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computer won't start after upgrade to el capitan 10.11.2

Hi,


I have recently upgraded to 10.11.2 and my computer will no longer start. It gets to the end of the start process and freezes. I have tried several things including starting in safe mode, reseting PRAM and starting in recovery mode and downloading a new operating system, all to no avail. In the end I have had to go back to 10.11.1 with time machine back up. I'm on 2009 Macbook Pro core 2 duo 2.53 with 8GB RAM.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Many thanks,


Glyn

MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.53 GHz), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 13, 2015 2:28 AM

Reply
8 replies

Dec 13, 2015 9:51 AM in response to GlynTho

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.

The test works on OS X 10.7 ("Lion") and later. I don't recommend running it on older versions of OS X. It will do no harm, but it won't do much good either.

Don't be put off by the complexity of these instructions. The process is much less complicated than the description. You do harder tasks with the computer all the time.

2. If you don't already have a current backup, please back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.

There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.

3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. As I wrote above, it changes nothing. It doesn't send or receive any data on the network. All it does is to generate a human-readable report on the state of the computer. That report goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. If you prefer, you can act on it yourself without disclosing the contents to me or anyone else.

You should be wondering whether you can believe me, and whether it's safe to run a program at the behest of a stranger. In general, no, it's not safe and I don't encourage it.

In this case, however, there are ways for you to decide whether the program is safe without having to trust me. First, you can read it. Unlike an application that you download and click to run, it's transparent, so anyone with the requisite skill can verify what it does.

You may not be able to understand the script yourself. But variations of it have been posted on this website thousands of times over a period of years. The site is hosted by Apple, which does not allow it to be used to distribute harmful software. Any one of the millions of registered users could have read the script and raised the alarm if it was harmful. Then I would not be here now and you would not be reading this message. See, for example, this discussion.

Another indication that the test is safe can be found in this thread, and this one, for example, where the comment in which I suggested it was recommended by one of the Apple Community Specialists, as explained here.

Nevertheless, if you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.

4. Here's a general summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:

☞ Copy a particular line of text to the Clipboard.

☞ Paste into the window of another application.

☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.

☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.

These are not specific instructions; just an overview. The details are in parts 7 and 8 of this comment. The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time.

5. Try to test under conditions that reproduce the problem, as far as possible. For example, if the computer is intermittently slow, run the test during a slowdown.

You may have started up in safe mode. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual before running it. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.

6. If you have more than one user, and only one user is affected by the problem,, and the affected user is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.

7. Load this linked web page (on the website "Pastebin.") The title of the page is "Diagnostic Test." Below the title is a text box headed by three small icons. The one on the right represents a clipboard. Click that icon to select the text, then copy it to the Clipboard on your computer by pressing the key combination command-C.

If the text doesn't highlight when you click the icon, select it by triple-clicking anywhere inside the box. Don't select the whole page, just the text in the box.

8. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Click anywhere in the Terminal window to activate it. Paste from the Clipboard into the window by pressing command-V, then press return. The text you pasted should vanish immediately.

9. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "Syntax error" or "Event not found," enter

exec bash

and press return. Then paste the script again.

10. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.

If the test is taking much longer than usual to run because the computer is very slow, you might be prompted for your password a second time. The authorization that you grant by entering it expires automatically after five minutes.

If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.

11. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, a series of lines will appear in the Terminal window like this:

Test started

Part 1 of 4 done at: … sec

Part 4 of 4 done at: … sec

The test results are on the Clipboard.

Please close this window.

The intervals between parts won't be exactly equal, but they give a rough indication of progress.

Wait for the final message "Please close this window" to appear. If you don't see it within about 15 minutes, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, press the key combination control-C or command-period to stop it. Then go to the next step. You'll have incomplete results, but still something. If you close the Terminal window while the test is still running, the partial results won't be saved and you'll have to start over.

12. When the test is complete, or if you stopped it because it was taking too long, quit Terminal. The results will have been saved to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.

At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with the words "Start time." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "close this window" message. Please wait for it and try again.

If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.

