Cannot shut down restart or log out

Hi,
My new macbook pro cannot shut down restart or log out. When click shut down restart or log out. it does NOTHING. no screen comes out, no window telling me that an application is stopping the shut down, just nothing. After I try several times to shut down, I can continue using my macbook normally as if I didnt try to shut down at all. What should I do? What is wrong?

What happens when you press the power button? It should bring up a dialog box asking if you want to Restart, Sleep, Cancel, or Shutdown.
Also, try it from the terminal prompt. The Terminal application is in the Utilities folder. The Utilities folder is in the Applications folder.
Once you've launched Terminal, type:
sudo shutdown -r now
Enter your login password when prompted.
This should initiate a reboot.

Similar Messages

Mountain Lion won't sleep, shut down, restart, or log out.

Hi All,
After Mountain Lion my 2010 iMac 27" won't sleep, shut down, restart, or log out.
Basically most functionalities of clicking the apple icon are disabled - "About this Mac" doesn't work either.
Please help!
Before Apple fixes this, is there another way of putting my Mac to sleep or shut down?

Just adding another voice to the chorus. Since upgrading to Mountain Lion my computer will not sleep. The cursor freezes when I try to invoke sleep but the computer and monitor remain on. The cursor unfreezes when I tap the spacebar the way I would normally do to wake from sleep. Fortunately, shutdown, restart and logout function normally, so I guess I should count my blessings. This isn't my only problem with Mountain Lion, but I didn't want to muddy the waters on this thread with other issues.
Dual quad-core MacPro3,1

Cannot shut down, restart, or log off iMac

I have an iMac with OS 10.5.2. I use the Virus Barrier virus protection program and have not had any problems with it. However, immediately after installing the latest Virus Barrier update, my computer began acting strangely.
Most importantly, since that time I have not been able to shut down, restart, or log off my computer. When I try to take any of these actions, I get the standard message box asking, for example, "Are you sure you want to shut down your computer now?" I click on "Shut down" and the desktop icons and the menu bar disappear but then nothing at all happens. Sometimes, after a while, I may get a message saying that the action "timed out." I then click on the Finder icon on the dock, and the desktop icons and menu bar reappear. I've tried force-quitting the Finder, but that did not work. Even if I manually shut off the power, when I turn it back on, the desktop immediately appears without the usual beep and without going through the normal startup procedures. It seems that even when I turn off the power manually, the computer itself does not actually shut down.
Additionally, my screen saver no longer works. Although I have it set to come on automatically, it never does.
I contacted Virus Barrier support which advised me to uninstall the program. I did, but that did not help the problem. I've tried "Repair Disk Permissions" in the Disk Utility application, but that did not help either.
Apart from the above, I still seem to be able to use the programs on my computer with no problem.
Does anyone have any idea what is causing this problem and what I can do about it?
Thank you.

DO NOT JUST PULL THE PLUG! Press and hold the power button until it shuts down fully. This can take several seconds. Once you are sure the fans are off, click the mouse a couple of times to make sure there is no response, then you can pull the plug, to be sure.
I suggest that you then start up in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key as soon as you hear the chime. The OS should start in the normal fashion, except you will see a Safe Boot legend.
Once you've logged in, bin the Finder .plist as suggest, and I'm make sure that all the Virus Barrier files are well and truly gone as well. Don't forget to check /Library/StartupItems and ~/Library/StartupItems. Once you reboot, things should be back to normal.
As suggested, AV programs are pretty much a waste of CPU on a Mac. If you really must have one, I recommend ClamXAV. Apart from anything else, it's free.

Macbook Pro will not shut down/restart/sleep/log out after Mountain Lion update

Dear all,
I upgraded from Lion to Mountain Lion yesterday and since then I have encountered a few issues:
- The only way I can shut down my computer is to hold down the power button or entering commands in terminals. The commands under the Apple menu do not work at all. No window opens when I click on it.
- The about this mac, force to quit, sleep, shut down and restart button, log out do not work.
- When I restart my computer, it takes 3-4 minutes to log into the account (it used to be less than 1 minute, I have an SSD).
I have tried all of these solutions to solve the problem:
- I created another user account and I do not encounter the same problems. It logs in quickly, can shut down etc.
- I have repaired the disk and the disk authorisations using disk utility
- I have cleaned up all caches and did maintenance using OnyX
- I have cleaned up all ACL using terminal
- I have never installed Kapersky (this was the cause of the problem for some people in the past)
I am starting to be a bit short on ideas. All I know is that there is a problem with my user account. I do not want to do a clean install as I have quite a lot of work stored on this user account and preferences that took me ages to set up. If I have to start fresh I will but I would rather avoid this extreme solution.
Has anyone else experienced such an issue? If yes, how did you solve it?
Thank you very much

Had the same problem and this worked for me:
Try deleting following two items:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.db
Make sure you take a screenshot of your current dock since deleting these files will reset your dock to default.
Now open terminal and do a sudo reboot w/ your password.
This solved the problem for me.

