Turn off FileVault is grayed out.

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Level 1

11 points

Turn off FileVault is grayed out.

I have a "Vintage" MacBook Pro early 2011 that I upgraded with 2 TB Samsung SSD and 16 MB memory. Running Mac OS 10.13.4.

Very happy with performance and disk space until battery needed replacement. I turned on FileVault prior to leaving at Apple authorized dealership to replace battery. Now I would like to turn FileVault off again as it is using 1.8 TB disk space. But the "Turn off FileVault" button is grayed out.

In Diskutility I can see that I only have 249.1 GB of free disk space where I should have 1.27 TB free disk space.

I am using Timemachine, last backup was 10 days ago.

At times Finder agrees with DiskUtility, sometimes it sees 1.27 TB of free disk space.

I tried opening a new administrator account and decrypt from the new account, to no avail.

I tried opening a new administrator account and change password on my account from there, to decrypt, to no avail

I used Terminal command diskutil apfs listcryptousers /dev/disk1s1

there are 3 users, the first is my own user ID

When I try to use terminal to decrypt the account I get error message: invalid crypto_ID

I cannot reinstall OS in recovery mode: error 0 kB disk space

I signed out of iCloud to try to unlock FileVault, to no avail

I ran DiskUtility in recovery mode, generating lots of errors ending in invalid crypto_ID

but no option to repair

I tried to install the latest software update, but it gives me error -66925 and leaves me with running DiskUtility, Terminal or endless loop restart, which I can only block by force shut down with the power button.

Thinking that there may be incompatibilty with the Samsung SSD drive and FileVault I followed threads describing to decrypt Apple Fusion drives, but this did not work either.

What is left may be to copy my files on an external harddrive, erase the SSD and reinstall from scratch.

Before I do that, does anyone have a similar problem or even a solution to my problem on how to turn off FileVault? I could use a strike of genius to help with this!

MacBook Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.4), early 2011, Samsung SSD 2TB

Posted on May 28, 2018 8:16 AM

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Answer 1

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,827 points

May 30, 2018 8:48 AM in response to ajunk

The fact that it gave you that message means it believes a specific policy has been set that disallows you from disabling FileVault.

You could try reinstalling macOS - you shouldn't lose any data - but I can't promise it would make the issue go away, either.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

One other thing to try would be to start your Mac in recovery mode following the instructions above.

When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Disk Utility, then select the icon of the volume you want to shut off FileVault for and click the unlock button in the tool bar and select File -> Turn Off Encryption from the menu bar.

Sometimes these options are disabled, but it's much easier to give it a shot than to reinstall macOS.

Note that if macOS believes your file system is still encrypting (which Time Machine seems to) that can also cause this problem, so before doing any of the above you may want to try booting to the recovery partition and tell Disk Utility to "Repair Disk."

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Answer 2

ajunk Author

Level 1

11 points

May 30, 2018 2:00 PM in response to ajunk

My company IT guy advised that it should just wait it out, since FileVault may actually still be encrypting my 2TB drive. He says the "turn FileVault off" function may remain gray through the process and cannot be interrupted until completed.

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Answer 3

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,827 points

May 31, 2018 8:36 AM in response to ajunk

That's true, but it doesn't take two days to complete, and you would see some type of progress notification in the FileVault preference pane if it were still encrypting.

If all else fails, they will be happy to let you do Internet Recovery at your local Apple Store; you may wish to make a Genius Bar appointment and get their input regardless.

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Answer 4

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,827 points

May 28, 2018 8:41 PM in response to ajunk

The key is the phrase "A recovery key has been set by your company, school or institution."

Meaning it's likely against your organization's policy to turn it off.

This is what that window looks like on an ordinary Mac with Filevault enabled:

Note the message stating simply "A recovery key has been set."

Set a FileVault recovery key for Mac computers in your institution - Apple Support

Preventing users from disabling FileVault 2 – Managing OS X

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Answer 5

ajunk Author

Level 1

11 points

May 30, 2018 8:39 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Thank you William,

I contacted my IT help desk, they said they do not have a recovery key set that would not allow me to turn on/off FileVault as needed and referred me to contact Apple. I have used this Macbook since 2011 (though initially with a different harddrive) and have been able to turn on/off FileVault with my admin user password. Admittedly, I mostly have had FileVault off. Could it be an issue with High Sierra?

Since I have enabled Filevault, Timemachine has not made any backups. Yesterday I tried to force TimeMachine to back up and I received the error message that FileVault is encrypting or decrypting data and TimeMachine has to wait till FileVault is finished. I opened FileVault, there appeared to be no activity...

Thanks,

Anna

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Answer 6

ajunk Author

Level 1

11 points

May 30, 2018 1:52 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Hi William,

the plot thickens: I tried all options to reinstall mac OS from Recovery mode while at work. The MacBook is hooked up to Ethernet, but in recovery mode I was asked to select a network and password. Being at work, I would need to enter network name, user name and password. Long story short I could not use internet recovery. I then tried to do this with the latest macOS on my Mac, and could not proceed, got a yellow triangle error.

I tried DiskUtility in Recovery mode, there is no option to turn off FileVault (not even grayed out). Running First Aid generates too many "invalid crypto_ID error" to display, but then restores everything to status quo.

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Answer 7

ajunk Author

Level 1

11 points

Jun 4, 2018 3:49 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

I waited two days, nothing changed. Then I copied everything on an external drive and erased the hard drive. I had to recover to OS Lion, upgraded to Yosemite to get back to High Sierra. When installing Yosemite, I was asked if I wanted to turn on FileVault and set an iCloud recovery key. I declined. Now finally back in where I started, I find my user details very disturbing. Even though I did not use the companies IT service (who would have done the erasing, installing for me with FileVault encryption), my ID states I am staff. I am afraid if I ever were tempted again to turn on Filevault, this "staff" group would get me in trouble once more.

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Answer 8

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,827 points

Jun 4, 2018 3:57 PM in response to ajunk

"staff" is a long-time standard UNIX group. It doesn't mean you are staff for any company, it is just a historical artifact left over from macOS' UNIX origins.

macos - Understanding the 'staff' user group - Ask Different

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Answer 9

ajunk Author

Level 1

11 points

Jun 4, 2018 4:15 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Thank you for the clarification a the tidbit of internet history! I was really grateful for your support in this matter.

Anna

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Turn off FileVault is grayed out.

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