UPDATED: Slow Shutdown Time With 10.8.2 AND 10.8.3

In the meantime, always make sure your startup disk is selected in system preferences and then do this procedure every no and then:

This article proposes two actions:

Clear the dynamic loader shared cache by booting one time is Safe mode.
Rebuild Kernel Extension Caches with a few terminal commands.

The whole process will take you approximately 4 to 5 minutes to perform if that.

Step 1 : Clear the dynamic loader shared cache

So First: boot in safe mode by restarting your mac by holding the SHIFT key immediately after hearing the boot chime. When you reach the login window, don’t even log in, just hit restart.

Step 2 : Rebuild Kernel Extension Caches

Open a terminal window and type the following commands:

sudo chown root:admin /

(the system will ask your password to grant access to the sudo chown command as this requires admin privileges)

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

sudo kextcache -system-caches

Then restart.

Not fixed in the latest dev seed. At least on my config it's still 20-30 seconds. Which is crazy.

Same here. About 25 seconds. Clean install..
Late 2011 Macbook Pro

enter the following commands on terminal.

After you enter the first command you will be asked for your password.

This is the only workaround solution ive come across so far.

udo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.coreservices.appleevents ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication ExitTimeOut -int 2

Jipster23 said:

enter the following commands on terminal.

After you enter the first command you will be asked for your password.

This is the only workaround solution ive come across so far.

udo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.coreservices.appleevents ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication ExitTimeOut -int 2

Click to expand...

What are the defaults before I do this, and secondly what are the implications of changing these timeouts? Usually timeouts are there in order to allow writes to complete or prevent data loss?

I cannot exactly remember the details. Basically these are the parameters that actually contribute to the long period (20 seconds) to shut down on ML. You can check it out on your console report to see which processes are actually causing this and from what ive gathered from other forums its actually these parameters.

I typed these commands in once about a month back and shut down is prompt and there is no software/hardware related issues what so ever.

Jipster23 said:

enter the following commands on terminal.

After you enter the first command you will be asked for your password.

This is the only workaround solution ive come across so far.

udo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.coreservices.appleevents ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd ExitTimeOut -int 2

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication ExitTimeOut -int 2

Click to expand...

You can add this to all plist file it will still take ages to shut down. This worked for me maybe 3 times and even if log shows that service was killed fater 2 seconds it still took 15 to 20 seconds to shut down.

As I said before there is no way to fix the slow shut down process. All are temporally fixes.

But today Apple released another beta of OS X 10.8.3 and finally there is good news. The issue (seems to be) is solved.
I have working with this beta whole day with several reboots and my MBP Retina always closes within 1-2 second(s) as it should.

Atarikid said:

As I said before there is no way to fix the slow shut down process. All are temporally fixes.

But today Apple released another beta of OS X 10.8.3 and finally there is good news. The issue (seems to be) is solved.
I have working with this beta whole day with several reboots and my MBP Retina always closes within 1-2 second(s) as it should.

Click to expand...

You are right about the fix thingy. Not one of them worked, but glad that there might be a solution in the latest beta. Thanks for sharing.

Atarikid said:

As I said before there is no way to fix the slow shut down process. All are temporally fixes.

But today Apple released another beta of OS X 10.8.3 and finally there is good news. The issue (seems to be) is solved.
I have working with this beta whole day with several reboots and my MBP Retina always closes within 1-2 second(s) as it should.

Click to expand...

Still slow here. Tested on last gen Mac Pro, retina MBP and last gen iMac.

The Bulge said:

Still slow here. Tested on last gen Mac Pro, retina MBP and last gen iMac.

Click to expand...

Day two: still quick shutdowns on my MBP Retina 15"

Are you sure you are using the latest Build 12D58 released yesterday friday 25/1?
On the official Apple developers forum everyone says it is fixed too.

Atarikid said:

Day two: still quick shutdowns on my MBP Retina 15"

Are you sure you are using the latest Build 12D58 released yesterday friday 25/1?
On the official Apple developers forum everyone says it is fixed too.

Click to expand...

