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Hi All,

Upgraded to Mavericks a little while ago and now my computer sticks on the grey screen for much longer than it used to while shutting down (35 secs or so). Occasionally I need to press the startup button to force it to shut down.

Similarly, on startup, a few times it has gotten stuck on the grey screen (it usually starts up quickly though), and had to be manually shut down and restarted. It's never failed to start up the second time, but it's a little disconcerting, just the same.

Any idea why this might be happening?

Thanks.

I have had USB issue give rise to long startup times and failure to startup. Fixed by getting new powered USB hub. Tested by simply disconnecting most USB devices. Might be worth a try.

I recall having to toggle FW devices on occasion, when the gray screen would hang-on-shutdown to complete shutdown.

Yes, what they both said. This often indicates a hang-up of two sides waiting for the other to hand-shake, which can be cleared up in many cases by resetting connections of attached devices.

It also can be due to an external drive having gone to sleep. Not always will they wake up; especially if the OS has decided it needs to shut down. It seems the two signals compete.

mhschmieder wrote:Yes, what they both said. This often indicates a hang-up of two sides waiting for the other to hand-shake, which can be cleared up in many cases by resetting connections of attached devices.

It also can be due to an external drive having gone to sleep. Not always will they wake up; especially if the OS has decided it needs to shut down. It seems the two signals compete.

FireWire past OS 10.5, that's the first thing I look for.

Not letting a Mac go to sleep when a FW device is being used and disabling App Nap globally generally help. App Nap is designed to conserve battery power in portables and has no useful purpose on a desktop Mac.

Disable App Nap in Mac OS X

Copy the following command and paste into Terminal.app then hit <Enter> or <Return> key:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

Type your Admin password when prompted then <Enter> or <Return>

Reboot or close and restart applications


This disables App Nap globally. Running Get Info on individual apps will not show a change. Once apps have been relaunched or the Mac restarted, you can confirm that App Nap is disabled by backgrounding a couple of processes or hiding inactive applications for 30 minutes or so, and then checking the “Energy” panel in Activity Monitor. Look under the “App Nap” sort section and everything will be listed as “No” including the app that was backgrounded.

Tried disconnecting all periferals except keyboard and mouse and on first shut down grey screen time cut down to 20 secs. Oh, good, I thought. Tried again and it hung on the grey screen for over a minute. Never mind

I will try what you suggest when I have time to figure out what it all means, Mike. What does "fire wire past 10.5" mean?

Thanks all.

What does "fire wire past 10.5" mean?

Systems with OS10.5 and later are susceptible to issues with FW such as this, according to Mike.

With App Nap off shut down took 37 seconds, and then a second time, 2 1/2 minutes! Yoikes.

Any other thoughts?

gavspen wrote:With App Nap off shut down took 37 seconds, and then a second time, 2 1/2 minutes! Yoikes.

Any other thoughts?

What is going on? What processes are running? How do you find out?

Open Console.app. On a Mac, everything that happens in your system shows up and is time stamped. Look to see what is hanging up. When you see something you don't know, Google is your friend.

It can be something as simple as an old piece of code that should have been sent to the Trash years ago. I've had HP print drivers from 2005, Finale 2009 Help Files and bucketloads of free/share/crapware cause problems, all identified by Console.

You will see a lot of things that fail—this is normal except when it is not.

Well, Ok Mike, I've taken a look at Console, but to the uninitiated...which I am... it's just a bunch of incomprehensible gobbledygook I'm afraid. I do see stuff that suggests problems, like this.....

7/22/17 10:25:24.710 PM com.apple.kextcache[539]: Warning: /Volumes/DP and other sound stuff/System/Library/Extensions: No such file or directory
7/22/17 10:25:24.710 PM com.apple.kextcache[539]: rebuilding /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/Extensions.mkext
7/22/17 10:25:24.711 PM com.apple.kextcache[540]: /Volumes/DP and other sound stuff locked; waiting for lock.
7/22/17 10:25:24.716 PM com.apple.kextcache[541]: No kernel extensions found.

(DP wasnt running when I shut it down, by the way) but no idea how to interpret it or what to do with the info. What would you google out of that stuff?

See what happens when you reset your caches to default. Do a Safe Boot by shutting down and holding the Shift key on restart. When you get to your Admin screen, release the Shift Key and log in. When all your icons have finished rebuilding, shut down and Boot normally. This is normal Mac maintenance and often fixes kept cache issues. I run it once a year and after major OS upgrades.

Will do Mike, you're a treasure. I'll report back.

Thanks.

One thing. When I upgraded to Mavericks, in order to keep my TC Electronics Powercore functioning I replaced a lot to kext files with files from earlier operating systems. (Disclaimer: I don't even know what I did, really.) Would the fix you are suggesting screw that up, perhaps?