13. When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the software that runs this website. Please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

14. This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak for themselves, not for me. The test itself is harmless, but whatever else you're told to do may not be. For others who choose to run it, I don't recommend that you post the test results on this website unless I asked you to.

______________________________________________________________

Copyright © 2014, 2015 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work (including the referenced "Diagnostic Test"), I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

Dec 13, 2015 11:16 AM in response to GlynTho

A

Please remove "BitDefender Antivirus" by following the instructions on this page. I can't vouch for the effectiveness of those instructions. If they don't work, refer to the developer for more information.

Back up all data before making any changes. Never install any "anti-virus" or "anti-malware" software again.

B

Make sure that "Paragon NTFS" (if you still need it) is updated to the latest version. If you don't need it, remove it.

Any third-party software that doesn't install from the App Store or by drag-and-drop into the Applications folder, and uninstall by drag-and-drop to the Trash, is a system modification.

Whenever you remove system modifications, they must be removed completely, and the only way to do that is to use the uninstallation tool, if any, provided by the developers, or to follow their instructions. If the software has been incompletely removed, you may have to re-download or even reinstall it in order to finish the job.

I never install system modifications myself, and except as stated in this comment, I don't know how to uninstall them. You'll have to do your own research to find that information.

Here are some general guidelines to get you started. Suppose you want to remove something called “BrickMyMac” (a hypothetical example.) First, consult the product's Help menu, if there is one, for instructions. Finding none there, look on the developer's website, say www.brickmymac.com. (That may not be the actual name of the site; if necessary, search the Web for the product name.) If you don’t find anything on the website or in your search, contact the developer. While you're waiting for a response, download BrickMyMac.dmg and open it. There may be an application in there such as “Uninstall BrickMyMac.” If not, open “BrickMyMac.pkg” and look for an Uninstall button. The uninstaller might also be accessed by clicking the Customize button, if there is one.

Back up all data before making any changes.

You will generally have to restart the computer in order to complete an uninstallation. Until you do that, there may be no effect, or unpredictable effects.

If you can’t remove software in any other way, you’ll have to erase and install OS X. Never install any third-party software unless you're sure you know how to uninstall it; otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.

Trying to remove complex system modifications by hunting for files by name often will not work and may make the problem worse. The same goes for "utilities" such as "AppCleaner" and the like that purport to remove software.

C

"ZipCloud," sometimes named "JustCloud," is a cloud-storage service with a doubtful reputation. The OS X client is sometimes distributed along with malware. Although ZipCloud may not be malicious itself, it should be suspected by virtue of the company it keeps.

To remove ZipCloud, start by backing up all data (not with ZipCloud itself, of course.)

Quit the "ZipCloud" or "JustCloud" application, if it's running, and drag it from the Applications folder to the Trash. Don't try to empty yet.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

~/Library/LaunchAgents

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services Open

from the contextual menu.* A folder named "LaunchAgents" should open.

In the folder, there may be one or more files with a name beginning as follows:

com.jdibackup.

Move all such files to the Trash.

Log out or restart the computer and empty the Trash.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

D

The following system modifications are not working and should either be reinstalled or removed:

Attachment Tamer

Prey

E

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.

Please back up all data before proceeding.

Step 1

If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nosappnd,noschg,nosunlnk,nouappnd,nouchg {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)

Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Start up in Recovery mode. You may be prompted to select a language, then the OS X Utilities screen will appear.

If you use FileVault 2, select Disk Utility, then select the icon of the FileVault startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another drive icon. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar and enter your login password when prompted. Then quit Disk Utility to be returned to the main screen.

Select

Utilities Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

resetp

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

Restart

from the menu bar.

F

Back up all data.

Run the following command in the same way as before. It moves to the Trash "semaphore" files that have not been cleaned up by the system and may be interfering with normal operation. The files are empty; they contain no data. There will be no output this time.

find L*/{Con*/*/Data/L*/,}Pref* -type f -size 0c -name *.plist.??????? -exec mv {} .Trash/ \; 2>&-

Log out or restart the computer and empty the Trash.

