Complete update before El Capitan...

[network23]

I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini. Current installed OS is 10.10.5. I'm wanting to update to the latest El Capitan, but have an issue I feel I need to resolve before I do.

For the past few weeks, every time I reboot my mini, I get the Apple logo with a progress bar underneath. It slowly fills up to about 20%, then rapidly finishes.

By the time the progress bar is *almost* finished, the desktop is already starting to appear on the screen.

To me, it appears that the update is not finishing for some reason. Otherwise, why do I see the same progress bar every time I boot?

Any ideas how to find out what's going on and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[osang]

I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini. Current installed OS is 10.10.5. I'm wanting to update to the latest El Capitan, but have an issue I feel I need to resolve before I do.

Nahhh.. back-up first in Time Machine, and if there's a problem you can go back. Install El Capitan to fix the issues. I rather save the system installer before installation.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini. Current installed OS is 10.10.5. I'm wanting to update to the latest El Capitan, but have an issue I feel I need to resolve before I do.
...
For the past few weeks, every time I reboot my mini, I get the Apple logo with a progress bar underneath. It slowly fills up to about 20%, then rapidly finishes."

For what it's worth, El Capitan boots the same way on my own late 2012 Mini.

 

[network23]

That's odd right? Is that normal? I'm used to seeing the round spinny lines indicating the OS is loading up...

 

[hotmetal]

I went from Mountain lion to El Capitan on my 17" 2011 mbp and now when it starts up that's what I get - grey screen with progress bar. It gets about 60% and then the screen brightness changes and the progress bar finishes, then the desktop appears. I only get the round bars icon (see post above) when waiting for it to write the Ram to disk on shut down

 

[osang]

That's odd right? Is that normal? I'm used to seeing the round spinny lines indicating the OS is loading up...

I remember this...waiting, waiting if it's loading or not. Maverick crash my system. So, I installed Yosemite on my mac mini, at least I can see the progress bar.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, that's a normal boot progress bar. It's just telling you approximately where you are in the boot.
The progress bar has replaced the spinning gear on the boot screen since Yosemite.
You would see it MUCH less if you replace your spinning hard drive with an SSD.

 

[Celerondon]

For the past few weeks...

That is interesting. I thought that those progress bars became common after the Mavericks / Yosemite upgrade cycle. (Or was it the ML / Mavericks cycle?)

You just observed that change?