I'm sure. I even did clean GM install and then 10.8.3 12D58 on top to be sure.

I hope they fixed the memory not releasing itself. Because I get a lot of page outs at times unlike under Lion. Even though the system can sit idle for hours and the memory is still maxed out will all the apps closed down.

Badagri said:

I hope they fixed the memory not releasing itself. Because I get a lot of page outs at times unlike under Lion. Even though the system can sit idle for hours and the memory is still maxed out will all the apps closed down.

Click to expand...

This could be fixed i think. After using Vmware for example i always had 8-10 GB just hanging doing nothing while system was using swap file, now i don't see it anymore.

Prof. said:

If Apple doesn't fix this problem permanently with 10.8.3, their stock deserves to keep falling.

Click to expand...

I second that!

freaking blows, did a clean reinstall and it didnt help. about 40% of the time it shuts down fast

Not sure if this would be of any help, but I had extremely slow startup and shutdown times on 2011 Macbook Pro. After trying almost everything, including format and reinstall, I decided to try updating the memory from 4GB to 8GB. Made a HUGE difference! Before it would take like 5 minutes to shutdown. Now it takes less than 10 seconds with safari open with 20 tabs and another 14 or so applications open. Very pleased.

alec6542 said:

Not sure if this would be of any help, but I had extremely slow startup and shutdown times on 2011 Macbook Pro. After trying almost everything, including format and reinstall, I decided to try updating the memory from 4GB to 8GB. Made a HUGE difference! Before it would take like 5 minutes to shutdown. Now it takes less than 10 seconds with safari open with 20 tabs and another 14 or so applications open. Very pleased.

Click to expand...

update us in a couple of days, thanks

alec6542 said:

Not sure if this would be of any help, but I had extremely slow startup and shutdown times on 2011 Macbook Pro. After trying almost everything, including format and reinstall, I decided to try updating the memory from 4GB to 8GB. Made a HUGE difference! Before it would take like 5 minutes to shutdown. Now it takes less than 10 seconds with safari open with 20 tabs and another 14 or so applications open. Very pleased.

Click to expand...

Does not work. Went from 4 GB to 8 GB to 16 GB and no difference. Have to wait for Apple to figure this out. Nothing on this thread has helped but just a few times than back to square one again.

SR45 said:

Does not work. Went from 4 GB to 8 GB to 16 GB and no difference. Have to wait for Apple to figure this out. Nothing on this thread has helped but just a few times than back to square one again.

Click to expand...

The slow shutdown even occured once in a while after a startup and immediate shutdown for testing purposes - and to me that clearly shouldn't be a memory intensive task...

gnipun said:

I had the same problem (Actually, I had the same problem with 10.8.0) but then I got it fixed by performing the following steps:

1. Shut down your computer with "Reopen windows when logging..." CHECKED. (The shut down will be slow this time ~ 20 seconds)
2. Turn your computer on
3. Shut down with "Reopen windows when logging..." UNCHECKED. It now shuts down in 2 seconds

Note: with 10.8.2, my MacBook seems to shuts down in about 2 seconds whether I leave it checked or unchecked.

Good Luck!

Click to expand...

This..... doesn't work for me, since i prefer to leave the box unchecked

Theres a solution somewhere, and a clean install isn't always the answer.

Can applications do this ? For example you've just been using Toast 11, and due to it not being written very well it leave threads open even though it appears the applications been closed (no light in dock, no icon in task switcher etc).

If so, how can you target these in relation to the relevant app ?

Where on earth is 10.8.3
this shutdown issue for pushing a year is downright disgraceful.

Cleaned up my wife's MBP late 2011 this am; and shutdown took 2.5 min.
my MBA takes about 30 seconds, even when I fresh restart at the login screen.

damn I miss 10.6.8

They fix the slow shutdown in febuary, then 5 month later in June the 10.9 comes out with slow shutdown again...

nyolc8 said:

They fix the slow shutdown in febuary, then 5 month later in June the 10.9 comes out with slow shutdown again...

Click to expand...

I rather assume it won't be fix until 10.9 will be released. They already had a shot with 10.8.2 which they didn't make use of...