Level 1

53 points

iMac reboots randomly

Model Name:	iMac
Model Identifier:	iMac12,2
Processor Name:	Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:	3.4 GHz
Number of Processors:	1
Total Number of Cores:	4
L2 Cache (per Core):	256 KB
L3 Cache:	8 MB
Memory:	8 GB
Boot ROM Version:	IM121.004F.B00

Mid 2011 27". I have had a video card replaced and a disk drive on recall. Other than that it has been a wonderful piece of gear.

It probably doesn't reboot randomly. There is, I am sure, a reason. Even if it's a bad reason.

Should there not be somewhere in the system logs that will tell me what prompted the reboot? Like power button pushed, or signal from UPS or my power supply is dying?

I don't get any message about the system shutting down abnormally. I check last reboot and, for example, 08/01/2018 it rebooted 5 times.

If it helps, when I do hit the power button to bring it back up, I get a double chime.

It may not even be shutting down. It may be that it just doesn't wake from a sleep. Because I wasn't even on it yesterday (8/1/18) yet it shows 5 reboots and I had to hit the power button to get it to come up.

I may well be reporting one issue when I have a completely different problem.

Any help or direction greatly appreciated.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Posted on Aug 2, 2018 5:48 AM

Top-ranking reply

etresoft

Level 9

56,692 points

Posted on Aug 14, 2018 7:26 AM

Skip,

There are four issues from your report I would like to address.

1) You have a blocked kernel extension. The blocked extension appears to be related to your UPS. This could be what is causing your random restarts. Since only part of the software is running, there is no way to predict what is going to happen with it.

This UPS software doesn't appear to have been updated in a couple of years. That is a red flag for anything involving kernel extensions. The easiest thing to do is get that Kernel extension loaded. That might prove tricky. Try reinstalling the software. Then, go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General and click the "Allow" button to load the kernel extension.

Unfortunately, that UPS software is not professionally made. The above instructions may not work. And if they do work, they may not solve the problem. You may need to completely uninstall it. That would be the only guaranteed way to determine if this software is or is not related to your random restarts. Again, unfortunately, the software has no uninstaller. If you decide to go that router, I can tell you what you will need to do. Let me know if you are comfortable with the command line. Uninstallation instructions would be easier using the command line.

2) Your Bayer HealthCare SmartLaunch software is crashing pretty much constantly. It is designed to be running in the background. Your only option is to uninstall this software. Then contact the developer. Report the problem. Maybe send them a crash report if they have any idea what you are talking about. If you are super, super lucky, they might have an updated version that runs correctly.

Since this software has hardware interfaces, it could be related to your random restarts. It might also be related to your performance problems detailed below.

3) Your EtreCheck report took 20 minutes to run. That is horribly slow and well into hard drive failure range. However, you have a number of big, external USB 2.0 drives attached. Try physically disconnecting those drives and running a new EtreCheck report. Hopefully that will get your runtime into the 4 minute range with "good" performance.

The performance measure in this version of EtreCheck is driven by one particular low-level Apple utility. For most people, it is a very good measure of real-world performance. But it can be inaccurate if you have multiple slow external hard drives attached. I have a beta version of EtreCheck (at https://etrecheck.com/download/EtreCheck_beta.zip). This beta version performs more accurate hard drive performance tests of just your boot drive. Those external drive could still be the cause of poor real-world performance.

Also, modern version of macOS are little more than hacked-up versions of iOS. As such, they were designed for solid state drives, which you don't have. There are some limits to the performance you can get out of a mechanical drive with High Sierra. Your machine is running with the absolute minimum hardware requirements for High Sierra. Installing an SSD inside an iMac is not an easy or inexpensive task. You do have Thunderbolt so an external SSD boot drive is an option for a future upgrade.

4) You seem to have adware installed. The "~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.TechResultsSearch.plist" file looks suspicious. This looks like a new strain. I have seen something similar before.

You can't remove adware by dragging anything to the trash. You will need to run another EtreCheck report and then use the "Remove" feature under "Unsigned Files". You could also use a good AV software like MalwareBytes. Unfortunately, MalwareBytes has a kernel extension too. Maybe defer that to a later time when you aren't having other kernel extension issues. Just use EtreCheck for now. (You could use that beta version of EtreCheck since it won't count against that 5-run limit.)

The trick is that you have to stop the adware from running before you delete any files. Otherwise, it could just reinstall itself, perhaps morphing to a new name. Sometimes adware does that.

That's a fair bit of work for you to do. I'll let you get started. Let me know if you have any questions.

(Since I added that link)

Disclaimer: Although EtreCheck is free to download and use at first, it will eventually ask you to buy a license. There are also other links on my site that could give me some form of compensation, financial or otherwise.

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20 replies

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Aug 2, 2018 5:55 AM in response to skiph

Please post an EtreCheck report of your system and we can look for any obvious issues. Please click the link, download and run the app and then post the complete report it produces as your reply to this message.

