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udflyer

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 3, 2011
424
104
Does anyone else with Yosemite get the black boot screen looking like its doing a firmware update (with progress bar_ for a few seconds before the login screen ?

Wonder what it is doing there....
 

Yakibomb

macrumors 6502
May 13, 2014
413
60
Cape Town
Think it's just the new boot screen. I quite like the black but I'm not too sold on the loading bar. Maybe we'll see changes to it before the GM
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
Mine has a white boot screen. Supposedly it depends on the mac, black bezel ones have a black boot screen... However my MBP8,1 has a black bezel but a white boot screen. My z68 hackintosh (MacPro3,1 system definition) has a white boot screen as well. My vivobook has a black boot screen though (MacbookAir5,1 system definition).

When you guys have the black boot screen, does your mac still boot up with the white screen initially? Because that would really annoy me. If so I hope they release a firmware update or something to make the initial screen black rather than white.
 

Injerto

macrumors newbie
Jun 20, 2014
11
0
When you guys have the black boot screen, does your mac still boot up with the white screen initially? Because that would really annoy me. If so I hope they release a firmware update or something to make the initial screen black rather than white.

Apple released an EFI update some time ago, it allows the OS to change the background color of the EFI bootloader, so your first Yosemite boot shows in old gray background and the future ones totally black (never a gray-then-black boot).

If you ever boot to an old version again (10.9 or so), you'll boot totally blacky (no apple logo), but after that, EFI will show gray background for the next boot on.

PS: Yes, I had the same doubt and risked myself for science. I own a 2014 macbook air 13"
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
Apple released an EFI update some time ago, it allows the OS to change the background color of the EFI bootloader, so your first Yosemite boot shows in old gray background and the future ones totally black (never a gray-then-black boot).

If you ever boot to an old version again (10.9 or so), you'll boot totally blacky (no apple logo), but after that, EFI will show gray background for the next boot on.

PS: Yes, I had the same doubt and risked myself for science. I own a 2014 macbook air 13"

I take it the efi update is only for newer macs? Mine is a 2011.
 

sammich

macrumors 601
Sep 26, 2006
4,305
268
Sarcasmville.
I've got the progress bar on a Early 2011 MBP. Not sure of what, if any EFI update I've done.

The progress bar never go beyond halfway though. 50% of the bar is 100%.
 

smartalic34

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2006
976
60
USA
On my 2011 MBP, the Yosemite boot screen is gray (with the progress bar), and when I reboot to Mavericks it's still gray. Could it be because I have an older (2011) machine, or perhaps because Yosemite is on an external disk? :confused:
 

53kyle

macrumors 65816
Mar 27, 2012
1,282
111
Sebastopol, CA
I take it the efi update is only for newer macs? Mine is a 2011.

On my 2011 MBP, the Yosemite boot screen is gray (with the progress bar), and when I reboot to Mavericks it's still gray. Could it be because I have an older (2011) machine, or perhaps because Yosemite is on an external disk? :confused:

There is actually an SMC (or EFI, not sure) update for 2013 machines in the Yosemite installer which is why only newer (2013+) machines have the black boot screens. The rest have gray boot screens, but still have a progress bar.
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
I doubt any older Macs such as mine will be getting anymore firmware updates, so hopefully someone will find a hack to enable it. I'm guessing it's probably not worth the risk though, as opposed to, say, getting MP2,1 firmware to flash on a MP1,1.

If we wanted to just get the bootscreen to be a different color it could probably be done by editing the files in /use/standalone/i386/EfiLoginUI/ (see here). The only problem is it would change the apple logo but still wouldn't change the white background as far as I can tell.
 

Injerto

macrumors newbie
Jun 20, 2014
11
0
There is actually an SMC (or EFI, not sure) update for 2013 machines in the Yosemite installer which is why only newer (2013+) machines have the black boot screens. The rest have gray boot screens, but still have a progress bar.

Exactly, the good part is no one's going to see a gray+black awful boot process, but entirely gray.

The progress bar goes, indeed, from 0 to 50% during system boot and from 50 to 100% during WindowServer init (the graphic interface) which is faster, making the process a little weird. I hope they move the checkpoint a little further in the progress measure, so it makes more sense visually (like, say, 90% for system and last 10% for GUI).
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
Exactly, the good part is no one's going to see a gray+black awful boot process, but entirely gray.

The progress bar goes, indeed, from 0 to 50% during system boot and from 50 to 100% during WindowServer init (the graphic interface) which is faster, making the process a little weird. I hope they move the checkpoint a little further in the progress measure, so it makes more sense visually (like, say, 90% for system and last 10% for GUI).

Yeah, I thought that was weird too. Makes the startup sequence sort of feel incomplete or something.
 

Mac.User

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2013
348
6
Exactly, the good part is no one's going to see a gray+black awful boot process, but entirely gray.

The progress bar goes, indeed, from 0 to 50% during system boot and from 50 to 100% during WindowServer init (the graphic interface) which is faster, making the process a little weird. I hope they move the checkpoint a little further in the progress measure, so it makes more sense visually (like, say, 90% for system and last 10% for GUI).

its a progress bar.. if they did your idea then its just a visual thing to look pretty. Progress bars are supposed to have a FUNCTION

if you got 50% of your bar then 50% of the work its doing or the items its loading or scripts its running (what ever the bar represents) is done.

