MacBook will not shut down

I cannot turn my MacBook Pro off. The shut down option doesn't work. Holding down the power off button doesn't work. I've tried letting the battery die out. It turns off only because it runs out of juice but when I get back on I have the same problem. Help please!

Also, I can't open anything except Finder. I can't open System Preferences or safari or anything else. They flash as if they're getting ready to open but then immediately shut down. I figure that's because I tried to shut it off and it's thinking about it. When I push the power off button, it says that I'm already shutting down

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MacBook will not Shut Down or Restart

My MacBook will not shut down or restart from the apple menu, nor from any other dialog box that pops up, after an update, for instance. The only way I can turn it off/restart is by using the power button. I have tried archiving and installing OS X, but I am still having this problem. Does anybody know how to fix this?

Hi Henry,
Help here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319
Second, make sure you have all your updates. Click the Apple logo in the Menu then click Software Updates.
Reset PRAM by holding option-command-P-R keys down during startup until you hear the chime at least three or four times.
Resetting the PRAM is a standard procedure for the problem you are experiencing.
Also, run Disk Utility and Repair Disk Permissions. DU is located here:
Applications/Utilities. Launch DU, select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, then click Repair Disk Permissions. Quit DU and reboot.
If you need further assistance, please post back.
Carolyn

MacBook will not shut down or go to sleep

My MacBook is not shutting down or going to sleep.
When I try to shut down: The desktop disappears as normal but then the plain blue screens appears (with the little circle down the bottom which spins (not the beach ball)) and it just stays there forever. To shut down I need to hold the power button for 10 seconds.
When I try to put the MacBook to sleep by closing the lid: The light in the bottom right hand corner comes on but it does not "pulse" - suggesting it has not gone to sleep.
When I try to put the MacBook to sleep using the Apple (top left hand) menu: Nothing happens.
I am not 100% sure when this started happening, but I believe it either started happening after:
a) The firmware update which was supposed to fix the "mooing" problem"; or
b) One of the system software updates.
If you need my current system/firmware version, you will have to tell me how to do this because I don't know how to find these numbers.
This is really frustrating because I move my laptop around a lot so I would like to be able to use the shut down/sleep functions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

First couple things to check is do you have any external drives plugged into the Macbook? My macbook would sleep because I had an external drive that prevented it from sleeping.
Also, check what's loading at Startup. There might be a program that's preventing this. Something that constantly needs internet access would cause this. Open up your System Preferences/Accounts/Login Items. See if something in there could be causing the problem.
Hope that helps a little.
AL

Macbook will not shut down (bought new in June)

I saw some other threads on this. Mine will not shut down and I have the latest software updates on Leopard, bought my 13 in. Macbook in June. I have run it a lot, so that it gets warm but seemed to work fine until I try to shut down. I'm really worried about this because I hate to have to force it to shut down by turning it off. I do not have that third party program installed that someone said he'd downloaded and had to remove to get it to work. I hope I don't have to uninstall what little I have installed, such as Intego firewall/antvirus/personal backup, Camino, Sunbird, Flip4Mac, Washing Machine, and Io programs by Time Cycles. I don't run any of those other programs much, mostly just Safari and just now an HP printer driver. I wonder if doing a lot of scanning using the HP printer driver is what caused the problem. I just downloaded the HP printer driver right before this happened, I think. But I really need that to work.
My computer starts to hang when I shut it down and says it can't log out until I shut down something else, which is generally a program that is not even running. I wish this would stop; I'm not sure what to do about it or whether turning the computer off will hurt it. I don't know if I'm supposed to "zap PRAM" or something but I already did that for a different reason a few days ago and don't want to do that a lot.

