Progress Bar Stuck on 100% on boot High Sierra

I'm a very experienced Mac tech support consultant, yet I've been grappling with the "too many corpses" problem since yesterday. I tried a number of approaches, but was confident that a simple solution existed. YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO ERASE YOUR HARD DRIVE, or reinstall Mac OS. I found a couple of postings that explain this surprisingly quick solution. If you're able to get into Recovery Mode utilizing CMD-R, and you're not afraid to work in the Terminal program, THIS WORKS! If you follow these steps EXACTLY, a bad file named "mbr_cache" will be rebuilt and your Mac will reboot successfully (slowly the first time as the rebuild happens, then normal speed after that). This solution worked on my 2011-vintage 21-inch iMac (iMac 12,1) with Mac OS High Sierra. Someone should tell the Apple Geniuses and Tech Support Specialists about this. Or, better yet, they should be able to find these types of solutions themselves. Good luck!

The two articles where I found this solution are:

macos - Opendirectoryd too many corpses being created - Ask Different

https://mrsystems.co.uk/blogs/news/too-many-corpses-being-created

Steps from the articles:

1. Boot and hold CMD-R to start up from macOS Recovery
2. If Filevault is on, mount the disk with Disk Utility and enter password
3. Enter these two commands in Terminal

4. cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/caches/opendirectory

5. mv ./mbr_cache ./mbr_cache-old

6. Exit from Terminal
7. Restart the computer

Success: I resolved this exact problem. When trying to install High Sierra, my Mac was stuck the black startup screen, stalling at either 90% or 100% completion between restarts.

I managed to get High Sierra installed without losing any of my files. Here is how I did it.

Failures:

• Resetting a billion times.
• Resetting PRAM.
• Resetting CMD.
• Using Safe Mode.
• Using Recovery Mode (It would freeze upon attempting to re-install the OS, and Disk Utility couldn't detect my drive).
• Using Internet Recovery Mode (Same as above).
• Looking at Verbose startup mode -- it said "Error 13" on the drive IO.
• Talking to the "geniuses" at an Apple Bar, as well as online tech support. They suggested either formatting my drive, or even buying a new drive. They had no inclination to dig into the problem and actually figure it out and fix it.

What worked:

• I put my Mac in Target Disk mode (hold down T upon startup).
• I connected my Macbook to another Macbook using a Thunderbolt cable. The other Macbook must be running High Sierra. If you don't have a friend with a Macbook, you might be sh*t out of luck.
• I made a backup of my files, in case things went poorly. My Macbook appeared as a drive on my friend's High Sierra computer, but dragging files over in Finder resulted in an error. I had to use Terminal and "cp" my files over.
• I opened Disk Utility on my friend's computer, and here are the steps I took:
  • View -> Show All Devices
  • My Macbook showed up, along with various "Container disks".
  • I ran First Aid/Repair on all of the various things I saw. Some of them threw errors and refused to repair, but that seems to have been okay.
• I then created a bootable USB installer as per How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support using my friend's computer.
• I ejected my Mac, disconnected it from the other computer, and booted my Mac onto the USB booter. I ran the installer from the USB stick, and it succeeded! After it completed, High Sierra booted up, and all of my files were present, unharmed.

This was a huge headache for me, and I hope that this writeup helps save your files. Don't necessarily listen to the Apple "geniuses" who say that a format is necessary.

A read of the various posts shows that there are different things that can cause this, as some people have resolved their issues and others have not.

Basically there are two possibilities: software and hardware.

Simply reinstalling the OS has in some cases apparently fixed the issue, but for others it has not. That could be because the user has previously installed something that prevents booting (a simple reinstall of the OS does not erase extensions and other software the user has installed), or because there is a hardware problem.

One way to isolate this: backup all files, then erase and install the Mac OS and just one admin user, don't migrate any software, settings, or extensions over. Then use the computer for a while, with many restarts, if the issues go away, then you have proven that a totally clean, vanilla system does not suffer from the problem -- the issue probably is with something that had been installed that is incompatible for the OS. If the problem persists, then you may have an intermittent hardware problem, which requires a different type of troubleshooting. The original poster had a 2012 Mac with this -- that's a 6-year old computer. Now I have a 2008 iMac that is still doing just fine, but people in the industry will tell you that some of the parts are not specc-ed to last that long. Also, the original poster had added memory within a few weeks of posting, it is possible something was unintentionally touched inside the unit during that process that now is making intermittent contact.

Issue solved.

