MacBook Pro (retina, mid 2014) restarts twice...something to do with FileVault?

[CosmicDust]

I recently updated my mid-2014 MacBook Pro (retina) to Big Sur. Since this update, I noticed two odd things when I restart my computer.

1. It takes noticeably longer to actually power back on and start up. Once you hear the noise, see the screen get power, and see the Apple logo, it comes to the startup screen (where I enter my password) pretty fast. However, it only remains on this screen for a few seconds (not enough time to enter my password) before it does another restart by itself (again noticeably longer time to actually power back on) and boots back up to the start up screen. Then once it reaches this start up screen the second time, it remains there and does not restart again, no matter how long I let it sit there.
2. My account picture is blurry on the startup screen (where I enter my password).
   1. I googled this and it appears this has to do with having FileVault enabled. Something about the full picture not being decrypted and only having the thumbnail to display so that's why it's blurry?

To do some testing, I turned FileVault off and sure enough my picture is no longer blurry on restart AND the computer only restarts once and not twice. I then turn FileVault back on and the same actions occur (blurry picture and the computer restarts twice). So this obviously has something to do with FileVault?

The blurry picture make sense to me I guess and doesn't really bother me. It was just something odd I noticed. But I am slightly bothered by my computer restarting twice with FileVault turned on. Does anybody know why this happens? My computer seems to worth fine otherwise. But I worry that something more serious may be wrong with my Mac or that something with FileVault isn't working correctly. I can't find anyone else experiencing this issue and also tested my work Mac and wife's Mac, which both also have Big Sur, and neither of those computers restart twice with FileVault turned on.

One thing to note: It does NOT restart twice when I shut down the computer and then power it on. It only does it when performing a restart.

I tried the below actions to attempt to fix the problem but no luck:

1. Reset the NVRAM/PRAM and SMC
2. Re-installed Big Sur using Internet Recovery
3. Just installed a new 1TB m.2 SSD today (main purpose was to expand my storage, but was still curious to see if the new hard drive with a clean install of the OS would correct the issue). However, it still restarts twice with the new SSD and FileVault enabled.

Does anybody have any other ideas about how to fix it or why it would be doing this with FileVault on?

Thanks!

 

[darngooddesign]

My '14 occasionally does the double restart on Catalina, usually when it crashes while asleep. I have an upgraded 1TB drive in mine.

 

[CosmicDust]

My '14 does the double restart on Catalina.

Interesting...I wonder if mine did as well. Maybe it did but I never noticed. Do you have FileVault enabled I assume?

 

[darngooddesign]

FV is off on mine.

Doesn't happen when I initiate the restart, but if it crashes while asleep it will double restart upon waking.

 

[Jason-a-MacUser]

I have this issue too on my 2014 15" MacBook Pro. I do also have FileVault enabled. When I restart, it takes a long time once the screen goes black before the Apple logo comes up. If I log in right away once the login prompt comes up, everything goes normally. If I don't get to it right away once the login screen comes up, after a short period of time it will reboot itself and come back up to the login screen again. It never did this until I installed Big Sur. I still have the original 1TB Apple SSD inside.

 

[exuberantmonkey]

Same hardware, same problem. I don’t use FileVault but I do use BootCamp. So slow to restart - long time on blank screen before actual restart or shut down. And restart from macOS requires me to hit option to stop first reboot at the partition option screen and wait for second restart, otherwise the second restart messes up a boot in progress. Sometimes need to reset SMC or PRAM to recover from messed up state. Big Sur has made me biggly surly about reboot. They really screwed our laptops with this issue.