El Capitan won't Boot after update

I have had a chance to completely reformat my drive, drop back to Yosemite, and reinstall all of my files form a Time Machine save set that I created before installing El Capitan. My machine now operates as before. However, I have lost some work done since installing El Capitan.

I have zero time to spend trying to discover what the conflict was in El Capitan. What I can report is that the failure to reboot problem came right out of the blue. My machine ran fine for a couple of weeks. Then catastrophe.

With a problem of this magnitude, for anyone at Apple to suggest that end user customers are responsible for no reboot problems on their machines is patently absurd on its face. Absolutely absurd. It also is irresponsible. Apple promotes the benefits of El Capitan, but I can find no place where it discloses any information about risk factors on the order of magnitude of the no boot problem. However, in searching the internet, I have come across quite a number of reports of no boot problems from end users. For example, I found a couple of these are in the comments section of Apple's store where customers download El Capitan.

Like others who have had the problems I have experienced, there is no f****g way I am going to install El Capitan until there is assurance by Apple that the source of the no boot problem has been identified and fixed -- by Apple. Clearly, there is a flaw that (I am going to be charitable to Apple here) that unwitting app developers have stumbled into. However, this does not explain why my installation of El Capitan ran perfectly until it did not.

Meanwhile, I also have sent out a notice to all clients, colleagues and friends warning them about the reboot problem and advising them not to install El Capitan until the reboot problem has been addressed and fixed -- again by Apple.

In conclusion, it is very clear that Apple has a problem in the area we are talking about. It is in the company's interest to get off its butt, find out what is going on, fix the problem, and issue a change to the OS. The company also needs to send out an all points bulletin to all developers demanding that they test their apps for potential conflict with El Capitan. The responses need to be affirmatively tracked. In other words, Apple needs to demand that every one of its registered developers test and certify each an every one of its products for its potential conflict with the El Capitan boot sequence. That is what I would do. The task should not be onerous. From what II can see, something is causing El Capitan not to see the boot drive. It seems likely to me that if the problem is with one or more third party apps, it will be with an app that is somehow involved in the boot sequence of El Capitan. I suspect that very few apps fall into this category.

As an end user customer, it is absolutely not my responsibility to do this investigation when the nature of the problem appears to be related to the OS that Apple has released.

Until then let me say that no one has come up with any proof that I am aware of that the no boot problem I and others have experienced is directly associated with third party apps. No one. In the absence of such hard evidence and reproducible results, the assertion of third party apps causing the reboot problem simply an assertion, no matter who makes it.

Thanks for your recap - describing the situation perfectly and diplomatic.

I have been through the same hassel - and 3 different "Apple Senior Customer Support" people - giving me no clue about solving the issue.

my problem came after a short period of operations after installing El Capitan. - hit my iMac, my other MacBook Pro, MacAir, Mac Mini were not affected by El Capitan, however the Beta version did hurt a lot, same problem as you described. I have reported my experience thoroughly through the Beta "Feed-back Assistant"

Apple has an issue to deal with! not only technical.

Egon

I have a long history in the software business, including starting firms. I can tell you that as CEO, I paid extremely close attention to all trouble reports and every bit of feedback from our customers. Customers are the ones who pay the bills.

I also can say as person with deep experience development, there is no evidence right now concerning what is causing the problems we have seen. I think it is more likely that there is a problem in the El Capitan boot sequence. I say this; because what we are seeing occurs immediately after the chimes have confimed that the CPU, etc., are working correctly. Once that happens, I am betting that the boot sequence, probably the kernel, should be looking for the boot drive and then attempt to mount it. That is where the sequence seems to be failing on my machine. The boot drive seems not to be mounted.

It is absolutely inconceivable that Apple would allow any third party app to interrupt the boot sequence of any version of OS X. Inconceivable. This issue is computer manufacturer 101. For example, the BIOS on PCs used to take care of this. Except for the clone BIOS developers, no one had access to the BIOS. Same was true of VAX/VMS systems. Without bulletproof integrity in the boot sequence, it would be impossible to put products out in the market with any assurance that they would perform in a predictable way.

On this issue, I tried everything I could on my machine to eliminate any possibility that something I had hooked up to the machine was a potential problem. USB devices at the top of the list. Furthermore, it is very strange that the no boot problem would come in from the blue when I had run for two weeks with no problems. During that time, I made no changes to any of the installed apps. None. It also is curious that the failures we have seen do not generate an automatic trouble report to Apple. I know they don't; because I turned off my routers. No way for my machine to send or receive anything.

Next, I have several virus and malware detection apps. Dr. Web, ClamXvs. I run these diagnostics every couple of days. I also keep very tight control over cookies and databases being created by my three browsers, Safari, Chrome and Firefox. And I use Drive Genius to monitor the condition of my drive. In other words I my machine as pristine as I can. In reviewing the logs, I can see no issues detected by any of these diagnostics in the days leading up to the boot failure.