HunterBD

Level 2

307 points

Aug 7, 2018 3:54 AM in response to skiph

Have you tried starting in 'safe mode'?

You'll find the procedure here:- Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

Make sure you can see 'Safe Boot' in the top right hand corner. You may have to carry out the procedure more than once before you are successful.

Good luck!

etresoft

Level 9

56,692 points

Aug 13, 2018 8:00 PM in response to skiph

skiph wrote:

Otherwise, to all that have responded, thank you and I will check out Etrecheck.

Hello again Skip,

I addressed some of your issues with EtreCheck in your other thread: I am now unauthorized to view my own posts?

At the risk of a little bit more EtreCheck spam, I can tell you that EtreCheck does have just the information you are looking for. Your EtreCheck report should have a "Shutdown code" listed at the bottom. This is an internal Apple code for the reason for your machine's last shutdown. As you might expect, Apple doesn't publish what those codes mean. I have collected some of the rumours and try to print out exactly what the reason for the shutdown might have been.

If you don't want to run EtreCheck, you can collect this information yourself. Open a Terminal window, type the following command, and press enter:

ioreg -l | grep ShutdownCause

On my machine, I get the following output:

| | | "ShutdownCause" = "5"

5 is a "normal" shutdown, so all is good with my machine, at least as shutdowns are concerned. Unfortunately, if you just run that command, all you will get is a numeric code. You can do a web search for their meanings or just ask here.

I recommend posting a full EtreCheck report. It sounds like you have issues that might be more serious than random restarts. If you have some low-level system modifications (which EtreCheck would show), then you might be able to remove some of that and resolve the problem. Otherwise, if there aren't any obvious 3rd party software causes, it might be time to start looking for a new computer.

EtreCheck was designed to be used in situations just like this. You don't have to pay anything. But hopefully you will see the value and purchase a license. And even if you don't, if you post your report here and get your problem solved, that might inspire other people to try it and maybe buy a license.

skiph Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 14, 2018 9:52 AM in response to skiph

Here's from the Beta:

EtreCheck version: 1.0b11 (1A012)

Report generated: 2018-08-14 11:32:06

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 5:46

Performance: Below Average

Sandbox: Enabled

Advanced Checks: Enabled

Adware Check: Enabled

Problem: Apps are crashing

Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Unsigned files- There are unsigned software files installed that could be adware and should be reviewed.

Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems.

Kernel extensions blocked- There are blocked kernel extensions awaiting user approval.

Apps crashing- There have been numerous app crashes.

Clean up- There are orphan files that could be removed.

System modifications- There are a large number of system modifications running in the background.

Low performance- EtreCheck report took over 5 minutes to run. This is unusual.

Heavy I/O usage- Your system is under heavy I/O use. This will reduce your performance.

32-bit Apps- This machine has 32-bits apps that may have problems in the future.

Abnormal shutdown- Your machine shut down abnormally.

Hardware Information:

iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011)

iMac Model: iMac12,2

1 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-2600) CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM - Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0 - Empty

BANK 1/DIMM0 - Empty

BANK 0/DIMM1 - 4 GB DDR3 1333 ok

BANK 1/DIMM1 - 4 GB DDR3 1333 ok

Video Information:

AMD Radeon HD 6970M - VRAM: 1024 MB

iMac 1600 x 900

DELL 1800FP 1024 x 820

Drives:

disk0 - Hitachi HUA722010CLA330 1.00 TB (Mechanical)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) 999.35 GB (868.84 GB used)

disk0s3 - Recovery HD (Mac OS Extended) [Recovery] 650 MB

disk1 - Seagate BUP BK 4.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk1s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk1s2 - T****************** (Journaled HFS+) 4.00 TB

disk2 - SABRENT SABRENT 1.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk2s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk2s2 - O****2 (Journaled HFS+) 999.86 GB

disk3 - Seagate BUP BL 4.00 TB

External USB 480 Mbit/s

disk3s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk3s2 - T***********2 (Journaled HFS+) 2.00 TB

disk3s3 - S************p (Journaled HFS+) 2.00 TB

Mounted Volumes:

disk0s2 - Macintosh HD 999.35 GB (130.25 GB free)

Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

Network:

Interface usbmodem9D058151: openSPOT

Interface usbserial-A105M2ZY: FT232R USB UART

Interface en0: Ethernet 2

Interface en6: iPad

Interface fw0: FireWire

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n

Interface en5: iPhone

Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G65)

Time since boot: About 5 hours

Configuration Files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 1

Security:

System	Status
Gatekeeper	Enabled
System Integrity Protection	Enabled

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/com.hp.help.tocgenerator.plist

Executable: /Library/Documentation/Help/Hewlett-Packard/TOCGenerator.app/Contents/MacOS/TOC Generator