Macbook refuses to shut down, restart or log out! :(

Hi,
Ive been having the troubles of not being able to turn off, restart or log out my Macbook after not shutting it down for a while ( like 1 or 2 weeks just kept putting it to sleep when it is not in use ). When I tried to shut down or restart it, the top bar and everything else went off leaving ma dock behind, it then just froze and kept saying that it cant shut down due to some random application have failed to quit! (e.g most usually firefox and Finder) eventhough i have already quit all my applications!
Does anybody know what the problem is? Is this usual if you dont shut down your macbook for a couple of weeks? Please advice!
Thank you very much,

Hi
Holding down the power button for about 10 seconds will force the macbook to turn off. This is only recommended as an emergency measure.
When you restart, I recommend you download either Onyx or Leopard Cache Cleaner and use it to step through the various maintenance activities it offers, including deleting all stored cache files.
You should perform this maintenance once a month or so (although you don't need to routinely clear out the cache files).
Bob

Won't shut down, restart or log out

Running 10.4.10 on G4. Will shut down apps but does not do anything further. Also, screen saver hot corners don't work. Don't know if that is connected to the shut down, etc. problem.
Looked at HD, lib, startupitems folder but it is empty. Eliminated startup items thru sys prefs but no help there either.
Recently installed ITunes 7.3.2 and security update.
Maybe time for an iMac ??

Just adding another voice to the chorus. Since upgrading to Mountain Lion my computer will not sleep. The cursor freezes when I try to invoke sleep but the computer and monitor remain on. The cursor unfreezes when I tap the spacebar the way I would normally do to wake from sleep. Fortunately, shutdown, restart and logout function normally, so I guess I should count my blessings. This isn't my only problem with Mountain Lion, but I didn't want to muddy the waters on this thread with other issues.
Dual quad-core MacPro3,1

Since downloading Lion on my Mac Pro I can not shut down, restart, or log out on my computer;

I tried both the Apple menu and the keyboard shortcuts and nothing happens when i do both of them. I can not do a software update now because of this

Bat signal? What's that?
Mike, try resetting the Power Management Unit (PMU). Read the linked article, then scroll down to find the instructions for resetting the PMU on your model, then do this:
1. If the computer is on, turn it off.
2. Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-Power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes.
3. Wait 5 seconds.
4. Press the Power button to restart the computer.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

Cannot shut down / restart

Hello all,
my macbook 2.16
i cannot shut it down......whenever i press the power button, the menu appears i click restart/shutdown nothing happens..the computer is still on for a week now...it can only sleep
tried using the drop down menu to shutdown/restart...still doesnt work
this isnt the only problem that just popped up...next one in the next thread....
Pls help!!!!!!

Hi,
Hold the power button down for ten seconds. When you restart it, the other problems may have disappeared, many problems go away after a restart.
Post back to let us know.
PB

My macbook pro won't shut down, restart or log off

it's a month old. was behaving fine until about a week ago when it wouldn't shut down because itunes kept restarting itself whenever i quit. realised it was because of my alarm clock widget, which i've now removed. so the itunes is sorted, BUT, my mac still won't shut down.
what can i do? someone told me to download onyx but i haven't a clue what to do with it?

Don't upgrade to Snow Leopard in the hope that it will eliminate any preexisting problems on your MBP — it almost certainly won't, and you may have other problems as well (e.g., incompatible applications and startup items). Solve the problem first, then perform the upgrade.
If you Safe Boot the computer, will it shut down normally afterward? If so, disable all third-party startup items (System Preferences > Accounts > select your account and click the Startup Items tab), boot normally, and test again. If you can still shut down normally, one of the startup items is at fault. Re-enable them one at a time, testing after each addition, until you determine which one is causing the problem.
There are also applications that can run in the background and don't show up in the Force Quit dialog box — but they do appear in Activity Monitor when you instruct it to list Active Processes. Some can interfere with shutdown by refusing to quit when the Shut Down command is given. If the suggestion in the preceding paragraph yields no progress, let us know what processes are active on your computer when no applications are shown in the Force Quit dialog box.

After latest updates, cannot shut down or restart, takes me to white screen

I have a new MBP retina and after the latest Mountain Lion updates which I seem to remember including an iPhoto and Aperture update but also seemed to "flash" the EFI? (not sure), but there seemed to be some OS update included. Either way, my first initial issue was that when I clicked on my user account and typed in password after boot, it took me to a dark gray screen and just stayed there. I finally was able to log into guest account and switch over to my desktop then fiddled with resolution settings and background and shut down applications and rebooted. I can now log into my main user account but I cannot shut down or restart from any account. It will take me to a white/gray screen and hang there perpetually until I hold down the power button.
I've tried resetting PRAM before and after removing all cables for 2 mins. The issue persists in both my main account and the guest account. The computer simply will not shutdown or restart as it takes me to a white screen.
Ideas?

