Shutdown , restart.... Never successful.

[Soundburst]

Hey everyone,

My iMac has never ever shutdown properly, or restarted.

Well I exaggerate. It has a few times.

Usually the menu bar disappears and boom... That's it. It'll stay on that screen forever.

Why does this happen? Anyone know?

 

[dianeoforegon]

Try downloading the OS X installer again and run over your install. While it should be safe, it's always recommended that you backup first. I suggest a clone backup in addition to Time Machine.

Under Purchases in App Store, find the OS X installer. It will tell you it's already installed but you can select Continue to download again.

 

[simon lefisch]

Hey everyone,

My iMac has never ever shutdown properly, or restarted.

Well I exaggerate. It has a few times.

Usually the menu bar disappears and boom... That's it. It'll stay on that screen forever.

Why does this happen? Anyone know?

This used to happen to me on Yosemite, however I would still be able to access the Dock. I would open terminal and run the command from the link below and it would shutdown without probs:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...-command-to-shutdown-restart-and-sleep-my-mac

 

[Fishrrman]

I've been having a similar problem myself.

I've got a late-2012 Mac Mini, but I'm booting into El Capitan from an external SSD mounted in a USB3/SATA "adapter dongle".
The Mini has 10.8.5 installed on its internal drive.

If I'm booted to El Capitan, and choose "Shut Down" from the finder, I get a crash (kernel panic).
And then the Mac automatically reboots to 10.8.5 on the internal drive.

This is repeatable -- happens every time.

HOWEVER, I've found a workaround:

When it's time to shut down or restart, I -log out- first.
Now, I'm looking at the login page, which also has "Shut Down" and "Restart" buttons at the bottom.
I can now press either button and the computer will shut down or reboot properly.

OP:
If you attempt to log out before you shut down, do you still get a crash?

 

[Soundburst]

I've been having a similar problem myself.

I've got a late-2012 Mac Mini, but I'm booting into El Capitan from an external SSD mounted in a USB3/SATA "adapter dongle".
The Mini has 10.8.5 installed on its internal drive.

If I'm booted to El Capitan, and choose "Shut Down" from the finder, I get a crash (kernel panic).
And then the Mac automatically reboots to 10.8.5 on the internal drive.

This is repeatable -- happens every time.

HOWEVER, I've found a workaround:

When it's time to shut down or restart, I -log out- first.
Now, I'm looking at the login page, which also has "Shut Down" and "Restart" buttons at the bottom.
I can now press either button and the computer will shut down or reboot properly.

OP:
If you attempt to log out before you shut down, do you still get a crash?

Thanks for all the replies guys. I logged out first and it didn't stall at the desktop. I'll keep doing this.

Cheers for all the input.

 

[BrianBaughn]

You may have a corrupt User Account. Create and log into a new User Account and test the shutdown.

If you find that it works with the test account you should probably address the corrupt one as other issues may arise.

 

[Fishrrman]

This is a followup to my post #4 above, and in response to Brian in post #6 directly above.

I tried creating a brand-new-spanking-fresh account.
I then logged out of my regular account into the new one.
I get the exact same crash upon trying to shut down as before.

Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to be "user account related".