode gives the same result. I've made schoolboy error- trusted and did not back up system with time machine. Any help highly appreciated. Thank you.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 4:10 PM

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Posted on Oct 2, 2015 4:32 AM

Boot OS X Recovery by holding and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac. Choose "Reinstall Mac OS X". That ought to reinstall El Cap and not your previously installed OS. See how far you get.

99 replies

Oct 21, 2015 11:59 AM in response to Stuart1

After being an Apple user for years, I can assure you that waiting for today's Apple to address all the flaws and fixing issues before upgrading to the new system is a funny but useless idea -- they will NOT fix most of the issues we have, no matter how long you wait. And after a long wait (1Y, 2Y...) you'll only realize that most of the old problems are replaced by new problems in new releases. So you'd either learn to live with it, or don't use it at all.

Oct 21, 2015 12:18 PM in response to tgasc

El Capitan works fine for many that have not installed undefined 3rd party software.. (at least I have not seen a list of software that people have removed that has resolved this issue) Its not up to Apple to try and make El Capitan compatible with out-dated software.. 3rd parties software companies should be updating their software to be compatible,and users need to be willing to upgrade to newer compatible versions if they are not free.. or be willing to give them up if they have not been updated to work, or look for other options.


Apple I believe does try to some level to provide backward compatibility, but there are limits as to how old and how much software Apple or any company will go through to make sure of backward compatibility. I am pretty sure if people were willing to do a clean install, El Capitan would work fine, but if they re-install an old program that breaks it again, they are back to the drawing board.


I ran into this issue and removing ancient kexts resolved my problem without a clean install. But I would go there if needed to achieve stability and not be stuck on Yosemite or previous generation of OSX..

Oct 21, 2015 2:56 PM in response to Norm Goodger

My issue was process related. I did not check out the collection of apps the user's computer had before commencing Migration Assistant. Short of Apple putting the same kind of filters in place to check for obsolete software using in Upgrades inside Migration Assistant, I figure the assumption is that if the software is really old, don't use it. Funny though; the offending app did not cause offence under Yosemite.

Oct 26, 2015 3:00 AM in response to Deoxyribonucleic

Hi

Is the BOOT PROBLEM solved with 10.11.1 ?

I have that issue since my update to El Capitan (Mac Book Pro 2011), could boot a few times after fiddling with .kext files but most of the time not. Re installed then and didn't shut down Mac for a week, shut down and couldn't boot again. The I re-installed and have now 10.11.1 but I fear shutting down. Does anyone know if these problems solved now? I'd like to restart my Mac now and then...

Oct 26, 2015 7:05 AM in response to Ales De Large

Hi!


Same problem (installed El Capitan 10.11.1 but could never boot after shutting down.... did it several times, clean installs even and each time the same: all fine till shutdown, then impossible to reboot without installing again. Tried the kext removal techniques many have suggested to no avail.


Apple Care (who told me lots of people are having the issue) has an official solution given to me today and is as follows : if you have a clone of your hard disk or a full time machine backup from before the problem: boot up from internet recovery (startup with alt command R ) erase your drive with disk utility then recover the OS, which will be the original OS that came with your mac, not el capitan. Once you have done that, download and install el capitan over your freshly reinstated old OS. Not a clean install. You can then use migration assistant to copy over all the apps, files and settings from your back up (time machine or clone etc)


The problem seems to be installing el capital over certain versions of yosemite in particular as the installer is not removing some things it should remove. Installing over your original mac os freshly recovered seems to solve the issue...

Oct 26, 2015 8:31 AM in response to xynlovesit

My boot problems started with the 10.11.1 update. My 2011 Mac Mini took the original 10.11 install OK, but when I tried to update to 10.11.1 it froze during restart and on all subsequent attempts to reboot.


I booted into the recovery partition and reinstalled from the last Time Machine backup, but then got the "no go" sign (circle with a diagonal line through it) on every attempt to restart. I also had a Carbon Copy Cloner backup from just before the El Capitan install so I've now used that to go back to Yosemite on my Mac Mini.


On the other hand, my 2013 iMac updated OK and is currently running 10.11.1

Oct 26, 2015 8:52 AM in response to Hawfinch

The big thing Apple told me was that it was important to install el capitan on a very clean version of one of the previous Operating systems. So do not do a clean install as just erasing the hard disc is apparently not enough to eradicate whatever the problem is . FIRST install a fresh copy of a previous system on you freshly formatted drive (the easiest way is to restart from internet recovery , erase your drive and recover whatever your mac's original system was) then then install el capitan on top of that. The reinstallation of your old system on an empty drive apparently zaps all the bad stuff and then the el capital installer does things right. Apparently if not , the clearly buggy installer does not remove some things it needs to remove.... A normal installation for most people because they happen not to have those things that need to be remove, whatever they are. But for some reason we do have thise things so we first have to go backwards to then go forwards if you see what I mean.


Anyway. That is Apple's official solution, and it works.

I hope they now actually release an installer that works for everyone. It is unbelievable they released this one.... The mind boggles.

Oct 26, 2015 10:27 AM in response to franciscofrombaltimore

It is really unbelievable that they release such a crap! Maybe it's the punishment for having installed some apps we shouldn't, but still, I have updated without any issues from Tiger days on with a **** lot of 3rd party apps. Always! Update is update. Something that screws everything up is crap. Steve Jobs would be turning in his grave!

Oct 26, 2015 2:21 PM in response to NickTsiotinos

The problem will be related to obsolete applications that can't be properly authenticated by the boot loader.


Try booting up with Verbose mode turned on (Command-V). This will tell you where the process hangs.


In my case, it turned out to be the Eltima SyncMate app, but for good measure, I went through the apps and removed anything that was ancient, unnecessary, etc. I then went through Application Support, Launch Agents and Preferences folders in both /Library & ~/Library and removed anything that was no longer relevant (i.e., for all the apps I had removed).


It would be awesome if these tasks happened automatically when removing apps, but at least I know that I've done some housecleaning. If I had done that prior to using Migration Assistant, there would have been no issues. And the system now boots remarkably quickly (27" 5K Retina iMac, 32GB RAM & 3TB Fusion drive).

Boot up after installing El Capitan

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