After having upgraded to OS X Yosemite, a number of people have found their Macs now take a relatively long time to log in. While powering on the system will reveal the login screen almost immediately, after supplying an account password the system will show a progress bar and hang for up to a couple of minutes, before finally showing the desktop and allowing the computer to be used.
If this is happening to you, then the problem is very likely from a bug with how Yosemite is handling your FileVault disk encryption that you set up prior to upgrading to Yosemite.
FileVault 2 is Apple’s full-disk encryption routine that will encrypt all files on your hard disk, including the OS. When set up, the OS will not load when you start up your system, and the login window you see is just a pretty interface that mimics the login window, and allows you to supply a password for accounts that are able to unlock the disk.
If you are noticing this problem with your Mac after upgrading to Yosemite, then you can likely fix the problem by turning FileVault off and then back on again:
- Ensure you have a full backup of your Mac using Time Machine.
- Boot and unlock your Mac as you normally would to log in.
- Go to the FileVault tab in the Security & Privacy system preferences and turn off FileVault.
- When FileVault is disabled and your drive is decrypted, restart your Mac.
- Hold the Command-R keys down at the boot chimes to load your Mac into Recovery Mode.
- Open Disk Utility and use it to run a Repair Disk routine, available in the First Aid tab when you select your hard drive. Do this for both the hard drive device, and your boot volume.
- Restart your Mac normally and log in.
- Re-enable FileVault in the Security & Privacy system preferences.
The above routine works for if you can eventually boot your Mac in the face of this bug, but if you cannot log in and see the system hang on the loading progress bar for hours with no ability to use your system, then you will have to use another procedure:
- Reboot your system and hold the Command-R keys at the startup chimes to load into Recovery Mode.
- Use Disk Utility to turn off encryption on your boot drive. If this gives you errors, then reboot in Target Disk Mode (hold the T key at the boot chimes) and use Disk Utility on another Mac via a Thunderbolt or Firewire cable to turn off encryption. Alternatively, you can try booting to Internet Recovery by holding Option-Command-R at the boot chimes, which will avoid using your internal drive for any boot purposes.
- With your drive unlocked and decrypted, use Disk Utility to verify and repair your boot drive.
- Restart your Mac normally.
- Use the Security & Privacy system preferences to re-enable FileVault.
Hi Topher, thanks for this article. I saw the boot progress bar a few times but now it seems to have stabilized and boot time is ok with FileVault 2 active and an SSD in a MacBook Pro.
But when shutting down the computer, I see the circle spinner for quite some time – often more than a minute. Which is extremely annoying. Has anybody observed something similar in regards to 10.10 and FileVault 2?
This doesn’t work for me because after installing Yosemite nearly two weeks ago File Vault is STILL encrypting my Hard Drive, and cannot be turned off until it finishes. File Vault freezes unless it is basically the only window running on my Mac, so you can imagine how absolutely brain-freezingly frustrating this is. Basically my computer is useless until an indeterminate point in future.
So much for Macs and their user-friendly environment.
Thanks Apple for testing your shitty Beta release on your entire customer base!
Having the same problem here. Any solutions since far?
We had to go to the Apple Store and insist they downgrade the laptops to Maverick OS… finally all of our laptops are working with FileVault enabled!!!!
Actually, the best way to correct this known issue is to Flash the PRAM. To do this, power the Mac off. Hold COMMAND+OPTION+P+R before and as you power on the Mac. Keep holding as you hear the chime, you will see the screen flash & restart. Release the four keys. Let it boot.
I have found this corrects the apple loading bar, hanging and never loading the system. And also the issue of the password login screen. If flashing the PRAM does not correct the issue the first time, try it a second or third time. It will resolve these issues.
IT REALLY WORKED FOR ME.Thank YOU
It didnt work for me man, it went to login and same story, I cant access my account with my password. What do you suggest next?
Hi Ryan, your option took me one step closer to a solution to my problem. However, the User option to log in is visible but dead. I tried rebooting a few times but still return to the same situation. The computer keeps going back to the reset user login. Do you perhaps have another idea?
