Boot failure with the stop sign on 10.10.5

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Level 2

184 points

Boot failure with the stop sign on 10.10.5

I've encountered a problem which I can't solve after a few attempts. Here's what happened. Because for some years I have had a bad screen resolution at boot (and only at boot time) and wanted it finally to revert to the native monitor resolution, I had started a series of tries to change it. What I did was to reset PRAM, change resolution to a non native, reboot, change back to the native resolution - no improvement. Then I launched the system holding shift (safe mode). I changed the resoultion to a non native and rebooted to change it back. Now the progress bar during boot stuck in the middle and the mentioned stop sign appeared (circle with slash inside) instead of the apple logo.

I have a mult OS system (10.8.5 on a plain HDD, 10.10.5 on a Samsung SSD, 10.11.1 on HDD, win10 on a dedicated second Samsung SSD) The corrupted system is 10.10.5 installed on an SSD disk. Other systems operate ok. What I did try is:

- boot the 10.10.3 recovery partition, repair permissions - no improvement (boot sytuck with the stop sign)

- boot the 10.10.3 recovery partition - repair disk - no improvement (boot sytuck with the stop sign)

- boot the 10.10.3 recovery partition - time machine - recover a 4 month old backup with 10.10.4 - no improvement (boot sytuck with the stop sign)

- boot a 10.11.1 recovery partition (to be able to format the ssd), format the whole ssd (guid partition setting), recover the 10.10.4 - the system started to work properly.

So I decided to install all the things which were missing including the update to 10.10.5 and reboot - system stuck with the stop sign at boot...

Apparently the 10.10.5 update did the thing but... why the system was stable for the last 3 or 4 months with 10.10.5? Did the reset PRAM change something? Or going to the safe mode? I've read it can be something with TRIM. But I had not any 3rd party enabler nor disabler. Nothing... What did I miss?

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), Radeon 5870/Logic X/ProTools 12

Posted on Nov 30, 2015 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Nov 30, 2015 6:06 AM in response to samplaire

- Boot to Recovery and repair the startup disk

OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support

- If it is repairable reinstall the OSX

How to reinstall OS X on your Mac - Apple Support

- If you do not have a backup use disk utility to restore the internal disk to an external disk so you can try to recover data.

Then format the startup disk and do a fresh install of OSX

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Answer 2

samplaire Author

Level 2

184 points

Nov 30, 2015 12:24 PM in response to lllaass

Hi,

THanks for Your input. However if you read my whole explanation you would have noticed... I have had done the steps.

Anyway, I did one more thing which brought the machine back to life (as for now). I launched the 10.10.3 recovery partition and did an overinstalling of the system (ie I chose 'install 10.10') instead of delete all contents. This way the computer rose (past time of rise?) from its knees up being 10.10.5. One thing which changed - before seeing the desktop I saw a warning 'pro toools 12.3.1' is not compatible with this release of Mac OS'. This is not true according to the PT compatibility grid. Nów I remenber that bwtóre updating the system I also updated PT from 12.3 to 12.3.1. After the proper boot I found a folder called 'incompatible software' in the main root where 2 files were residing - I have to check for their proper names but one is firewire MIDI driver from avid, second - I don't remenber now, will update the info soon). SO probably the 2 stopped the boot process! I will also publish my thoughts on Avid PT forum). As always each system differs. I have had the avid mbox 2 pro (firewire) for years which worked fine but I found an official avid statenent it can be problematic with PT12. I dropped the interface and replaced it with a decent Audient one. The avid drivers however still reside in the system. So probably and generally PT12.3.1 is 100% compatible but the mbox 2 pro - not.

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Answer 3

samplaire Author

Level 2

184 points

Nov 30, 2015 1:37 PM in response to samplaire

The 2 incompatible files are as follows:

DigidesignFireWireMIDI.plugin

DigiDioMidiDriver.plugin

Both are dated 20. dec 2012 and have vesrsion number 9.0

Hope this helps anybody ;-)

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