OS X 10.11 Beta 6 Won't Boot

Stuck at white screen with the gray Apple logo.

Progress bar is stuck at 75%. Happens every single time I reboot the machine.

Also hangs in Verbose Mode on a line of code pertaining to "Virtual Box".

Boots into Safe Mode. Still hangs after booting into Safe Mode and restarting.

CMD + R for Recovery Mode is unavailable. The system will not recognize the keyboard shortcut during the boot process so I cannot choose my Time Machine backup on my External Drive.
Held the OPTION key to get the Start Up disk selection screen. I connected to my wi-fi I chose the "Recovery Partition 10.11" but nothing happened. Just gray Apple logo with white screen and no progress bar.


How do I wipe the disk and restore from my Time Machine backup if I can't access Recovery Mode and Internet Recovery seems to be DOA?

Replies

That seems normal to me - I doubt that's where the problem lies.


Do you have a //Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/ folder? And if so, what's in it?

I am having the exact same problem...


I found a VirtualBox uninstall tool here: http://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Installer/darwin/DiskImage/VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool


I am going to try and modify the path to so it looks to my boot HDD root (running terminal from internet recovery cmd + r) and run the script. If it fails I will probably go through and remove the files shown in the source.


I will post back with an update soon,


What a PITA!

No dice... Next steps:


1) Restore from Time Machine

2) Run the VBox uninstaller

3) Try the 10.11 PB 4 update again.

I'm running into this problem as well. I had no problem updating to beta 5, but I get an immediate kernel panic on beta 6. Even after a clean restore where I went back through 10.10 and re-applied all of the 10.11 updates one at a time, I saw the same problem.


I've checked and I don't have VirtualBox installed. In fact, I have no /Library/Extensions folder at all on this system. Does anyone have any other ideas for what I might try? I can't boot single user (crash happens before that), but I have been able to use Internet Recovery to get into a root shell and look through the fileysstem if I need to make changes there.


Edit: Never mind -- I realized just after sending this that I was looking in the wrong place. Instead of /Library/Extensions, I needed to be looking in /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Library/Extensions, and I do see the VBox drivers there. However, even after removing this, I'm still seeing the kernel panic, and when I read the tiny text I see it is still complaining about org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv(4.1.22).


I've gone back into Internet Recovery and the kexts appear to be gone. Anyone know how the kernel could still be trying to load them?

Hi Ron,


I'm happy to try to help, but could you start your own thread as it becomes complicated trying to help two people in the same thread especially if they have different underlying issues (there seem to be at least 4 underlying issues that people have had with B6 - so far only 2 or 3 have been identified).


Thanks,

Max.

You may need to remove the kext cache... delete the contents of the /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/


If it fails:


Try running the http://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Installer/darwin/DiskImage/VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool on 10.10 and then go back to 10.11 beta.

Hi ahazel,


Is the issue resolved for you now or is your Mac still failing to boot normally?

In addition to VirtualBox, one other kext has been causing the same issue for people: Eltima SyncMate


Max.

raha613: Thanks for the info about the kext cache directory. Unfortunately, even after removing that, I still got the kernel panic. So, I'm now trying to restore from my Time Machine backup of an older release and I'll try the upgrade again to beta 6 after uninstalling VirtualBox.


Max: Thanks for your offer to help -- if this doesn't work, I'll start a new thread.

I have the same issue, I had to reinstall beta 1..


However doing cmd + s or something (the one that tries single user mode I think) will give you the kernel output instead of the progress bar. There I see that my stuff crasher with a kernel panic because of something called "Navel"... I don't have a screenshot of it though.

Hi Bushwakko,


I'm happy to try to help, but could you start your own thread as it becomes complicated trying to help two people in the same thread especially if they have different underlying issues (there seem to be at least 4 underlying issues that people have had with B6 - so far only 2 or 3 have been identified).


Thanks,

Max.

Hi all


I have this same problem - on a 2010 Mac Pro. Fails with text referring to a virtualbox kext. I imagine I have an ancient version of Virtual Box installed etc.


Several have suggested restoring from a Time Machine backup. I have a good time machine backup, but I cannot get the machine to a point where I can invoke this.


My backup is on a Time Capsule - so I cannot directly connect it to the machine as one other reports having success with.


I've tried booting to Recovery mode (Cmd+R), Single User Mode (Cmd+S), Safe Mode (shift during boot) and Internet Recovery Mode (Cmd+Opt+R) and none work. I can boot to the option screen (pick boot drive) but it only shows me the existing boot drive, and no options etc (I have several drives connected, but only one with bootable system on it).


Any ideas on how I can get to a point where I can try to restore from the backup? (or to manually remove the offending files, if we know what they are yet).


Thanks alot

Safe boot (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262) should have worked? At least it did for me, as I believe it prevented those offending extensions from being loaded. Not sure why that's not working for you...

Hi glawrie,


I'm happy to try to help, but could you start your own thread as it becomes complicated trying to help multiple people in the same thread - especially if they have different underlying issues. Start your question from here: OS X 10.11 beta


Thanks,

Max.

Hi - sorry sjlee you were right - it just took a *very* long time for safe mode to boot up. Now it has it has resumed 'completing the install' with about 5 minutes remaining. I'll see if when that completes I have a recovery option available - if not will start a new thread as Max108 suggests.

Hi - final one - I think I'll post as a separate thread in case it helps.


  • Safe mode did eventually get my Mac Pro to boot.
  • In safe mode I downloaded the VirtualBox uninstaller from here - http://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Installer/darwin/DiskImage/VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool and saved it to my home folder (~)
  • I ran the uninstaller in terminal using this command - sudo /bin/sh VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool
  • I restarted the machine and let it run normally - the restart took a very long time (it paused at the end of the grey-line phase for ages) - but eventually I got back to OS X 10.11 beta 6.


This method worked for me, but maybe not anyone else. If it does work for others, this might be a good thing compared to restoring an old version of OS X from Time Machine.


HTH