My mac will not shut down or restart. What do I need to do?

[XFacta82]

When i click either shut down or restart my computer does nothing. And sometimes, the top bar disappears so I have to shut it down by holding the power button. Why is this happening? How can I fix it?

 

[soberbrain]

What kind of Mac do you have?

 

[XFacta82]

Black Macbook

 

[nakile]

Try hitting Control+Command+Eject and see if it will restart that way.

 

[XFacta82]

It does it that way, but I want my computer to just restart normally. This shouldn't be happening right?

 

[nakile]

I'm going to assume that the Finder can't locate the files it needs to in order to run the shutdown or restart procedure. That's why it doesn't know what to do.

Repairing your disk permissions might just fix this.

 

[Rayzalloyd]

I have a Mac Pro 2.66 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon and am experiencing the same problem. My mac will not shut down or restart EVER. This problem only started when i installed LION!! I found a "fix" which had to do with PRAM zapping - It worked once after the PRAM clean. I have unfortunately also installed LION on my mac mini and this is also a problem on this machine

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article on PRAM clean to fix the problem:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

 

[Elbert C]

Control - Eject keys > Shutdown or Restart
Control-Command-Eject keys to restart the Mac
Control-Option-Command-Eject keys for shutdown