Hi,
I've just updated my iMac (late 2013) from OS X 10.11.2 to .3. Right after log in the system justs hangs (spinning beach ball) while the login screen is still shown. I can not do anything, than watch the ball spinning or the small circular spinning loading icon.
I've already reseted SMC and NVRAM and waitet for 2 hours, but nothing changes.
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)
I've got the same issue as yourself where mine just hangs at the login screen with the bar just over 3/4 full (screen dims like it's going to desktop).
I've tried reinstalling OSX to no avail so now I'm restoring from the backup I made before I updated after formatting my SSD.
I Would love to know what's caused this as it's very annoying.
Meanwhile I've found the following:
- My wife can log-in and work with her account, so this should not be a OS specific issue (I hope)
- Did a FS check from recovery partition, but that did not change anything
I hope this can be solved without installing everything from scratch.
Boot into Safe Mode, Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode. Then reboot normally and see if there's any improvement.
I've had the same problem with the last two updates 10.11.2 and 10.11.3. I did the Combo update on both. After restarting, only half my menu items appeared across the top of the screen and I would get the beach ball of death. I tried opening Console to see what was the problem, but on both occasions, I was given the message that Console was damaged. Booted in Safe mode, then rebooted . . . no change. I fortunately cloned my drive on both occasions just before the update, but I had to reinstall the system from scratch, and then migrated everything from my cloned drive.
Not sure if I have something currently on my system that is causing this, but I've never had to do this before in all my years of upgrading. Once I reinstall the system and migrate, all is fine . . . weird.
Booting into safe mode and normal reboot afterwards did not help. Even in safe mode I face the same behavior: Login spinning beach ball for my account, but fine for my wife.
Since your wife's account does not exhibit this problem it's limited to account. It could be a preference file that's causing the problem.
Trouble Shooting Preferences
NOTE: In Lion and later the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.
If you're running Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:
1 - close all applications.
2 - open your Home/Library folder and Option-drag (copy) the Preferences folder to the Desktop.
3 - select the contents of your Home/Library/Preferences folder and drag them into the Trash bin in the Dock. You will be asked to provide your Admin password.
4 - reboot. Be sure to know your account's username and password as you will be asked to log in with it.
5 - run the application again and determine if the problem(s) is fixed.
6 - If the problem is fixed:
A - open the working Home/Library/Preferences folder.
B - Open the Preferences folder on the Desktop, select all of the contents and drag them into the working Home/Library/Preferences folder.
C - When the Copy window pops up check the "Apply to All" check box and then click on the Don't Replace or Skip button.
D - reboot.
7 - If the problem is NOT fixed, drag the contents of the Preference folder on the Desktop into the Home/Library/Preference folder and replace the entire contents that were created by clicking on Replace.
8 - reboot and you're back as square one.
Note: keep the Preference folder on the desktop until you're sure all registration info for your apps are working. If not you can copy the required files from the desktop pref folder to the working one.
Be sure to have a complete backup of your hard drive before attempting.
Thanks for the hint with the preferences. Unfortunately it did not work. 😢
I'm thinking of just recovering my user folder from time machine, but I'm unsure how to do that correct, esp. restoring my user folder from time machine from my wifes account. Can I open time machine using su from terminal?
Hi
I have the same problem. I had 10.11.2 and updated this morning, after the update I cannot login with my default account. I can login with my admin account but this does not allow me to change the login items for my default user nor can I access the Library directory.
I don't know how to solve this.
Walter
I am experiencing this exact problem as well. I even tried installing a new copy of OS X from the recovery partition, but my account still hangs on login. Am going to try restoring from Time Machine backup of 10.11.2 (pre-update).
Hi
dont bother. I tried all that didn't work. I'm now reinstalling.
Walter
My next step is to erase my account and restore it from Time Machine Backup. Unfortunately migration assistant does not see the time machine backup (the one of my MacBook it sees - strange), so I will try to do it by just restoring all the files/folders - which will take some time (136 GB). If this does not work, I will also re-install.
I've never had any issue with updates before, but now I'm a bit annoyed I have to admit.
In the end my solution was to format my HD and restore from a time machine back up (lucky for me I performed a backup before updating) and have now successfully updated to 10.11.3.
I've since backed up and also cloned my drive to a spare external just in case anything goes wrong.
I Know it's a long winded solution but it worked for me but I am intrigued to know what caused the OS to fail the first time I tried to update.
In the end my solution was to format my HD and restore from a time machine back up (lucky for me I performed a backup before updating) and have now successfully updated to 10.11.3.
You are our new poster child for Time Machine. 🙂 Glad it worked out for you.
Hi GerdWeiss, this did it. Great, thanks a lot. Don't know why I did not find that posting before. Would have saved me a lot of hours.
Btw. Restoring the user did not help, which is obvious after reading Fix for El Capitan stuck at login
OS X 10.11.3 Update spinning wheel after login
