Resolved HELP! rMBP does NOT boot into OSX

[dastinger]

Hi,

I've been using my mid 2012 rMBP with 10.8.3 all day. I came home, worked a bit more with it, turned it off and left it with my mom. 2 minutes later she calls me saying that the rMBP won't boot. It just hangs on the Apple logo with the spinning wheel.

Right now I am using it to write this post under Windows 8 (Boot Camp) but I just can't get it to boot into OSX. I tried:

- Resetting the SMC;
- Resetting the PRAM;
- Safe Mode (hangs on the Apple logo after the progress bar reaches 1/4);
- Repaired Disk and Disk Permissions using Disk Utility under Internet Recovery.

Nothing did it. It just hangs forever.. waited 5 minutes tops.

I didn't install anything new. Just been writing an essay, watched some vídeos, surfed the web and that was it.

College's almost finished, I have a ton of work to hand in and this crap happens right now. I know I probably will have to format and reinstall ML but I don't have time for it now. Plus, all the backups through Windows etc. Any help would be appreciated. Please.

PS: I received the notification about the Thunderbolt firmware update but did not install it in case you wonder.

 

[duervo]

It just hangs forever.. waited 5 minutes tops.

That made me chuckle.

Anyway, boot in verbose mode to see what part of the boot process it's hanging on.

If that doesn't shed any light on the cause, follow these steps to troubleshoot.

 

[dastinger]

Lol, I wanted to make sure people didn't think I let it there for an hour. Anyway, I guess 5 minutes is more than enough to understand that it won't boot.

I will not in verbose mode and leave feedback in a bit. Thank you.

 

[duervo]

You may have no choice but to attempt a reinstall of OS X if nothing points to what's causing the issue when booting in verbose mode.

 

[dastinger]

The issue was with Thunderbolt. I say was because it is, apparently, solved.

So, I booted in Verbose Mode and got the info I was looking for. While I was posting the error in the log using Tapatalk on my smartphone, the rMBP kept on booting. It got stuck for, at least, 3 minutes on this step:

IOThunderboltSwitch(0x0)::listenerCallback - Thunderbolt HPD packet for route = 0x0 port = 11 unplug = 0
IOThunderboltSwitch(0x0)::listenerCallback - Thunderbolt HPD packet for route = 0x0 port = 12 unplug = 0

After 3 to 4 minutes it just kept on going. Weird thing is, I was absolutely positive that I didn't update the firmware. In fact, once it booted into OSX it was the first thing I checked and the update was still there to be installed. Weird coincidence I guess. Plus, I never ever plugged a thunderbolt peripheral on this rMBP (I don't even own one).

Now, I updated the firmware, rebooted and everything went fine. Will reboot once more just to make sure and come back to, hopefully, mark this as solved.

----------

Just rebooted and everything went smoothly.

I can confirm this is solved. Hope I don't come back tomorrow with the same issue. Or any other

Thanks A LOT duervo. I would never think about booting in verbose mode.. it would probably work anyway if I let it do it's thing but I would probably not let it hang there for enough time

Anyway, any idea why this happened? I never saw it stuck (nor my iMac) like this for no apparent reason.

Once again, thank you. Life saver! I'd buy you a beer

 

[duervo]

Without digging into why Apple released the Thunderbolt update, I couldn't guess as to what caused the issue. There's also no guarantee that any particular fix mentioned in the update's release notes will be the same cause that you had (but it usually is.) (It's not uncommon for companies to bundle in "undocumented" fixes into updates.)

At any rate, good to hear that it's fixed.

 

[dastinger]

Got it. Thanks for the explanation. Let's hope that, whatever it was, it's fixed whether by the update or anything else.