Hey guys, unfortunately I've had to re-install Mountain Lion to get rid of the issue, but here's my experiences after trying many things and contacting AppleCare...
First, I had Lion and had upgraded to ML. They had me go do the following with limited success:
1) Reset PRAM (no effect)
2) Recovery Disk and repair permissions (no effect)
3) Went to system /Library and User /Library and basically we went through several attempts at removing various files from (/Library/InputMethods, /Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchDaemons") Once I had essentially removed every file and dragged it into the trash (without deleting), the issue was resolved. So, it seems to point to an application that was not fully supported or giving problems within the ML environment. The plan was to drag them one by one back and do reboot/shutdown until I could isolate the application, but rather than do that, I just did a fresh install to take out any variable that could be present from having to do a Lion/ML upgrade. I was able to put a fresh copy of ML on the computer through the Recovery partition after establishing connection to my router. Everything is working fine now.
Anyway, hope that helps some of you. It was a frustrating experience but seems to point to application issues wih the OS and not the OS itself. I think developers are still rushing to catch up with full ML support and so you might find yourself having many new updates in drivers or applications over the next month.

Hi, i cannot shut down my mac, and there is several times lagging, hanging, and auto restart. what should I do ?

Hi, i cannot shut down my mac, and there is several times lagging, hanging, and auto restart. what should I do ?

Hold the power button till it shuts off (10 seconds or so)
Then try a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Follow directions for a battery you should not remove yourself.
You can also try a pram reset, which has a link at the bottom of the page of the first link above.

Macbook Pro cannot shut down or restart

My Macbook Pro cannot shut down or restart by any means. I have to forcefully shut it down by pressing the shutdown button for a few seconds.
I was told this might be a system problem so I reinstalled the OS X system but the problem not solved.
This is very troubesome as the system update cannot be installed (because the required restart cannot be done).
Can anyone suggest me what I could do next?
Thank you in advance!
(To add on, my Apple manu seems not working as all. Not only the shut down/ restart function, but also the "About this mac" is not executing anything)
Ning

If this is happening now for the first time, press and hold the power button for a few seconds to force a shutdown, then press again briefly to restart.

Macbook Pro Won't Shut Down, Restart, or Logout after using Onyx.

Hi,
Earlier this week I found that my macbook wouldn't shutdown, restart, or logout from the finder menu (or any other menu, such as Onyx or Software Update). The only way I could get it to restart was through Terminal. I tried every solution, but nothing would fix it. After backing everything up, and doing a clean reinstall, everything was fine. Then, when I used Onyx, I tried to install the Archives Preference pane and the Processor Preference pane. The window just sort of hung there not responding - and finally I had to force quit Onyx. Now my system is back to not shutting down, restarting, or being able to log out again. The good thing is that I think I've isolated the problem. The bad thing is that I have no idea how to fix it. I tried uninstalling Onyx, but that did nothing. I've used Onyx regularly and have never had any issues, and I can't seem to find anyone else with this problem.
Can anyone help? I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for this topic. If there is a better forum for it, let me know and I can repost.
Another problem that I'm having is when I open iTunes, the dock icon comes up for about a second and crashes. I tried completely reinstalling iTunes, but that hasn't worked. Perhaps I missed something? BTW - everything else is operating just fine (i.e. Quicktime, etc.)

HI and Welcome to Apple Discussions...
Run Disk Utility from your Mac install disc.
Insert your install disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
*(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)*
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your start up disk and click Restart
While you have the Disk Utility window open, look at the bottom of the window. Where you see Capacity and Available. *Make sure there is always 10% to 15% free disk space*
If you cannot boot from your install disc, try booting in Safe Mode
You do not need Onyx, especially not good for Snow Leoaprd. You can run cron tasks from the iStat Pro widget available here.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Mac wont shut down, restart or sleep - corrupted software update?