G

Please back up all data before proceeding.

Launch the Font Book application and validate all fonts. You must select the fonts in order to validate them. See the built-in help and this support article for instructions. If Font Book finds any issues, resolve them.

Start up in safe mode to rebuild the font caches. Restart as usual and test.

Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t start in safe mode. In that case, ask for instructions.

If you still have problems, then from the Font Book menu bar, select

FileRestore Standard Fonts...

You'll be prompted to confirm, and then to enter your administrator login password.

Also note that if you deactivate or remove any built-in fonts, for instance by using a third-party font manager, the system may become unstable.

H

The battery is worn out and must be replaced.

I

Storing many files on the Desktop may slow down the Finder, especially if the files have custom icons. Move most or all of the files to another subfolder of your home folder.

Dec 14, 2015 6:02 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi,


Thanks again for your reply. I have managed to do some of that, but not all. The un-installers for Bit Defender, Prey and Attachment Tamer all say that the programmes do not exist on my computer.


So, I guess the next step is to erase the disk and reinstall a fresh version of OS X. I'm fairly confident with how to do this, but can I then use my Time Machine back up to recover my programmes and files without recovering my old OS?


Thanks,



Glyn

Dec 14, 2015 6:26 AM in response to GlynTho

I guess the next step is to erase the disk and reinstall a fresh version of OS X.

That may not be necessary. As I wrote earlier, if the software has been incompletely removed, you may have to reinstall it in order to finish the job.

can I then use my Time Machine back up to recover my programmes and files without recovering my old OS?

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. One backup is not enough to be safe. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with Disk Utility. Preferably both.

Erase and install OS X. This operation will destroy all data on the startup volume, so you had be better be sure of the backups. If you upgraded from an older version of OS X, you'll need the Apple ID and password that you used, so make a note of those before you begin.

When you restart, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you transfer the data from a backup.

Select only users and Computer & Network Settings in the Setup Assistant dialog—not Applications or Other files and folders. Don't transfer the Guest account, if it was enabled.

If the problem is resolved after the clean installation, reinstall third-party software selectively. I can only suggest general guidelines. Self-contained applications that install into the Applications folder by drag-and-drop or download from the App Store are usually safe. Anything that comes packaged as an installer or that prompts for an administrator password is suspect, and you must test thoroughly after reinstalling each such item to make sure you haven't restored the problem. I strongly recommend that you never reinstall "security" products, "utilities," or any software that changes the user interface or the behavior of built-in applications such as Safari. If you do that, the problem is likely to recur.

Before installing any software, ask yourself the question: "Am I sure I know how to uninstall this without having to wipe the volume again?" If the answer is "no," stop.

Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it.

Dec 14, 2015 10:05 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi,

Many thanks again.

I think I'm going to have to go with erasing the disk. I am unable to re-install at least one of the 3rd party applications...

Can I just check one more thing with you?

You say "When you restart, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you transfer the data from a backup. Select only users and Computer & Network Settings in the Setup Assistant dialog—not Applications or Other files and folders. Don't transfer the Guest account, if it was enabled."

I've already restarted from my time machine back up several times over the past few days and I have never had this option - just the option to start form time machine back up (in recovery mode). But this time I will be doing it a bit differently - the computer will already be started on a new copy of OS X. I'll have my computer with just OS X on it and nothing else, and an external hard drive with my time machine back up. SoI guess what I need to know is if I can re-install all my applications and files without installing the old operating system under these circumstances?

Once again, thanks for your time and patience.

Glyn

Dec 14, 2015 10:27 AM in response to GlynTho

I guess what I need to know is if I can re-install all my applications and files without installing the old operating system under these circumstances?

Yes, but if you restore all applications, you'll end up with the same configuration you have now. The idea is to reinstall only the software you want and not what you don't want. That can't happen automatically, because Setup Assistant has no way of knowing what you want. There isn't anything like a checklist.


For that reason, you could save yourself hours of work by finding out how to remove the unwanted software without erasing the startup volume. That's what I recommend, if at all possible.

computer won't start after upgrade to el capitan 10.11.2

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