Finally, once I returned to Yosemite with exactly the same apps, everything went away. The boot sequence saw the drive perfectly, just as it should.

In conclusion, let me say as a veteran of the business that problems such as those we are seeing are not evil spirits in the hardware or software. There is an engineering explanation. Apple is the one that needs to find it. They need to audit their own code, particularly looking for ALL changes from Yosemite that in El Capitan. Same goes for auditing the interfaces to hardware, particularly the models of machines that have been reporting boot problems.

Once again, customers rule. Companies ignore what customers say at their peril.

All of this said, I began using Apple computers starting with the Ii c. There have been incredible few problems over the years. The conversion to Unix based OS X was amazing, and all that has happened since is easily the most significant technical achievement in the history of computers.

No way I would use anything but a Mac. I hope they get this El Capitan boot problem fixed asap and not resort to finger pointing base on no hard data.

Hi

I'm impressed about your analysis and feel the same way, as you described it.

I encountered the same problem beginning of Oktober; my solution, which I found here, was deleting Eltima.

Since then I had no more incident.

One point in your comment draw my special attention: you, and as I understand hygom163, experienced this situation after several days with normal shut down and restart (out of the blue, as you call it). Did I understood this correct?

If this is correct, it could mean, the problem could hit back anytime.

I appreciate your answer and thank again for your clear statement.

Jules

p.s. just to complete: I run an Imac 2011 (problem arouse), a mac mini 2011server model and a macbook air 2013 (on both no problem at all)

OS installed on iMac on a ssd attached via thunderbolt

hi,

my MacBook Pro had a full reinstallation from scratch after installing the pre-release of El Capitan...since then it has been stable and upgraded to 10.11.1

my iMac - had to go back to Lion and upgrade to Yosemite to get a stable base - meaning a couplete clean installation. El Capitan re-install gave the same problem again and again. so finally i waited until 10.11.1 was out i installed and has been stable since. - Apple Support did not give any clue about what to do or advice...only promised they would solve it within 30 day after new OSX release. i was down for at least 3 weeks.

fallowing i have found some Eltiman .kext something on both machines, old files, different dates and version...cannot understand why this should impact boot process?? another strange behaviour is my Western Digital back-up HD lost all data after upgrades to new OSX. now i disconnect until upgrades are done and only use my HD as an extra storage disc, even it is troublesome. I dare not install WD drivers yet, as they are not confirmed compatible with 10.11.

I have found Apple support very sketchy once a problem gets down below a certain level. The best and the brightest are certainly not working as geniuses at any of the Apple stores I have been to. That is maybe 15 stores. I have the so-called joint venture level of service. Somewhat better support than the so-called geniuses at stores, but not much. Even with the JV card, i have to wait in queues. That said, I did get a loaner computer when I brought one of my other ones in for a problem. I am not sure that is afforded to regular non-JV customers.

We also in the publishing business, and we have an arrangement with Apple. However, our publisher arrangement has yielded zero benefits.

We do not

Returning to the problem ju jour, no boot under El Capitan, the fact that this problem is showing up on several different models of Macs suggests to me that it is highly probable that the issue is in the El Capitan OS, and that it is not machine specific.

In light of what has happened to me and what others have reported, I believe no assumptions can be made about El Capitan. That is the reason I removed El Capitan from my machine and dropped back to Yosemite. I have been through so many operating system conversions in my career that I am highly cautious.

Fortunately, I installed El Capitan on only one of my computers for a test. Based on what I saw at the Apple store, I expected no problems. However, before installing El Capitan, I took a number of precautionary steps to make sure I could get back. Unfortunately, machine I chose was a MacBook Pro that I take with me and on which I do much of my original work. When I got caught away from my other machines, I was screwed. When I returned to my office and began the process of restoring my machine to what it was before the El Capitan fiasco, I ran a number of diagnostics on the internal hard drive before and after I reformatted it for restoring my files. The software I put back on my machine was exactly the same as I had before and exactly the same as i put on after El Capitan. I used Time Machine in both cases.

Based on these diagnostics and my knowledge of how modern computers and software work, I am as certain as i can be that the problem is with Apple. I cold be wrong, but the evidence is pointing in that direction. Most likely, the problem is somewhere in the code of the boot sequence in El Capitan. Possibly some interaction with PRAM. Who the **** knows. There may be some very subtle things that to on at the heart of OS X that cause it not to be able to see the boot drive.

I say most likely; because I do not have any data or facts. Nor do I want any. The no boot problem is a hardware or software engineering one. Those kinds of problems are reproducible. It is rare that they come straight out of the blue if something is working properly. It also is unusual for a problem like the one we are having appears on what seems to be a random basis.