After upgrading to MacOS to High Sierra in early December 2017, the MBP (13'; early 2011) worked well for a few weeks before it freeze. High Sierra can not be clean-installed internally for the SSD drive. But installation can be done externally. The drive with the clean-installed High Sierra runs smoothly externally but can not boot (progress bar stuck) or run internally. Then, I replaced drive cable, but still could not get any improvement. Confusing enough, another SSD with Mac OS X (10.7.5) works fine internally, which could indicate the drive cable still function. I also tried with a cloned copy of MacOS 10.11.6 which is bootable externally but not inside.

I still suspected that the drive cable could be problematic. As a last try before throwing away the MBP, I re-ordered another cable, and replaced the one I input last weekend. With this 2nd cable replacement, the computer resumes to the normal status: internal installation, booting and runs are all functioning well. Phew ....

It seems that both the old cable and the 1st replacement are actually faulty. It still can handle old OS (10.7.5) data traffic, but can not deal with the new OS (I tried MacOS 10.11.6; 10.12.1 and 10.13.2; all not woking inside).

Hopefully, this issue-solving can offer some clues for some trouble cases.

There is a solution described in the question:

High Sierra: qmasterd/opendirectoryd: Too many corpses being created

See a solution to the issue from frankv or another similar from rew10000, also look at: http://capitoladesign.com/2018/02/10/osx-too-many-corpses-the-30-minute-fix-no-d ata-loss/

Here is probably the quickest solution from frankv:

If you want to remove all users (without removing home folders)

If you suspect that the local database which stores user accounts is damaged, follow the steps for the version of OS X you're using below. These steps remove all user accounts without removing their related Home folders, and make Setup Assistant open again.

Start up in Single-User Mode by holding Command-S when you turn on the computer. Wait until white text appears.

At the prompt, type each of these commands on single line as they appear below, and press Return at the end of each line.

mount -uw /

cd /var/db

mv dslocal dslocal.old

mkdir -p dslocal/nodes

cp -Rp /System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB/Default dslocal/nodes/

rm .AppleSetupDone

reboot

Once the computer restarts, complete Setup Assistant to create the administrator user account again. When creating the account, the short name entered into the Account Name field should match the name of the user's home folder in /Users, so that the new user will use the existing home folder.

After Setup Assistant, open Terminal and type this command:

sudo chown -R username:staff /Users/username

Note: There is a space before "/Users/". Replace "username" with the user's short name that was entered in Account Name field during the previous step.

If there was more than user on the computer, use the Accounts pane of System Preferences to re-create any remaining users. When creating each account, the short name entered into the Account Name field should match the name of that user's home folder in /Users, so that the new user will use the existing home folder.

I gave up waiting for solution, seems there is no other way I have to reinstall OS, here is my step:

1. Buy an external hard disk.

2. Enter Recovery Mode, backup data to the disk with: File > New Image > Image from “Macintosh HD"

3. Ask my friend who has MacBook to help me create a bootable USB stick (High Sierra 10.3.2)

4. Erase my disk and do a fresh install.

5. Use Migration Assistant to recover my data. Thanks for this blog: http://www.easymacsupport.com/blog/mount-dmg-for-migration-assistant-quickly-wit hout-verification

6. Enable Time Machine to the external disk.

At last, my Mac Mini is back, no data is lost.

Wait... when all of these done, Apple released 10.13.3, but I am not sure should I install the update? What if the error occurs again?

I ended up being able to take a disk image in disk utility and tossed it in an external, to make up for my lack of viable time machine back up, in order to save my files.

Then I created a Sierra boot with a USB flash drive I had laying around, wiped the machine, and downgraded to Sierra. Once that was done and with the added confidence of having a back up, I upgraded to high sierra ONLY AFTER I turned screen share on, as Brianfromedmonds indicated success using that.

The weird thing is, now i’m upgraded to 10.13.3 without issue. I restored my files but not my applications, I only use this Mac (2012 Mac mini) to edit video and audio. I only restored what I needed and it seems to be running fine. AND I learned a valuable lesson about letting a lot of time go between time machine back ups.

Hello All,

I found a solution that worked for me..

Boot into Recovery Mode

Open Terminal

Create a new Directory on your Hard Drive

mkdir /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"/kextbackup

Go to the Folder Extensions

Move the HuaweiDataCardDriver.kext to you new created directory

mv HuaweiDataCardDriver.kext /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"/kextbackup

Close Terminal and reboot.

