Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Hi,
I just booted Sierra into recovery mode and the terminal is missing from the menu.
The main install window has the usual Restore, Reinstall, Help and Disk utility. But in the top menu, there is nothing but "language chooser". Terminal is gone.
(Hardware is a 2011 15" MBP)
Help!
MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12)
You're going to have to do the Internet Recovery thing. I think you've messed up your partitions. I've had the same Language Chooser issue when I messed up my partitions (including the Recovery Partition) while poking around bootcamp partition from inside Windows.
Internet Recovery fixed the issue.
This appears to only affect the 2011 model. I was able to get to the terminal menu once...and it hasn't come back since. Others with the 2011 model are reporting this same issue (search this community for "terminal missing sierra" and you will see multiple posts (all of which are from 2011 macbook pro owners).
Also I've reloaded mac OS sierra a total of four times, I removed ALL partitions and formatted before installing. Internet recovery will not fix the issue as I've done this as well.
The only work-around that I've found is to create a bootable install of Sierra http://www.macworld.com/article/3092900/macs/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-sier ra-installer-drive.html
Then boot to the USB drive and use terminal from the menu there. It's a long-winded work-around, but I have verified that it does work. I was able to get into the recovery terminal this way.
This bug appears to only be affecting 15" 2011 MacBook Pro devices.
No, doesn't help.
No, partitions are good. This is a reboot after a fresh install, without any Filevault. And a simple reboot back into OSX still works.
Your search fu is better than mine. All I find is a lot of totally irrelevant articles. It's like the forum's search feature just picks out search words at random that match with words in articles at random.
I googled it a fair bit before posting and couldn't find anyone with the same problem, but it sounds like you've nailed it down to the 2011MBPs. Maybe people are experimenting with old kit, and so more likely to see it on an old machine but perhaps it affects new models too?
The problem is, without a terminal, you can't even see what went wrong when it goes wrong. I'll bet there is an error message in a log file somewhere that would make perfect sense to someone.... I bet this is bottom of Apple's priority fix list. "Old kit, intermittent bug" *ignore*
My situation was in installing an aftermarket battery (I inherited a MacBook with too many cycles). After a few minutes in the GUI the MacBook would slow down to a crawl. I figured out, a few software versions ago, that I needed to delete the macbookpro8_2.plist file from /system/library/extensions/ioplatformpluginfamily.kext/contents/plugins/acpi_sm c_platformplugin.kext/contents/resources
This was easy to do in mountain lion and Yosemite, but not so easy when they introduced "rootless" to El Capitan. In order to delete system protected files, I had to go into the recovery terminal and run csrutil disable. Not having the menu to choose terminal from was a major upset for me as the GUI lag from the aftermarket battery made my MacBook absolutely unusable. It was literally click...wait five seconds for results for everything.
I was able to fix it by creating a bootable install USB (using my second Mac from work), boot my home mac to the bootable USB, disable rootless using the recovery terminal, boot to the GUI and delete the plist file, boot back to the USB, enable rootless, and my MacBook functions like new again.
What an effin headache :-/
Yup, doing pretty much the same thing, as well as making sure I can delete a partition without having to unlock it first (which you can now do from DiskUtility). I've still got the original battery, but it is completely dead. I now wonder if it would work better without a battery at all.
Can also create and use an internal partition for the bootable drive
I ran into the same issue. The Utilities menu is not disk utility. It is in the main screen that appears after booting in recovery mode. Most of the guides I found online were incorrect.
I am using a MacBook Pro Mid2012 and it is missing for me too... is it missing from all older devices?
I've found that if you boot into Internet Recovery Mode everything is there. Command (⌘) – Option (⌥) – R
I too have the dreaded recovery mode bug.
How to access terminal in Sierra's recovery mode?