My Mac Pro (2007 - OSX 10.6.7) will no longer shut down, restart or sleep. When I try to shut down, it logs me out of my user account, shows the light blue screen, momentarily shows the Leopard space background screen, before showing the blue screen again, and finally returning to the login screen prompting for my user/password.
The only way to poweroff from this point is to hold down the power switch until it forces a power down. This issue has been present for the last two weeks or so ever since I did a Software Update containing a security update. Initially it just failed to perform that update, although after a few days it did do the update, seemingly by fluke. After that, the problem persisted and now there is a new update (Fonts) which again fails to update.
I have tried all of the following:
Power off Mac, unplug power and leave for a few seconds
Power on Mac holding down Ctr + Opt + R + P (resetting PRAM etc)
Boot up from install CD and perform Disk repair (it did find problems with the disk and repaired them)
Check and repair permissions
Delete Software Update related plists & caches from ~/Library and /Library
Still the problem persists. Examining the logs shows me this:
04/05/2011 00:24:50          com.apple.WindowServer[11503]          Wed May 4 00:24:50 macpro.local WindowServer[11503] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.launchd[1]          ([0x0-0x226226].com.apple.SoftwareUpdate[11517]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.ScreenSharing.server[11508]          Wed May 4 00:25:00 macpro.local AppleVNCServer[11508] <Warning>: CGSShutdownServerConnections: Detaching application from window server
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.ScreenSharing.server[11508]          Wed May 4 00:25:00 macpro.local AppleVNCServer[11508] <Warning>: CGSDisplayServerShutdown: Detaching display subsystem from window server
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[11507]          Wed May 4 00:25:00 macpro.local UserEventAgent[11507] <Warning>: CGSShutdownServerConnections: Detaching application from window server
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[11507]          Wed May 4 00:25:00 macpro.local UserEventAgent[11507] <Warning>: CGSDisplayServerShutdown: Detaching display subsystem from window server
04/05/2011 00:25:00          com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[11518]          2011-05-04 00:25:00.895 ReportCrash[11518:2703] Saved crash report for Software Update[11517] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Software Update_2011-05-04-002500_localhost.crash
04/05/2011 00:25:02          com.apple.WindowServer[11520]          Wed May 4 00:25:02 macpro.local WindowServer[11520] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
I can paste the crash report referred to in the logs if that would be helpful but for now will leave it out as it's huge and largely full of gobledygook.
I'm at my wits end now. I've always been very proud that in ~4 years of Mac ownership I've never had to reinstall OSX - something I used to do on an anual basis with Windows. My next step probably is a full reinstall, but I really do consider it a drastic step and a last resort.
Here's hoping that the Mac Support Community can help me out
Thanks in advance.

As a followup, upon the advice from someone else I created another user account (non admin) and logged in as that user. From that account I could successfully power down.
I'm still convinced the issue is related to Software Update as examining the logs showed none of the Software Update related entries as above:
04/05/2011 09:56:40          com.apple.WindowServer[760]          Wed May 4 09:56:40 macpro.local WindowServer[760] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
04/05/2011 09:56:44          com.apple.coreservicesd[87]          ThrottleProcessIO: throttling disk i/o
04/05/2011 09:56:50          com.apple.loginwindow[759]          2011-05-04 09:56:50.297 migCacheCleanup[781:903] Flushing Cache Locations...
04/05/2011 09:57:12          com.apple.WindowServer[840]          Wed May 4 09:57:12 macpro.local WindowServer[840] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

Cannot shut down the computer !

I cannot shut down my computer after I click Apple menu>shut down>>shut down again. Then got no response for a while, prompt out "Logout has timed out because the application Finder failed to quit. To try again, quit Finder and choose Log Out from Apple menu." But I have already close Finder by clicking the RED button on top left corner. From the Finder pull down menu, I cannot find the "Quit" command. When I click Apple Menu again and click Force Quit, it prompt out a small window and ask to Re-launch Finder, or Cancel. If I click cancel, nothing happen, if I click re-launch, it flash and keep asking Re-launch. What's happened to my computer? Anyone can help ?

This is a problem that I've been having with the two IMacs our office uses. It doesn't happen every time, which makes it even more difficult to troubleshoot.
What happens is the computer goes into shutdown(or logging out) mode, hangs for awhile, then the desktop just comes back on. Often there will be an error message saying something like "Logout timed out due to failure of Safari to quit." And sometimes it will list a different application. But, in all instances, there ARE no applications open. When I launch the Activity Monitor, it confirms that there are no hidden apps running anywhere. It just won't shut down or log out. At that point, you have to force power down with the power button, which is not a healthy way to shut down on a regular basis.
I've run disk utility and permissions repair off the system disk. I've zapped the PRAM. My latest attempt has been to reset the SMC, so I will have to monitor it to see if it did the trick.
I'm sure that if I called Applecare at this point that they would tell me to archive and install. But that is a bit drastic a step and isn't really troubleshooting. Not when it will take considerable time to reconfigure these machines for uncertain results. Since A.) the IMacs were right out of the box when this problem began and B.) the MacPros and MacBooks that run the same OS and the same software DO NOT experience a similar problem, I suspect it wouldn't resolve the issue.
I just want to exhaust all other possibilities before taking the archive and install step, because you always end up losing prefs from third party software, etc...
Has anyone else experienced this problem before???

Cannot shut down restart or log out

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