Thanks for your message. I actually just logged in to report that I solved the issue by going to Disk Utility / First Aid / verify permissions/ repair permissions.
The problem was that the HP Officejet 7300 Series printer driver I had recently installed had all sorts of permissions wrong and they are now repaired. And the Macbook has now shut down properly twice in a row. I wonder if I should report that to HP?
** I wonder what damage if any I did by shutting off the computer using the power button two or three times in the past 24 hours when I needed to shut the computer down prior to repairing the permissions problem?*
And I did see the Activity Monitor in the Utilities section on my own just prior to trying Disk Utility / first aid / repair permissions (the disk it self didn't need repair, supposedly). I don't really think activity monitor was going to help in this instance because I did shut down all the programs, but I'll be testing that utility in the future.
I bet now would be a good time to hurry up and get Disk Warrior.

My macbook will not shut down. It says that safari has override the shutdown, but when I go to Quit Safari it will not allow it. Is this a virus?

I can't get my Macbook to shut down. When I try to it prompts me saying Safari has override the shutdown, but when I try to close safari it does not respond (and the option is greyed out. Is this a virus,and how do I correct it?

Have you tried a hard shutdown? Hold the power button for about 5-6 seconds, and it will force the computer to power down. (Note that you may lose and unsaved changes)

My Macbook Will Not Shut Down due to Itunes not closing.

I updated my iphone5 on itunes a couple weeks ago and made some changes in the settings and then I pressed apply and then it started backing up my iphone, after waiting quite sometime I clicked cancel backup. But it did not really cancel because I have had that message for a couple weeks now and I can not even close itunes or shut down my computer because the error message, " iTunes cannot quit because it is updating the software on the iPhone”. Can someone please help me as Itunes running and doing this all the time has been draining my battery and causing it to run slow?
Thanks

Hold the start button till the Mac does a hard shutdown. ( it may take 15 -30 seconds) Then restart while holding the shift key down to start in safe mode. This can take some time (1 min or so ) so don't let up on the shift key till you see a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. This way the Mac runs some file check routines that may fix your problem

My macbook will not shut down or restart or anything

I have tried to reset the SMC settings NO go
I have tried to repair all disks on my comp No go
I mean come on, this is a mac and it doesnt simply shut down?
Many people seem to be having problems with a simple task.
When I press shut down or restart it gets rid of all icons but it leaves the mouse arrow and the background image
PLEASE this is annoying me! I love you long time!

You might have better luck getting answers if you post in one of the Mac forums. You posted in the Using a Second Generation Nano with Windows forum.

New Macbook Pro will not shut down.

Hi,
So I just got a new Macbook Pro four days ago from the Apple store and I'm already running into a little bit of trouble, that being my macbook will not shut down. Once I open the shut down window, the normal countdown that comes with it usually will not appear and I am incapable of clicking the shut down button. I have not downloaded anything onto my mac besides Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flashplayer, and a pdf document of my receipt from the apple store. I have burned some of my music CDs into itunes and browsed the web (nothing fishy; just some shopping, movie streaming from netflix and youtube, and reading articles online published by universities). Should I take the computer to the Apple store or is this something I can fix on my own?
Thanks so much

If I were you I'd take it back to the Apple store and let someone at the Genius Bar take a look at it. The worst case is you made an extra trip, but at least this way you can exchange it immediately if there's a problem. You only have a 14 day window for this, might as well take advantage of it.
The only other thing I can suggest is to open the Force Quit option from the Apple icon in the upper left corner. See if there are any apps that show Not Responding. If there are any like that, force quit them then try to shut down.

MBP will not shut down after installing patches

Over the last week I have installed all of the suggested patches, but now I find that my MacBook will not shut down! To shut it down I have to hold the power switch for 10+ seconds to force it.
Is this a known issue? if so, what is the solution?
Sorry if this has already been posted, I am at work on a really slow WinTel box.
Thanks in advance
Terry

Hello Terry,
Your problem might be some internet connection issue. If the pathes were not fully downloaded, the mac will not let you shut down or some error there etc. This will not happened frequently.
-Dan

MacBook Pro will not shut down

A principal at my district has a MacBook Pro 15-inch Early 2008 (2.4/2X1GB/200-5400/256VRAM/AG) running OS 10.5.8 that will not shut down. When shut down is chosen, the computer restarts instead of shutting down. It does not matter how shut down is chosen, whether it is from pull down menu, keyboard command, click on shutdown in the login menu, etc. I have tried resetting PRAM, SMC, starting up from a known good system, and run diagnostics applications (which turn up no problems). The only way to get the machine to tunr off is hold the power button down until it shuts off.
The user complains it also gets very hot when he leaves it sitting open in sleep mode. I have not observed that particular symptom. It also tend to run down the battery faster than it should (battery check shows it to have 80+% of it's original capacity.) But Activity Monitor does not show any unusual activity.
Any suggestions what I can try next to figure this thing out?
Thanks.