After following your directions i was able to redownload the OS X Yosemite even without being allowed access to log into my laptop. I kept trying to decript filevault numerous amounts of time without success, my laptop stating i had the incorrect password. Hopefully once the download finished i will be able to turn off filevault and use my laptop
If it has not progressed after several days, then I recommend you do a full backup of your Mac using Time Machine, and then boot to OS X Recovery mode (hold Command-R at startup) and use Disk Utility to both partition and format your drive. When finished, quit Disk Utility and then use the option in the OS X menu to restore your Mac from the backup. When finished, you can try enabling FileVault again.
This is perhaps the cleanest way to ensure your filesystem and storage medium are set up properly.
I tried this method a couple of times but my mac won’t let me do anything (I can’t erase or format my HD nor can I reinstall OS X) without giving the password I was supposed to get from File Vault. I already tried to get a new password using the Terminal but since the encryption isn’t complete it won’t even do that.
I found your article useful, except no one is mentioning that it now takes HOURS for my Macbook Pro to chug through a backup since installing Yosemite. Literally takes a full hour just to prepare the backup.
I have yet to complete a backup after 3 attempts and having to shutdown after 3 hours of the Mackbook chugging through KB of 25GB.
I finally got the Time Machine to back up and tried your advice in the original article.
Verify and Disk Repair did not find any issues.
When I restarted I still got the progress bar, but only once and then it logged in.
However, then I got an error message about the Vault and Security in Preferences.
I have not tried to turn Encryption on again yet.
having the same problem here too, only mine wont turn on at all
After installing the OS X Yosemite my Safari has crashed and i am unable to surf the internet. not able to dwnld another browser also….. i am stuck badly
Try creating a new user account in the Users & Groups system preferences and see if you can use this account to open Safari. If so, then try downloading another browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.), and see if that will open properly when you log into your old account.
To fix the problem with Safari, try opening your Library folder by going to the Go menu in the Finder, holding the Option key, and choosing Library when this option appears. In here, remove the following items:
Safari (the entire folder)
Caches > com.apple.Safari
Caches > com.apple.Safari.SearchHelper
Caches > com.apple.Safari.SocialHelper
Caches > com.apple.safaridavclient
Internet Plug-Ins (any items in this folder, but leave the folder itself)
MobileSafari (any items in this folder, but leave the folder itself)
Preferences > com.apple.Safari.Extensions.plist
Preferences > com.apple.Safari.plist
Preferences > com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist
Saved Application State > com.apple.Safari.savedState
After removing these files and/or folders from your Mac, log out of your user account and log back in, and then see if Safari opens properly.
BRILLIANT…… THE PROBLEM IS COMPLETELY SOLVED…… U MADE MY DAY.
THANKS A LOT MATE…
Booting from the system won’t work after logging in. Booting from the recovery partition will result in the same gray screen. Booting from the internet will produce the same exact effect. Booting from an USB key made from the Yosemite installer will fail exactly the same way.
What should I do? Throw away my MBP?
Try resetting your Mac’s PRAM to see if this will help (see here: https://macissues.com/2014/03/19/how-to-reset-the-pram-on-your-mac/) and also reset your Mac’s SMC (see here: https://macissues.com/2014/04/11/when-and-how-to-reset-your-macs-smc/). If after doing these your Mac cannot successfully boot to Recovery Mode or to Internet Recovery mode, or to any OS X installation drive, then you will likely need to take it into an Apple service center to have a technician look at it.
Thank you for replying. I actually already reset both SMC and PRAM, but I’m sorry to report that neither the Yosemite recovery disk nor the internet recovery will let my Mac display other than a gray screen.
Besides, if I ask for support I will likely be charged for this, which, I remind, appears to be an Apple mistake rather than a bad action of mine! And this makes me angrier.
