MacBook Pro won't progress past login screen

[bublo]

I have a mid 2014 MacBook Pro(Model A1398 EMC 2881) that after the chime on startup enters a black screen and then into a unique login screen I have never seen before. At the top right corner of the screen there is a command prompt which stops blinking when I type but no characters appear. When I select a user it will move the user icon to the center of the screen and the other disappears like usual but nothing will happen until the computer powers itself off after a bit.

I am unable to enter safe mode, single user mode, or recovery mode, it goes through the same screens every time. I have tried a few PRAM resets to no avail. Sometimes it can take a minute to start, sometimes 20 minutes.

Any info or advice is appreciated. Thanks in advanced.

 

[JohnDS]

Your picture did not seem to upload properly.

 

[bublo]

Your picture did not seem to upload properly.

I apologize , I was on mobile and did not notice. It should be up now. I also attached it as a .jpg just in case.

 

[JohnDS]

Those are really strange symptoms. Do you have AppleCare? If it is still under warranty, I would take it to an Apple Store Genius Bar.

If not, do you have a bootable external you could try to boot from, or a second Mac to try Target Disk Mode?
[doublepost=1475066717][/doublepost]Also, did you try an SMC reset: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201295 ?

 

[DeltaMac]

Your symptoms sound like your storage drive may be failing.

You should be able to boot into Internet Recovery (Restart while holding Option-Commmand-R)
You will initially see a world globe, rather than the Apple icon that your would normally see.
Launch Disk Utility when you get to the menu screen.
If you see your drive in Disk Utility, try the First Aid.

 

[bublo]

Those are really strange symptoms. Do you have AppleCare? If it is still under warranty, I would take it to an Apple Store Genius Bar.

If not, do you have a bootable external you could try to boot from, or a second Mac to try Target Disk Mode?
[doublepost=1475066717][/doublepost]Also, did you try an SMC reset: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201295 ?

Unfortunately, it is no longer under warranty.

Already tried an SMC reset to no avail. When I access the boot disk manager the only thing on the screen is the "Choose Network..." drop down menu and a loading icon. There is no cursor anywhere on the screen and none of the keys on my keyboard are responsive.

I get this screen in Target Disk Mode but once again nothing is responsive so there is not much I can do with it.

These are the only screens I've been able to get other than the login screen.

Your symptoms sound like your storage drive may be failing.

You should be able to boot into Internet Recovery (Restart while holding Option-Commmand-R)
You will initially see a world globe, rather than the Apple icon that your would normally see.
Launch Disk Utility when you get to the menu screen.
If you see your drive in Disk Utility, try the First Aid.

I used two water bottles to hold down option+command+R since it was taking so long. It's been about an hour and the screen is still blank.



Thanks for your help, not sure what went wrong. This problem occurred out of the blue.

 

[JohnDS]

It may be that your drive or drive cable is toast.

Have you tried booting to the hardware test: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201257

Also, will it boot to target disk mode if you boot holding down the T key?

If you can't boot into the hardware test or target disk mode, I suspect you have serious hardware problems and need to take the computer to an apple store.

 

[DeltaMac]

The "lightning" symbol shows that your MBPro is booting into target disk mode. That lightning bolt is all you will see on that MBPro.
While in that mode, connect the thunderbolt port on that MBPro to the thunderbolt port on another Mac. If the drive is working at all, it should mount, or at least appear as a device in Disk Utility, or as a thunderbolt device in your System Information/System Report.
I suspect that you still won't see anything because the drive has failed.

How to fix that? Replace the flash storage drive. It's a PCIe device, so you are limited in replacement options.

 

[masterbond]

I'm not sure if I have the same problem, and I'm not sure if I should be posting it here. But I need help on this one as well.
This is also my first post and am lost trying to find the button to post new threads...sorry.

The Mbp freezes and then a bunch of stuff that looks like it's from a programmer in terminal comes out at the top of the screen. I've tried booting in safe mode etc without any success. TDM works and I can see the drive and its contents in my iMac. I've repaired it using disk utility but when I restart I get the same results.

By the way this is my wife's 2009 Mbp 13. She had El Capitan installed in it last week. And it was working fine then. As far as she can remember, she updated Firefox and the crash happened a few hours later. She also saw a pop up from Firefox re a possible virus infection which she quickly dismissed, since it was after all, a Mac... Now she's not sure anymore... Anyway, if there's anyone there who can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.

Again, I apologies again if I'm posting in the wrong area...it's my first post. Thank you so much.. Godspeed!

Bond

ps..I hope the picture I uploaded came out ok.

 

[JohnDS]

There are reports of Spotify causing this kernel panic. If you have Spotify installed, do this:

• Reboot your Mac in safe mode (hold SHIFT while booting)
• While in safe mode, your mac will be extremely slow. Don't worry.
• Disable "Open at Login" by right clicking on the Spotify icon.

 

[masterbond]

There are reports of Spotify causing this kernel panic. If you have Spotify installed, do this:

• Reboot your Mac in safe mode (hold SHIFT while booting)
• While in safe mode, your mac will be extremely slow. Don't worry.
• Disable "Open at Login" by right clicking on the Spotify icon.

Hi John
Thanks for your response. My wife informs me that she didn't install Spotify although she's not entirely sure. But even if she did, there's no way I'll be able to check since it won't boot, even in safe mode. The only thing that works is target disk mode, though I'm not yet sure what to do nexr, except to repair with disk utility. When I reboot after that it's still the same error.

I also tried booting while pressing the option key while starting the Mbp and it'll only show the main hdd. There's no recovery partition.

 

[JohnDS]

Have you tried booting while holding down the Command-R key combination?