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My macbook pro boots to a blue screen. It boots to safe mode

 
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  • Answered by:Tom
  • Mac Support Specialist
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Customer Question

My macbook pro boots to a blue screen. It boots to safe mode fine, but blue screen if regular boot.

 

Optional Information:
Product: Macbook
Software (if necessary): OS X

Already Tried:
rebooting to safe mode, verifying and repairing permissions, verifying and repairing disk, removing login options for user

Submitted: 339 days and 4 hours ago.
Category: Mac
Value: $29
Status: CLOSED
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Expert:  Tom replied 339 days and 4 hours ago.

Hello and welcome to JustAnswer. I look forward to assisting you today with your question and providing the best answer possible.

What OS are you running? ie. 10.5.6 or 10.7.2

If you click on the Apple icon in the top left and choose about this mac. It will tell you the version number.

Customer replied 339 days and 3 hours ago.

mac os x 10.6.8

Customer replied 339 days and 3 hours ago.

After working on the mac yesterday, I was finally able to get it to boot up, but it's not quick. It will boot to a blue screen and sit on that screen for about 3-5 minutes before giving me the login screen. Once the login screen appears it takes another 1-2 minutes before the keyboard starts working.

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Expert:  Tom replied 339 days and 2 hours ago.

Shut down your Mac if it is on.
Press the power button to start the computer.
Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple) key and one of the following:

  • the "v" key for verbose mode. (Command-V)

When it stops loading. Let me know what the white text says.

Customer replied 339 days and 2 hours ago.

It's an entire screen of verbage. Do you want me to type it all out, or is there a certain line of text you are looking for?

Customer replied 339 days and 1 hours ago.

Hello?

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Expert:  Tom replied 339 days and 1 hours ago.

Just type the last line, I want to see where it gets stuck

Customer replied 339 days and 1 hours ago.

yukon: Ethernet address 00:22:41:39:yb:e7

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Expert:  Tom replied 339 days and 1 hours ago.

Start in Safe Boot

Click on the face icon on the left-hand side of the dock

At the very top Click on Go and Computer. Open Macintosh HD and then the Library folder

Open Preferences folder and SystemConfiguration

Drag the files in this folder to the Trash. They will be recreated.

Restart





Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 339 days and 1 hours ago.

I did as you said. Upon reboot I started a stop watch. It's now been 7 minutes and the screen is still blue.

Customer replied 339 days ago.

The login screen finally appeared after 10 minutes.

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Expert:  Tom replied 339 days ago.

Restart again and let me know if it takes the same amount of time

Are you using wireless or wired connection?

Is this type of macbook the one you can take the battery out or not?

Customer replied 339 days ago.

I restarted; it took 10 minutes to get to login screen.

It is a macbook pro (all silver keys) using wireless connection.

It does have a removable battery.

Customer replied 339 days ago.

?? What is the next step?

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 23 hours ago.

If the computer is on, turn it off.

Disconnect the AC adapter and remove the computer's battery.

Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds and then release the button.

Reconnect the battery and AC Adapter.

Press the power button to restart the computer

I would also reset the pram. To do so do the following:

Step 1: Shutdown your computer

Step 2: Locate the following 4 keys on the keyboard: Command (Apple key) , Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 3. You must do step 3 prior to the Apple logo from appearing on the screen otherwise you must shutdown and try again.

Step 3: Turn on computer and immediately hold down the Command (Apple key ) & Option & P & R key all at the same time.

Keep holding them down. The computer will restart and on the third time you hear a chime you can let go and your computer will start up as normal.

Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 338 days and 22 hours ago.

It never gets to the logon screen. It is stuck on the blue screen now.

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 21 hours ago.

In your first post, you wrote that you ran disk repair. When you booted off the cd and ran disk repair. Did it find any issues?

Customer replied 338 days and 21 hours ago.

I went into DIsk Utility and did verify and repair permissions. It did find things when I ran verify, but it said it repaired them after I hit repair. Should I run that again?

Customer replied 338 days and 21 hours ago.

I rebooted and the logon screen appeared after about 9 minutes this time.

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 21 hours ago.

I would boot off your disk and run the disk repair again. Let me know if it finds anything.

Customer replied 338 days and 21 hours ago.

When I run verify disk it says "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be ok"

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 16 hours ago.

The next step is to do a re-installation of 10.6.8. You will not lose any applications or data.

Boot the Mac and hold down the option key
A boot screen will appear. Put in your 10.6.8 DVD
Choose the DVD from the menu

When the Language Chooser appears, select your language, and then click the
Continue button (looks like an arrow).Then follow the instructions in the Mac OS X Installer to reinstall Mac OS X.

Let me know how it goes

Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 338 days and 14 hours ago.

Ok, I reinstalled Mac OS X and it seems to be much faster at working. It doesn't hang on the blue screen. However, once the logon window appears nothing works. I cannot hit the return key to logon (there is no password), i cant select "login" with my mouse.

Are login screens necessary? Can't I just have the mac boot up and go direction to the desktop without a login? If so, how do I do this?
Thanks.

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 7 hours ago.

They aren't necessary.

See if you can boot into Safe Boot. If you can do the following:

Click on the face icon on the left-hand side of the dock.

Click on Go at the very top and Click on Computer

Open your Harddrive and Open the Library folder. Open StartupItems folder. If anything is here drag to the desktop and restart

You can do the below to remove the login box

Click on the Apple icon in the top left and chose System Preferences then Accounts

Click on lock in the bottom left to unlock it and put in your password

Click on Login Items right above the Lock. Change Automatic Login to your account and type in your password.


Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 338 days and 2 hours ago.

I turned the macbook on this morning and it is back to being stuck at the blue screen which then turned black. I hit a key and then the logon screen appeared, but the keyboard won't let me type a password.

It was working fine last night. Any suggestions?

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Expert:  Tom replied 338 days and 2 hours ago.

Does it boot in safe boot?

Customer replied 338 days and 2 hours ago.

Yes it boots in safe boot

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Expert:  Tom replied 337 days and 23 hours ago.

I appriate your patience. I know it is a lot of back and forth. I need to take a look at the system log to try to find out why it is only booting in safe boot. Please do the following:

Click on the picture of a face all the way on the left-hand side of your dock.
Click Go all the way at the Top and Choose Utilities
Open Console
At the top Click File and Open system.log

This will tell you everything that is going on with your system.

Click on File and Save a copy as. Save this file to your Desktop

Go to this website.

http://www.wikisend.com

Click on Browse.

Browse to the system.log on your desktop

Click on Upload

Post the link here so that I can look at it. It will look something like this

http://wikisend.com/download/bunch of numbers/system.log

Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 337 days and 22 hours ago.

Do I do all this in safe mode?

Customer replied 337 days and 22 hours ago.

I booted it in safe mode and did as you said.

Here is the download link: http://wikisend.com/download/255682/system.log

And here is the forum link: system.log

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Expert:  Tom replied 337 days and 21 hours ago.

Click on the Apple in the top left of the screen and choose software update. Please run all the updates. Restart computer. If it still has trouble after the updates. Please disable mobile me by doing the following:

Also disable mobile me by doing the following:

  1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click MobileMe.

  2. Click the Sync tab, and then click Advanced.

  3. Select the computer you want to stop syncing.

  4. Click Stop Syncing Computer, and then click Stop Syncing Computer.




Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 337 days and 13 hours ago.

All software is up to date. There is no mobile me on this macbook.

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Expert:  Tom replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

It is giving mobile me errors i the console which is why I asked.

Click on the picture of a face all the way on the left-hand side of your dock. Click on Go at the very top and Choose Home

This will bring up your home folder. Go into a folder called Library and then another folder called LaunchAgents

Delete anything in here that has MobileMe or .mac in the title. If there is nothing there with that in the title please let me know what files are listed. Words listed before the third period.
ex. com.adobe.ARM.asdflakjsdfs.plist I just need to know com.adobe.ARM

Customer replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

There was only one file in that folder, it was called:


com. apple. CSConfigDotMacCert-marveyhushman @me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

Should it be deleted?

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Expert:  Tom replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

Yes delete it and restart

Customer replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

Ok, I deleted the file and restarted. It is still sitting on blue screen (its been 5 mins now).

Customer replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

It just booted up. It sat on the blue screen for about 10 minutes prior thought. Should I do something else?

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Expert:  Tom replied 337 days and 1 hours ago.

If you go back to the Library Startup folder from above. Is anything listed there and if so what?

Customer replied 337 days ago.

I restarted, but the mouse doesn't work now. I will restart in safe mode and check the library startup file.

Customer replied 337 days ago.

After rebooting in safe mode, I looked in HD/Library/StartupItems and the folder is empty.

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Expert:  Tom replied 336 days and 23 hours ago.

Do you have an external drive connected or any usb/firewire devices?

Customer replied 336 days and 23 hours ago.

No, nothing external is connected.

Customer replied 336 days and 23 hours ago.

I'm not sure if my last message went through. I boot up the mac now and it takes approx 10 minutes to get to the home screen. All 10 minutes it sits on the blue screen. While I am happy that it is finally completing the boot, it takes a very long time. What is the next step in figuring out why the startup is so slow? Thanks again.

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Expert:  Tom replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

From the system log it looked like a firewire device was the issue but it might be your firewire port which is why it boots fine in safe boot.

Please do the following:

Click on the picture of a face all the way on the left-hand side of your dock. Click on Go at the very top and Choose Computer. Open Hard drive.

Open the System folder and then Library folder then Extensions.

Move everything with firewire in the title to the desktop

Restart

Customer replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god :D

I moved the firewire files to the desktop and rebooted and it took exactly ONE MINUTE!!! And the keyboard and mouse work too.

So exciting.

Do you think this is a final fix? Would you like to see the system log now?


Thanks a million!

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Expert:  Tom replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

Great! This looks like the final fix. You have a faulty firewire port. If you ever get an external drive make sure it is usb. Do a restart one more time to be sure. Please click Accept if everything is working good.

Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Customer replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

Does a faulty firewire port also cause the keyboard and trackpad to not work at times? Or was that fixed with something else? Rebooting now.

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Expert:  Tom replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

yes it got hung up trying to detect the firewire port and this caused the usb ports to become unresponsive.

Customer replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

Ahhhh, I see. I rebooted and it works perfect. Boots in 1 minute flat. I cannot thank you enough for all of your help. Is it possible to get our conversation sent to my email? I truly appreciate your time and support, Tom.

Accepted Answer

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Expert:  Tom replied 336 days and 22 hours ago.

No Problem Glad I could help. I'll ask customer service to send this converation via email.

Remember, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with my answer, we can continue the conversation until you’re satisfied and Accept my answer. I can address follow up questions at no extra charge and I’m always here to help. Thank you for using JustAnswer!

Expert TypeMac Support Specialist
Category: Mac
Pos. Feedback: 97.8 %
Accepts: 665
Answered: 5/3/2012

Experience: 8 years experience as a Mac administrator for a college

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