Whatever the reasons, my judgment is that El Capitan is totally unacceptable for my purposes. I will stay in the bunker with Yosemite until I am absolutely sure it is safe to come out. Meanwhile, based on Apple's response to what all of us are reporting, and the many ways that are being suggested to work around the no boot problem, I am not going to be holding my breath.

Frankly, I cannot recall another episode in my entire history of using Macs. This is the kind of thing I have come to expect from microsoft. Not Apple.

Loss of data on the WD would be of great concern to me. That might indicate a more generic IO channel problem.

However, I have not had any such USB disc problems. I use WD 1 and 2 tb drives. All of my backup save sets have been created with Yosemite. Out of caution and paranoia, I not connected any Yosemite TM save set to my machine running El capital. My concern is that there may be some latent issue.

hi,

my MacBook Pro had a full reinstallation from scratch after installing the pre-release of El Capitan...since then it has been stable and upgraded to 10.11.1

my iMac - had to go back to Lion and upgrade to Yosemite to get a stable base - meaning a couplete clean installation. El Capitan re-install gave the same problem again and again. so finally i waited until 10.11.1 was out i installed and has been stable since. - Apple Support did not give any clue about what to do or advice...only promised they would solve it within 30 day after a new OSX release

fallowing i have found some Eltiman .kext something on both machines, old files, different dates and version...cannot understand why this should impact boot process?? another strange behaviour is my Western Digital back-up HD lost all data after upgrades to new OSX. now i disconnect until upgrades are done and only use my HD as an extra storage disc, even it is troublesome. I dare not install WD drivers yet, as they are not confirmed compatible with 10.11. Firewire 800 connected HD.

the times changes everything, thats a fact, somethings gets better somethings gets worst.

for what I see, Apple wants to forget the OS X, they are driving the iOS to the future, it is the mean man words, since a couple of years he highlight the iPads as a Laptop replacement ...

back to our topic, there was a time, when we had incompatible versions of 3rd party softwares, the OS X just created a folder on the main disk root as "Applications Incompatible", and moved the files which were causing the potential problems to that specific folder. everything worked perfect and we knew exactly which softwares were not compatible. That happened with me, for example with Parallels Desktop early versions (today I don't use it anymore, VirtualBox rock's it).

for this specific problem, and specially because nobody found the root cause until today, the best solution for me was and still is, return back to Yosemite (restore the latest backup) create a USB stick with the 10.11.1, Apple explains it using the Terminal (perfect), and install a clear OS X. then go and restore your preferences - applications - whatever you have in your backup, I used the Migration Assistent (perfect), and you will have a smooth clean OS X installed without problems in your machine.

I have not found a need for the WD drivers. I simply reformat new drives using Mac OS disc utility. I normally set up two partitions. One big, one small.

I am doing essentially the same things. I reformat before clean install. I throw out incompatible apps. Normally, they are old legacy versions of apps I got for some specific reason and then did not after that.

I have found that all of the solid developers keep current with changes to the OS.

I had a version running fine after a clean install on my 2009 MacPro but there were still some bugs where my logitech camera wasn't recognized as an audio source and my eSata PCI card no longer worked or so I finally went back to Yosemite. I have a 2012 iMac and a 2013 Macbook Pro and they run El Capitan with absolutely no issues.

I used to work for Apple and I know for a fact that after your computer reaches 5 years of age Apple will no longer support it anywhere...at all. The genius bar won't even touch it. It is for that reason that I believe that Apple will not address El Capitan issues for computers older than 2010. My theory makes perfect sense considering the only computer having issues out of the three I am running is older than 5 years.

I had a version running fine after a clean install on my 2009 MacPro but there were still some bugs where my logitech camera wasn't recognized as an audio source and my eSata PCI card no longer worked or so I finally went back to Yosemite. I have a 2012 iMac and a 2013 Macbook Pro and they run El Capitan with absolutely no issues.

I used to work for Apple and I know for a fact that after your computer reaches 5 years of age Apple will no longer support it anywhere...at all. The genius bar won't even touch it. It is for that reason that I believe that Apple will not address El Capitan issues for computers older than 2010. My theory makes perfect sense considering the only computer having issues out of the three I am running is older than 5 years.

Hi Chris,

Glad to hear you are up and running again. I am now running El Capitan quite painlessly since removing .kext files and then doing a few other little tweaks, but I understand if you just want to continue running Yosemite. Glad I was able to help all the way from South Australia!

Cheers, Jan.

I can't believe Apple is still not responding to the problems. After several weeks I fixed my issue deleting the Eltima.kext, a problem I could never have solved without the help of this community. Really unbelievable, I have always considered the Apple support very crappy, but this worse than anything I have seen before. Don't get me wrong I love my Book and can't imagine to work on a Microsoft machine again, but still, if one simple kext file is able to uproot the system and cause a kernel panic Apple should respond immediately. But it seems they are just expecting their customers to solve the problem by their selves. I hope at least some of the Apple staff are paying attention to this forum and report back to the top.