Kinda “solved” for me. It wasn’t Yosemite but rather a hardware issue that Apple did not fix nor recognized. Just 600€ paid to the Apple support.
Have a look.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?tstart=0
Despite updating to Yosemite over a week ago, file vault is still encrypting on my Mac. I’m pretty sure it’s this which is making my Mac so slow. It’s driving me round the bend. Is there any way of stopping file vault from encrypting? I don’t even want it!
I do not have filevault enabled but still had my mac hanging when trying to re-login after going to sleep. In my case, I had to update the Centrify agent. See http://community.centrify.com/t5/Centrify-User-Suite/Centrify-Support-for-OS-X-10-10-Yosemite/ba-p/18735 for more info.
This article offered the closest information to help stop the hang ups file vault created. I had severe issues for approx. four days – lagging etc. The progress bar was showing no progress. I installed Yosemite a week after its release. To say simply as possible, trying all three options in the second set of steps – with all three seemingly failing (2 hr. process), I turned off my MBPro (late 2011) turned it back on. I went to Sys Pref and suddenly a dialog box pops up with “Problems were encountered with the disc “MacHD”. Please turn off FileVault, verify and (if necessary) repair the disk with Disc Utility, and try enabling File Vault again.” Finally able to turn it off – hang ups stopped. I think repairing the disk in DU was very important. I’m only guessing that the attempts made to repair caused File Vault to stop hitting its proverbial head against the wall. My mac appears to be back to speed and I won’t turn on file vault again until there’s an upgrade for Yosemite. There are so many forums and articles about this file vault issue. I hope it’s resolved ASAP. Like I said, it seemed like the options in this article failed, but once I gave up, they worked. Good luck.
Hi I know you probably already fixed your issue by now. For the new people with this problem, I fixed it a different way. I rebooted in recovery mode. I then verified disk, verified permissions. repaired disk and repaired permissions on HDD. In that order, not that it matters. I then restarted computer and enscyption resumed. I did not touch it until it was done. Now it magically works and I turned filevault off.
I did all of the steps that Leo followed, along with a few more, and it took several hours. Unlike Leo I had already encrypted through File Vault. In Recovery mode you want to unlock the Hard Drive, repair permissions, turn encryption off in the menu bar, repair permissions, and then restart in Safe Mode (Shift key after chimes). For some reason I was frozen out of Safe Mode until after I turned off encryption. I got the double screen (mentioned by Krista and others) where one says encryption stopped, and the other said that it was OK…very confusing. When I started it in safe mode the disk began to unencrypt. It took several hours. I turned off Encryption then restarted and everything seems to be back to normal.
I’m having the same symptoms, but filevault is turned off. This is on a fresh install of Yosemite.
I have had the same problem with slow start-ups since upgrading to Yosemite. I have followed the instructions to turn off FileVault, however it has been several hours now and “Decrypting” is still showing a blue line with “Estimated Time Remaining…” How long is this going to take? I went to “info” about my hard drive, and something is happening because my available capacity is dropping. Any idea how long “Decrypting” is should take? I have around 200GB of files.
I turned of Filevault 2 on my Yosemite late 2012 Mac Mini and, during the decryption process, my Mac froze. When I restarted, the decryption proceeded over about 12 hours and I rebooted. Things were faster without Filevault, so I restarted to Recovery mode to run Disk Utility as you had suggested. When I did that, the device name was in red and there was a warning that there were physical errors on the hard drive, which must now be replaced. I am positive I had no SMART failure warnings before decrypting, as I ran disk verify just to see if it showed anything before the decryption.
I immediately made a new backup and made sure Time Machine ran again. CCC reported no errors. I ran Disk Utility repair on the volume, and it said no errors, disk is fine. But the 1TB device (my only internal drive) is still giving this warning.
I know I’ll have to replace this drive, but I’m curious whether the freeze during decryption caused this problem, or whether an impending disk failure causes the freeze.
