Marissaur
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Q: Macbook Pro spontaneously restarted, but without kernel panic or boot screen?

I have a 2 yr old 13" mid-2012 Macbook Pro, which recently started acting up and slowing down immensely. I went to the Apple Store, and they deduced that my hardware was fine, but was probably a software issue. I reformatted my HD entirely. Then I started having the three beeps when I turned on my computer, so I opened up the back and noticed one of my RAM sticks was loose.

 

Today, I was using Google Chrome, and all of a sudden, my computer stopped responding and I saw the spinning loading icon (not the beachball), and my screen went black, with my cursor still present. Then it went to my log-in screen, where I input my password. The computer had acted like it had completely restarted, and when I reopened Google Chrome, I got the typical "Google Chrome didn't shut down correctly. To reopen the pages you had open, click Restore." My computer never actually turned off. I also never got a kernel panic.

 

This is the most bizarre thing. I can't find anything similar to this on Google or this forum. What happened?

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jan 5, 2016 7:24 PM

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Marissaur

Q: Macbook Pro spontaneously restarted, but without kernel panic or boot screen?

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  • by sterling r,

    sterling r sterling r Jan 7, 2016 7:22 AM in response to Marissaur
    Community Specialists
    Jan 7, 2016 7:22 AM in response to Marissaur

    Hi there Marissaur,


    It sounds like your computer isn't functioning correctly and has started acting like it restarted without actually having restarted. I would start by booting to safe mode and seeing if that resolves the issue. That clears some system level caches and performs a disk check and repair if possible so I think it's a great place to start:

     

    Follow these steps to start up into safe mode.

    1. Start or restart your Mac. 
    2. Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key.
    3. Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.

    After the Apple logo appears, it might take longer than usual to reach the login screen or your desktop. This is because your Mac performs a directory check of your startup disk as part of safe mode.

    To leave safe mode, restart your computer without pressing any keys during startup.

    From: Try safe mode if your Mac doesn‘t finish starting up

     

    If the issue persists I would run the Disk Repair option of the Disk Utility to see what it says about the disk:

     

    Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck

    Try Disk Utility

    Use these steps to use the Disk Utility app to verify or repair a disk.

    1. If you're using OS X Lion or later, start the computer from Recovery System or Internet Recovery. If you're using an older version of OS X and your computer came with a Mac OS X Install disc, insert the installation disc and restart the computer while holding the C key instead.
    2. When your computer finishes starting up, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities window, or from the Installer menu if you're started from an installation disc.
    3. Click the First Aid tab.
    4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
    5. Select your Startup Disk (usually named "Macintosh HD").
    6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

     

    Then test it all out again if possible or if there is a problem with the hard drive the disk utility should tell you what you need to do. Thank you for using Apple Support Communities let us know how that goes!