High Sierra asking for ‘disk password’ and won’t accept any

UPDATE:I did the following and it worked:
1. Boot into recovery mode (command + R) at boot
2. Select Terminal from the Utilities Menu (Following croakers steps here)
3. diskutil apfs list
4. diskutil apfs unlockvolume disk2s1 (My Machintosh HD drive from list)
5. diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk2s1 (To see if I get any errors ((error=(0=success)))
6. diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk2s1 -od /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default - Important here -
This is the step I was missing! This worked without any errors

Note: In the other posts I was seeing a "Recovery\ Items" folder in which I didnt have one but this step was crucial to making this work. It was stated that you need to find the path to your user folder (plist)

After I did the above I closed the terminal, slected reboot from the menu. It rebooted normally and asked for my password and it worked it started the status bar thing again but in 5 minutes it resumed upgrading to High Sierra it then displayed a 15 Minute timer for installing and its now working

I hope this helps you all - try this Before decrypting the drive save you some time

One more thing:

After completing the HS upgrade, I attempted to do a Time Machine backup of my system but could not backup because FireVault is decrypting "Machintosh HD".

Since I use this as a secure device I am considering turning FireVault back on. <- Thoughts?

I am also still considering moving away from this OE

When updating the Preboot, you need to specify which drive to use for the operation. For example: If your main drive is "disk3s1" you'd write:

diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk3s1 -od /Volume/Macintosh\ HD/Recovered\ Items/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default

That is what did the trick for me. I was able to complete installation and backup my files just in case. This was btw using the official High Sierra installer from the App store, the download finished and my MacBook restarted. When it tried to install it gave me an error, rebooted again and booted to a Folder Icon with a Question Mark in it.

Best of luck.

I have the same problem and if I try to reinstall the sistem in recovery mode, I can’t select the hard-disk because it’s in decrypting mode. In terminal, using apfs list, I can see decrypting 0.0 % (paused). I’m blocked and I don’t know how to solve... someone can help us please? All previuos indication works fine without errors.

Hi guys,

I have been browsing this post for a while to find the solution working for me.

I did the convert to apfs on my 2011 macbook pro, and got the -69569 error related to the open directory user DB.

I tried everything, am able to unlock the volume, and started decrypting the disk.

this is now paused at 10%, and even running a full night did not make it progress any further. I have rebooted the system, and did the update preboot, still gives me the same error.

Tried decypt volume Disk2s1, this gives me the error 69573 given volume is already decrypting.

I don't know how to make the system continue.

I do not feel confifent enough to copy files from location a to location b, this exeeds my knowledge of unix instructions

I'm exactly at the same point paused at 10%

Hi Scot,

I used your instructions, they where very helpful. It did took me a while to work out the thing when having a space in the name of a disk "Rick\ disk".

I did every steps, to find my system still gave me the error related to the open directory user db. This is maybe related to the fact that I did not quite understood the last part of your post, where you explain a number of things, however not including the instruction on how to do that.

f you see errors while updatePreboot is considering the Open Directory User ensure your unlocked APFS volume is mounted and readable. It must have access to the local Open Directory search path (/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default) to build a list of authorized users (AdminUserRecoveryInfo.plist) and an access token (secureaccesstoken.plist) and copy them onto the Preboot volume (/Volumes/Preboot/6AAC9D56-EC44-38B3-9C50-1D6DA3020377/var/db/).

Is it possible you to explain this a bit more.

Now I am at the point where my disk is decryting, and having it "paused" at 10%, typing the command again result in the error -69573 volume is already decrypting.

Rick

I just did my upgrade to macOS High Sierra with a volume that had FileVault2 enabled and had this happen (prompt for disk password but would not accept any password). I ultimately called AppleCare... they had a note on the issue.

The solution was:

Boot into the recovery OS by

- Power off the Mac

- Press-and-hold CMD+R while powering on and wait for the machine to boot.

- Select "Disk Utility"

Within Disk Utility

- Select your internal volume (e.g. "Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it)

- Select the "Mount" icon (along the top)

It will prompt for a disk password but this time YOUR normal login account password will work and the volume will mount.

Take note of the "Device" name (there's a table with information about the mounted volume... the device name will be in the lower right corner). The device name may be something like "disk2s1" - write it down... you need to know that device name for the next step.

Exit Disk Utility

Select the "Utilities" menu along the top and pick the "Terminal" app.

Within the terminal window you are now at a root prompt.

Type (at the root prompt #): diskutil apfs updatePreboot name-of-device

e.g. if your device was 'disk2s1' then the command would be: diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk2s1

That will take a moment (you'll see pages of messages fly by). Once you see the root prompt (#) return, it's ready.

Reboot your mac. You're done!

The mac should now boot normally (altough if you're just upgraded to macOS High Sierra then you'll get the normal set of screens that appear the first time you log in after the upgrade... e.g. it'll probably ask you to login to your iCloud account, etc. etc.)

This post, which worked for me, is a simpler version of the helpul post by Croakey above.

However, my “pages of messages going by“, toward the end included an error -6595 which needed to be addressed for things to work.

To address the error I followed the instructions kindly posted by jinsung. To be very specific the command that work for me is as follows:

diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk2s1 -od /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Recovered\ Items/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default

I am not a developer so I was trying to piece things together from the postings and execute things mechsnicslly. For people like me I will point out a couple things:

- the backslash is required to precede spaces in directory names. E.g. Macintosh HD Is Macintosh\ HD.

- There is some chance you’re directory path won’t be the same as mine. The “cd” and “ls” commands in the Terminal utility can help. “Cd” changes your location to whatever folder name you type after it, and ”ls“ lists the files and folders. “cd ..” takes you back Up one level in the folder hierarchy. Using these commands you can find the location of db/dslocal/nodes/Default specific to you.