This then fixed my issue straight away. You can try moving other kext files, some other ones that are recommended if you have:

Belcarra.USBLAN_netpart.kext
Belcarra.USBLAN_usbpart.kext
HuaweiDataCardDriver.kext
JMicronATA.kext
RemoteControl.USBLAN_usbpart.kext
UsbEthernetGadget.kext
USBExpressCardCantWake_Huawei.kext

Cheers

Chris

This just happened to my mid 2011 Mac mini, after the10.13.3 update, though since High Sierra it was never super stable to begin with.

Boot progress bar on white background got stuck at 100%, I left it on for hours and nothing happened. Found a USB keyboard to boot to recovery to run first aid on the SSD, which didn't help. Since my main Mac has Thunderbolt3/USB-C ports, I didn't really have the right cable/dongle to do target disk mode with the mini. So I opened up the Mac mini to remove the SSD, put it in a USB-C enclosure so I can use my main laptop to troubleshoot. First I booted off the external drive and it also got stuck at the progress bar, so at least it was software and not the Mac mini. I then booted up the internal drive to copy some files over just in case. After that I booted to recovery to reinstalled the OS on the Mac mini SSD. After all that it booted up fine with all the data still intact, only thing I had to re-modify was the static IP in Network settings. I put the SSD back in the Mac mini and now everything is working great again.

I guess Sierra to High Sierra upgrade has some issues so a lot of us have Macs in weird states, but re-installing was an easy enough fix. This issue is probably more prominent on older Macs that have gone through multiple macOS/OSX upgrades. I get new laptops pretty often and always just set them up as new, and High Sierra upgrade went great on my current laptop.

Hi!
I just had this happen to my work iMac two days ago. Did just about EVERYTHING suggested in this thread.
Did the reset of the NVRAM, wouldn't start in Safe Mode, went into Recovery Mode, did First Aid, no errors, reinstalled the OS THREE flipping times... spoke to Apple Care... first guy said to do a reinstall, second person said that it would be a hardware issue (right... ok.. this machine is less than 18 months old, and have had NO issues with it).,

I called local Apple tech, and they said I wouldn't be able to get it in for another 5 days. Was at wit's end... the ONLY thing I didn't do was recovery from Time Machine. Was told by the tech that it wouldn't work if it's a hardware issue.

After the third reinstall didn't work, I decided to screw the advice, and use Time Machine recovery. The only problem being is that my last back up was from October 7 last year. I let it install overnight, and when I came back to work this morning, the recovery install was successful. Booted up, and voila! I lost three months of work, but everything else is here.

My only theory is that the last back up was prior to High Sierra. The Mac has gone back to Sierra (and I've turned off auto-update).

So, whatever the issue is with High Sierra, this machine definitely didn't like it.

So I restored mine to an earlier backup and was able to load up. I was scared to restart so I did but someone else in this or another thread suggested which was to download Malwarebytes and scan. Sounded weird. But Malwarbytes did find something and delete it and I was able to restart my computer okay and now everything works fine.

FreeSoftwareServers wrote:

I have NEVER in my life seen a brand new formatted disk with fresh installed OS failed to reboot immediately. 0 Updates, no changes whatsoever.

I have -- this happens when there is a hardware issue, possibly with the disk itself, or with the disk drive interface, or with other electronics inside the Mac. Having a perfect fresh new OS installed or running Disk Utility or Unix tools to repair the file system will not fix a hardware issue.

I have downgraded to Sierra and the laptop is working as expected. SMART status was ok, this was no a hardware issue. They changed the Filesystem which as another user points out seems to cause issues on HDD's.

This may or may not solve everyone's issues, but my new iMac wouldn't get past 100% on load, nor could I boot in safe mode. I could boot in recovery mode however, and was able to use Disk Utility. Upon first try, I only used First Aid on the Fusion Drive, but this didn't work on a reboot.

I then used Disk Utility again and ran First Aid on every drive option available. I don't know which one did it, but on reboot it started up instantly again.

Just my experience and hopefully helpful! If not, I feel your pain!

I ran into this problem two days ago. Turned on MacBook Pro mid2012 and wouldn’t boot. Tried most of what was suggested here. What worked for me is the following. Went into recovery mode, command R, attached watermark hard drive I had used to do a backup in sept 2017. I haven’t backup since so I did a disk image of the hard drive and saved it to the external drive. Then did a restore from my sept backup. That restored is version 10.9.5. After restore system booted ups as normal. I opened the image file by double clicking on the .dmg file on my external drive, clicked on skip. I moved all the files since my last backup from the .dmg to the hard drive in their respective folders. Ran time machine backup. Now I’m going to install Sierra not High Sierra and see what happens.