So if you’re still with me, would this be a good time to install an SSD? My Apple warranty is up on the Mini, but I’m not sure what to do considering all the discussion I’ve seen about SSDs deteriorating quickly without TRIM, which I understand can no longer safely be enabled. Are there any good options?
THANKS, and sorry for the long post.
Hi Bruce, Same for my friend’s MBP I’m looking at. It had the Yosemite 50% startup hang that this article mentions. SMART status was fine. Disk was encrypted, I turned off FileVault, process got stuck after 12 hours. Then after hard restart, boot from recovery, tried to erase disk.. bam SMART status “Failing”.
I would recommend an SSD, that’s what I’ve got in my MBP.
This may work for some people, but it is clearly not the only thing that is causing the progress bar during boot. Two of my MBP’s do NOT have Filevault enabled and they still exhibit the slow boot. I ran the repair disk from recovery mode on both in case this was the issue and they still have slow boot times while showing the progress bar.
If you do decide to decrypt, repair and re-encypt as above, you may be in for a long wait as these processes are slow depending upon the amount of data your have on your drive.
Because of the uncertainty of whether this is the root cause I’d hold of on this “solution” until it is better known when to apply it.
(written from a machine that is in the process of decrypting – 8 hours to go) – yes I launched this without analyzing the claims closely and am regretting it, especially now that I’ve looked at it on more machines.
I recently bought a new MBA with Yosemite 10.10.1 on it and after following all the install instructions I also see FileVault with the encryption paused and have tried all the above remedies and still see it paused after every reboot, pram and smc attempt. Still get nothing but “Encryption paused” – “Connect power adapter to resume encryption”… frustrating.
any update ?having same issue..mine is brand new pro
Me too – straight out of the box, MBP, and stuck on the FileVault element of setup, even though I’ve said “don’t encrypt”! Help gratefully received!
Just upgraded to Yosemite (had to wipe clean and reimage) and experienced this issue on my work laptop. It has been traced to issues with FileVault and I do not have the option to turn off encryption due to our security settings. I don’t know why this works, but a colleague of mine told me to press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE when the status bar is frozen in the login screen. I was then able to access my machine normally. It does NOT fix the problem. If I power down or restart my laptop I need to press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE again. So this is a workaround as there is clearly an issue between FileVault and Yosemite affecting users here at my company that has not been fixed.
again…..
CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE
I upgraded to yosmite once it was released. ( horrible mistake i know ) It was wirking fine for a few days, then started getting slower and slower. I then saw all the reviews and complaints along with issues. My filevault is the issue. It has been encrypting my hardrive and wont stop. I even left it on for 3-4 days to see if it would finish, nothing changed but the fact that my macbook moved even slower. I researched one article and was suggested to type in a suto command and that worked for day, then my filevault went back to doing what it was doing before. Not progressing at all. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem. I dont want to end up paying anyone if there is a fix for it that i can learn and try.
Your best bet might be to make a full backup of your system now, and then look into options for turning FileVault off, or if you cannot do so, then format your hard drive and restore from your backup (or reinstall OS X and then migrate your data from the backup). Following this you can attempt to re-encrypt your Mac, or simply go without encryption for the time being.
Anyone know why promiscuous mode is running on a mac. Console says en3 promiscuous mode ruinable and succeeded. I have had hacking issues in the past. I do not have wireshark that I know of. Does it have to do with fire vault
Is this a personal Mac computer or an office Mac?
Can you copy/paste the log file?
If you are running the Mac in an office setting, your network admin’s might have it enabled to monitor your network traffic.
It is a home computer, never used for work. That is why I am concerned. I have a screen shot. And her is a copy paste:1/14/15 12:03:23.000 PM kernel[0]: en3: promiscuous mode enable succeeded
Apple: Please fix the issue!! It is a hugely frustrating and affecting businesses.
my mac book pro shows a screen “your user account your FileVault password” and i cant type a damn thinbg. wtf should i do! help me…
is anybody out there…HELP!!