Thanks to everyone for their input on this issue. I'm very disappointed with Apple. I'm in Terminal from a Recovery Boot but typing "diskutil apfs" returns "did not recognize verb "apfs" Where does that leave me?

Anybody else getting "did not recognize verb "apfs" " in Terminal?

Scratch that. I've discovered that booting with CMD+R offers an installer back to Lion whilst booting win CMD+OPT+R offers an installer for High Sierra. This version of Terminal has the "apfs" verb. So, it seems my drive has already converted to apfs so I'm trying the install again.

Hello,

I have just fixed my MacBook Pro 2015 after chatting with Apple and the actual command I had to run - as I had the user account missing issue - was this:

diskutil apfs updatePreboot “/Volumes/Macintosh HD” -od “/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Recovered Items/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default”

***There is a space between Recovered and Items***

Please note I had no issues with running first aid on my drive, I just got the DISK PASSWORD prompt after trying to install High Sierra

Once I ran that command and restarted the installation continues for about 20 mins, it then restarted and I saw my actual login screen

Hopefully this will help someone in the same situation as me, as the other stuff on this forum did not work but as you will see it is quite close to the command apple gave me which is ran via RECOVERY boot and opening Terminal 🙂

LeighLeigh,

This appears to work correctly, thank you for being clear and concise, especially with the space between Recovered/Items.

Just a note, there's going to be a lot of frustrated users that aren't familiar with terminal commands so maybe we should be clear about the Macintosh HD portion. It is probably that way on 100% out of the box Macbooks but if you have a used MacBook or you have upgraded the Harddrive there is a possibility that it is named something else. In my case my HD is named M4 SSD. So when you look up your disk in the Disk Utility look up the number disk2s1 and the actual name of the disk, because if you tell it to go to Macintosh HD and your disk is named SpongeBob, no go John Wayne. So in my case it was:

diskutil apfs updatePreboot “/Volumes/M4 SSD (ACTUAL NAME)” -od “/Volumes/M4 SSD (ACTUAL NAME)/Recovered (SPACE) Items/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default” *NOTHING IN () IS WRITTEN IN THE TERMINAL

Also maybe we should note there are a couple of different issues here. This works for the Disk Password Issue when it says NO USERS FOUND, but there are what? Two other issues?

Many thanks to everyone who shared solutions, this is a super frustrating update.

So I tried to run this but instead I got another error. 69836: Couldn't find database of user accounts. What should I do?

Jinsung and raulrincon thank you so much. Hopefully this issue gets resolved in future versions of the installer.

During the macos upgrading, I encountered the same issue as "Disk password" required, but password didn't work.

I fixed it with below commands:

Steps:

1. Issue commands "diskutil apfs list" to find out the APFS volume disk name like "disk1s1".

For Macbook pro, the mount point should be "

/Volumes/Macintosh HD

For Macbook air, the mount point should be "/Volumes/air"

Let's suppose the APFS volume disk is "disk1s1", and you use Macbook pro(the mount point is "

/Volumes/Macintosh HD

2. Issue the following commands to unlock the disk

diskutil apfs unlockvolume disk1s1

3. Issue the following commands to updatePreboot for this disk

diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk1s1

4. Check the error message, you may get error code as "error=-69569"

5. Issue the following one line commands to updatePreboot, check the command carefully again and again.

diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk1s1 -od /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Recovered\ Items/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default

After the command issued successfully. hard reboot the macbook, restart. Problem fixed!😉😎😁

Hi, I've already tried doing it your way but now appears another error

Error: -69836: Couldn't find database of user accounts

Could you help me please.

Hi Jinsung.

I've already tried doing it your way

diskutil apfs updatePreboot disk1s1 -od /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Recovered\ Items/Private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default

But now I get another error

Error: -69836: Couldn't find database of user accounts

Could you help me please.

Yay!!! This worked for me. Thank you so much!

I have the same error, please help us..

Hi, I am having the same problem and instead opted to decrypt my drive. The decryption was successful, it took me almost 16 hours. Then after that, I restarted and the installation proceeded. But the installation was not successful. What should I do next? Should I try reinstalling in recovery mode, or should I backup my drive then perform a clean install? Reinstalling high sierra requires a mac os journaled file system? If that so, how can I backup my drive in recovery mode so that I can reformat my drive to hfs+? I was not able to create a backup before... Any reply or help will bw very much appreciated.

My drive is already converted to apfs... I would like to know if I can still recover data from my drive. I wasn't able to do croaker's method before because I couldn't find the directory, but during the decryption process, I was able to locate it. After the installation proceeded, when I try to restart, my mbp now shows a circle with slash during startup. My drive is ok when I run first aid. I was asked to run diagnostics and showed that my drive has no issues..

What worked for me was having my mbp brought to an authorized apple service center. My drive was backed up using target disk, and then clean install of high sierra.

For those like me who updated with no backup and ended up with the decryption paused this is what worked for me, and allowed me to recover all my info. I took a High Sierra USB install disk, and Installed High Sierra on to an External drive. Took about 3 hours to fully install. Upon the start up I was given the Migration Option to which I chose to migrate from my Encrypted(By the High Sierra install) SSD drive. Fortunately for me when it asked for the FileVault password, I used the password for my user account (this also worked to mount the disk in diskutility). I copied over all the info on the SSD to the External startup. Next I erased my SSD, Installed High Sierra then Migrated everything back on to the SSD from the External Harddrive. Hope this works for someone. Ive been frustrated for days and almost wiped my drive with no back up.