On occassion (like tonight) my MacBook Pro will not
shut down - even when I attempt to force quit. Any
suggestions?
Happens here too, but very rarely. In my case it mostly happens late at night when OS X is supposed to run some internal maintenance jobs, maybe some of them do not allow a shutdown?
Does holding the power button down for approx. 10 seconds work? If yes, then I would not worry about it. If no, there is something seriously odd and I would report it to AppleCare.
Cheers,
Uwe

MacBook Pro 2013 will not shut down without restarting.

I got a macbook pro a month ago and it will not shut down without pressing down on the power button. Using the normal Shut down options only restarts the computer. I have done all the disk utility repairs, installed new mountain lion, reset the PRAM several times, and ran software repair from doing the shutdown hold D. I also checked to see if the PRAM is good, and it is Ok in systems utilities. It will also restart when i have not touched the computer for 10 or so minutes and will go to locked user log in.
I really don't know what else to do. If you need more details let me know. Any advice?
Thanks

Thanks!
I tried this and discovered something new. I noticed that if the computer is charging while shutdown, the computer will still restart. However, if the computer is charging and you shutdown, then unplug the charger, it will remain off. It will also resume normal shut down and sleep if you shut down while unplugged, now. An idea why it will still restard while plugged in though? If not i very much appreciate your help so far!

My macbook pro will not shut down. It tells me that safari has cancelled shut down and to quit safari and try again, but every time I try to quit safari it won't let me. I need help...I don't know what to do.

My macbook pro will not shut down. It tells me that safari has cancelled shut down and to quit safari and try again, but every time I try to quit safari it won't let me. I need help...I don't know what to do.

Have you tried holding the power button down for several seconds? I would try the force quit as mentioned earlier first, or go to the Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities and try force quit there.

Macbook pro will not shut down. Will someone help me?

My husband's macbook pro will not shut down. Tried everything. This occurred right after installing photoshop cs5.

Have you attempted holding down the physical power for 10 seconds.

Macbook Pro will not shut down AND other issues...

Macbook Pro will not shut down. Not using the POWER button, not using control/alt/command/esc, not using force quit, and obviously not by selecting Sleep or Shut down from the Apple menu.
Force quit will not even pop up when selected.
Top row keys do not work either, have gone into settings and switched them to F keys and back again, no luck.
iPhoto will not import photos and will not shut down, gives me a message stating it is importing photos (nothing is connected to computer though). Baffling.
HELP! Computer is only a month old
Thank you everyone xx

Please make a Genius Appointment and take it in for service.

MacBook Pro will not shut down properly

MacBook Pro will not shut down properly. Gray screen appears with spinning gear but will not shut down completely.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
If you have an optical drive, make sure there is no disc in it.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes) in the search box. Note the timestamps of those log messages, which refer to the times when the system was booted. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the last boot time when you had the problem. Post the messages logged during the time something abnormal was happening. That time might be before or after the boot.
For example, if the problem is a slow startup taking three minutes, post the messages timestamped within three minutes after the boot time, not before. If the problem is a system crash or shutdown failure, post the messages from before the boot time, when the system was about to crash or was failing to shut down. In either case, please include the BOOT_TIME message at the beginning or the end of the log extract.
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.
Step 2
Still in Console, look under System Diagnostic Reports for crash or panic logs, and post the most recent one, if any. In the interest of privacy, I suggest you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if present (it may not be.) Please don’t post shutdownStall or hang logs — they're very long and not helpful.

MacBook will not shut down

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