Tony, I would suggest trying to reboot into Safe Mode and see if it works. If you can’t do that, you may have to boot into the recovery partition and try Disk Utility on your boot volume. If that doesn’t work, it may be necessary to install OS X again from the recovery partition. This seems to be different that the possible FileVault bug we’ve been discussing.
You do have a backup of your data? I say this because there is a chance you have disk corruption that could worsen if you install a new OS over the boot drive. If you don’t have a backup, maybe you should first install OS X on an external disk, then try booting from that disk and copying your boot drive before continuing.
FIGURED OUT FILE VAULT FREEZE! POWER OFF COMPUTER FOR 5 MINUTES. PRESS POWER BUTTON AGAIN, AND WHILE ITS BOOTING UP HIT “COMMAND/SHIFT/SPACE” AT THE SAME TIME AND YOU WILL GO TO YOUR NORMAL “LOG-IN” SCREEN.
Fyi, I am still able to reproduce the issue after upgrading to 10.10.2.
FIGURED OUT FILE VAULT FREEZE! POWER OFF COMPUTER FOR 5 MINUTES. PRESS POWER BUTTON AGAIN, AND WHILE ITS BOOTING UP HIT “COMMAND/SHIFT/SPACE” AT THE SAME TIME AND YOU WILL GO TO YOUR NORMAL “LOG-IN” SCREEN. YOUR’RE WELCOME!
I already installed to Yosemite when it first came out. I installed an update today, then restarted my iMac. Now my keyboard will not work, so I can’t type in my password. After I try typing, it will subsequently open a pop-up that is titled Reset Password and states if you can’t log into your computer because you forgot your password, you can reset it now. NEXT (for next screen). Then, it gives 3 radio button choices: you forgot your password and need to reset, you know it, but cannot log in, or your keyboard is not working. I pick the third choice, because I know my password, but my keyboard will not work. Well, I still can’t type anything. My mouse works, but keyboard can’t type it in. The keyboard is working … I even put in new batteries, just to make sure that wasn’t the problem. Can someone HELP ME?!?
I would suggest a non-wireless keyboard Phillys
Hello!
I don´t know how current this issue still is for people out there but for me it is and I want to share my experience with the apple support about this with you!
I have a MacBook Pro 13″ Mid-2012 and overtime I plug it in more than 4 hours (in my case overnight), It makes a sound when I either open the screen or unplug the charger and then it takes in total 2 minutes for the computer to start – first a black screen appears with the Apple-sign and a loading bar, then I have to wait until fully loaded. Once the computer shows my password I am able to type it in but it immediately wants me to type in my password again – but nothing except the mouse reacts! (i can’t type, I can’t click, nothing) Once the screen turns black again, i have to wake up the computer again and can type in my password and everything is normal. I have to do this every day…
I was pretty concerned about the noise since my hard drive was changed in early 2013 (after just a couple of months of using it!!) and I thought maybe something was wrong there but my apple service provider told me that I don`t have to worry – this is just the “Superdrive” waking up.
Anyway, i`ve been going back and forth for two month to the apple store – first they thought it was the battery, then they thought it was the charger – then they told me to install the system new on my computer.
So I did and finally! the problem was not there any more.
This magical feeling lasted about 3 days… and back to the Apple Store I went.
They took it in for the next two weeks and what happened next was just unbelievable! Somehow they figured out, that the Macbook Pro Mid-2012 Modell has this new “Hypernate”-Function and since I had “FileVault” turned on when I installed the system new, they think that this together with the new OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) Update causes my problem.
I called apple to let them know that I think this is a Production-Issue (Am I the only one that thinks it is weird that Apple offers updates for computers that their computers can’t handle, not even in the time the warranty covers the product!?) and they should please change my computer or at least upgrade the hard-drive to an SSD hard drive where this problem doesn’t occur any more.
I had a 30 min fight with a guy from apple over the phone, his only suggestions where “to turn off FileVault” or “that this is just how it is”. At some point he even told me that because not a lot of people have already complained about this issue, that my issue is not business-threatening to apple and therefor they don´t really care about it.
