Slow boot time after update to Mojave - External SSD

This is a pity !

i upgraded Mojave to my macbook pro 15" running high sierra since beginning.

After the update my booting time took quite long (3-4min) and a lot of programs are not able to run anymore...

i have to rebuy / update this apps ?!

I'm very unhappy about this situation - apple - this is not user friendly - I'm not a beta tester !

i have restored my macbook to high sierra - now it is back running and fast again !

this was just a waste of time ...

I do not use APFS or TRIM but i stil have the problem. I did not use APFS for Mojave and i did not use it for High Sierra. High Sierra boots in about 10s and Mojave takes at least 4 minutes. I don't think its APFS

Yes it is. It is a shame. SSD take 5 minutes for boot since APFS/Mojave, what is this? Why dont they test it with external SSDs before they roll this update out to the public? It is not unusual to use a external SSD as a boot medium. Time to think about getting back to Windows.

Did anyone here try the SMC reset? By anyone, I mean anyone with an external SSD issue 🙂

I've been with Apple Support on twitter for the last 4-5 hours and everything failed so far (but I did point them to this thread, maybe it will help speed up the admission of an issue and the fix).

I have reset the smc and pram and same problem. Imac doesn't even recognize internal macos mojave or external ssd mojave boot partitions. It just boots to bootcamp windows now. I have to manually hold alt/option and it will show all 3 options to boot in that menu. all 3 are working when manually selected.

Did anyone with the external SSD formatted as HFS+ installed MacOs mojave? how is the boot time.

My thought is if the file system is HFS+ on both the internal and external drive, it may resolve the problem. I don't know the technicality but, in the high Sierra this problem was solved when both the internal HDD and external SSD was HFS+.

Thanks

Northern315, I had a similar issue, was booting on the internal drive where I have a reminiscence of macOS something 🙂 Try this: boot into Mojave, go to Settings -> Startup Disk , unlock the modifications option then select your Mojave disk, then click on the small Restart... button that you have in the right side. This fixed my issue with not booting into Mojave/External SSD. Now I still boot in 1000 years, but at least I dont have to choose the disk everytime.

Hope this helps.

Hey,

I had a similar issue with the Boot time after the upgrade. In my case I Disabled/Removed the Paragon NTFS software in my System Preferences and that solved it. I thought it may be related because most of the users have an External Drive.

Cheers!

thanks @polo91, holding `option` for selecting boot drive manually brings back regular boot time, good workaround until a fix arrives.

Im on mbp 2016 with internal flash and apfs since high sierra btw. so this is presumably not just related to apfs or storage media.

Hi NerdVr,

I tried your method by both fist disabling and then removing the Paragon NTFS software from my iMAC, in fact in my case it had no effect or may be boot an opposite effect as boot time increased or remain same ~ 5 min.

You are luck that it worked with you.

Thanks

Hi any luck with an actual fix yet? Does anyone know if Apple are aware of this, does it need to be reported or would it flag up through this forum?

I have the same problem booting from an SSD, USB 3 external drive - no problem with High Sierra, super fast. Now it's a good 3+ minutes even if holding option to start with.

I lost the whole installation first time round including all my files/apps and had to install fresh! Backed up of course but still a pain.

Will head back to high sierra if no solution soon, shame as really liek the dark mode but ridicoulous Apple have allowed this to happen, and then go on so long without a fix.

Fingers crossed for all :-)

Hi,

i had similar issues with an iMac and a MacBook pro booting forever. I found a solution within a german board.

I use LittleSnitch on both machines and after uninstall both machines run as fast as expected prior to High Sierra performance.

So if you run Little Snitch try this one out. I informed the Developer of Little Snitch about this boot delay.

cheers

Boris

@denthomp There is an Apple Support on twitter. I had spent about 4-5 hours with them (the reponse time is around 20-30 minutes ) but still did not get to a resolution. In the end i gave up since I had wasted too much time 🙂 And I am almost sure this requires a software update from Apple. So regarding the question if they are aware or not, maybe if more people would go and ask support about the same issue, they will do something about it more quickly ?

Boot into recovery mode by holding down Control-R as you boot your system, and wait until the macOS Utilities window appears. Then, select Startup Disk from the Apple menu. You can select the preferred startup disk from the list of icons that refer to your attached bootable disks. Make sure that a disk icon is highlighted in the Startup Disks window before you close the window! (Having no icon selected will cause the Mac to hunt for and choose the first bootable disk it finds.)

Restart your Mac, and see if this speeds up the boot process.

I have a question about the SMC reset: every night I unplug my mac (from the wall not from the iMac) and usually I plug it back in next day in the evening after work. Does this count as a SMC reset? Or it has to be exactly 15 seconds + the 5 seconds after plugging it in ?