So now not only does Apple completely not care about its customers, they don’t even offer solutions to fix this problem except to just ignore it and to turn it off. And the work of my service provider wasn’t even covered by applecare so that I had to pay now 100 Euro to the service provider just to get my computer – in the same state that I gave it to them – back!
So I have to ask – has anyone else experienced this issue? If yes, please tell apple and complain about the issue as I already did by sending them a big letter of complaint! I think it is unacceptable to treat customers like that and by not even offering them solutions.
Have a nice day,
Valerie
Yes, this has been an ongoing issue and it seems that the first solution is to turn off file vault.
I am sure many more subscribers will confirm your frustrations.
I am not sure if Apple will ever attempt to address this issue though.
I have a 2008 Mac Pro that worked fine until a recent Yosemite upgrade. Tried all of the suggestions here: zapped PRAM, decrypted, turned off File Vault etc. and eventually out of frustration used Time Machine to revert to Mavericks.
Now I’m still having the same issues in Mavericks.
Given that my HD is now 7+ years old, might replacing it help me in any way?
My MBP is 3 years old and has the same issues like yours, even after turning off file vault and letting an apple-support person check out my computer with a shared-screen, even turned off the hypernatkion mode – still the same issue. Im getting really frustrated.
let me know if replacing the hard drive worked for you!
Hi Valerie and believe me I feel your pain. But if your 3 year old is having the same problem then maybe its not a HD issue after all. If I do get a new HD, I’ll go the clean install route and manually move my apps and files etc.
I know that 10.10.5 will be released soon but its unlikely that’ll fix this long-standing issue. And El Capitan (10.11) is also due out soon. At this point I’d try anything.
10.10.5 has just been released but I didn’t see any mention of this bug in the release notes. I wonder if it would be worth a try?
Okay. I just experienced this. Actually been wondering what went wrong for months now. My Macbook Pro used to cold start to a working desktop in under 8 seconds before the Yosemite upgrade. Then it went to almost a full minute. Yeah I know! Still speedy compared to a Windows machine, but annoying compared to what it was.
I had no idea what caused it until a random Google search revealed so many people talking about Filevault slowing things down. So I decided to check and sure enough filevault is/was active on my system. So naturally I decide to turn it off and this is what occurred.
First thing to happen is that “System Preferences” decided to hang and stop responding. Of course I did not realize that for about 2 hours. Once I realized it I “Forced Quit” and then went back in. At this point it kept saying “Estimating time remaining”. I left it like that for 6 hours and then rechecked it and still had the same message. I launched “Activity Monitor” and noticed only 4 gigs of read/write had taken place and it was proceeding at less than 1 MB/s.
So I looked to see what else was running and quit everything unneeded, but still no change. At this rate it looked like it was going to take about a month to decrypt the disk. Feeling defeated I went to bed and just left it to do its thing.
When I woke up this morning I checked and it was still estimating time remaining! I checked “activity monitor” and it was up to 13.2 GB. WTF! So I decided to go against the warnings I read about restarting while decryption was in process and restarted.
Restart went normally and went back into “FileVault” and surprise, surprise it had an estimate! It said I had 11 minutes remaining! Excited and filled with disbelief I launched “activity monitor” and saw that disk read/write was at over 200 MB/s! Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, decryption completed in about exactly 11 minutes.
The end result? I am speedy again. My Macbook Pro once again cold boots and hits a working desktop in about 10 seconds depending on how fast I enter my password. I am NEVER going to activate FileVault ever again.
Apparently the problem with FileVault from what I can tell is that it encrypts the entire drive at the sector level and that includes the OS itself. That means when you boot up you are not booting directly to the OS, but rather being presented a kind of fake login window to enter your password. That in turn activates decryption for the OS and whatever Apps or programs launch on startup. Only then can the boot up process take place. After that everything you do that involves a disk read/write process must go through encryption/decryption.
FK that! I’m not NASA and don’t need that level of security. It is not worth the slowdown.