If they use your idea then they might as well just remove it and go back to a spinning fan thing. It's just a useless visually.
 

53kyle

macrumors 65816
Mar 27, 2012
1,282
111
Sebastopol, CA
...The progress bar goes, indeed, from 0 to 50% during system boot and from 50 to 100% during WindowServer init (the graphic interface) which is faster, making the process a little weird. I hope they move the checkpoint a little further in the progress measure, so it makes more sense visually (like, say, 90% for system and last 10% for GUI).

I have seen on macs with SSDs that the progress bar actually moves consistently until it hits 100%. Just shows how yosemite was basically built for newer macs (rMBP, MBA, iMac with flash storage.)
 

abcdefg12345

macrumors 6502
Jul 10, 2013
281
86
I have a macbook pro 13 inch early 2011 and i installed Yosemite on optibay HDD and my boot screen is grey, i think the macs that fully support Yosemite get the black screen and the once that can run Yosemite but docent have all features get grey screen.

for example
if u have bluetooth LE u get black screen
if u dont have bluetooth LE u get grey

could this be possible
 

bu78

macrumors newbie
Jun 4, 2014
7
0
so is it possible to change the boot screen?
i have a MBA 2011, bootscreen is gray. i would like to have the black one, looks much better.
 

53kyle

macrumors 65816
Mar 27, 2012
1,282
111
Sebastopol, CA
so is it possible to change the boot screen?
i have a MBA 2011, bootscreen is gray. i would like to have the black one, looks much better.

I have managed to change the logo and background color, but it uses the same method as mavericks, and the progress bar is still not white. Oh, and it looks bad when the screen starts out gray before the apple logo appears.

EDIT: never mind. The logo changes and there is a small square of black behind it but otherwise, the boot screen is not changeable...

----------

I have a macbook pro 13 inch early 2011 and i installed Yosemite on optibay HDD and my boot screen is grey, i think the macs that fully support Yosemite get the black screen and the once that can run Yosemite but docent have all features get grey screen.

for example
if u have bluetooth LE u get black screen
if u dont have bluetooth LE u get grey

could this be possible

Nope. For instance, my 2012 cMBP supports continuity, has bluetooth LE, but has a gray boot screen.
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
I may have sort of discovered something on accident. I managed to trick my EFI firmware into using the black background + white apple logo. It also showed a black background at the boot menu. So there's no special firmware update needed really, it worked just fine on my 2-year old EFI firmware. Here's the link to the post on InsanelyMac: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/to...ck-the-apple-logo-on-boot/page-7#entry2036724

Basically I'm using Clover (hackintosh bootloader) on my MBP and I was trying to get the black boot screen to show up. This may be lead of some sort. Also if you look at one of Piker's posts in the thread, boot.efi actually sets the color by looking at a list of Board ID's. So it should by possible, at the very least, to hack boot.efi and change this.
 

AnonMac50

macrumors 68000
Mar 24, 2010
1,577
323
Apple released an EFI update some time ago, it allows the OS to change the background color of the EFI bootloader, so your first Yosemite boot shows in old gray background and the future ones totally black (never a gray-then-black boot).

If you ever boot to an old version again (10.9 or so), you'll boot totally blacky (no apple logo), but after that, EFI will show gray background for the next boot on.

PS: Yes, I had the same doubt and risked myself for science. I own a 2014 macbook air 13"

My Retina MacBook Pro (late 2013) boots to a grey screen by default on Yosemite. Only if I set it manually to boot into a black screen, will it do as you have described. However, I've set my boot screen to be in black since Snow Leopard, if not earlier (on my older MacBook Pro), and on both laptops, booting to Mavericks loads up the grey screen, then switches to the black one for Mavericks or whatever OS I have installed.

----------

Anyone wanting to set a black boot screen needn't modify boot.efi files or anything. Simply open: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist then add:
Code:
	<key>Background Color</key>
	<integer>0</integer>

This should set the boot screen to be black, and this works on previous OS X versions as well...

----------

You can also add a boot logo if you want. Choose an image and save it somewhere safe, in my case /System/Library/CoreServices/BootLogo.png

Then, as in my case, in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist add
Code:
	<key>Boot Logo</key>
	<string>\System\Library\CoreServices\BootLogo.png</string>
 

g-7

macrumors 6502
Feb 14, 2006
403
100
Poland
The progress bar goes, indeed, from 0 to 50% during system boot and from 50 to 100% during WindowServer init (the graphic interface) which is faster, making the process a little weird. I hope they move the checkpoint a little further in the progress measure, so it makes more sense visually (like, say, 90% for system and last 10% for GUI).

its a progress bar.. if they did your idea then its just a visual thing to look pretty. Progress bars are supposed to have a FUNCTION

if you got 50% of your bar then 50% of the work its doing or the items its loading or scripts its running (what ever the bar represents) is done.

Actually, in their own Human Interface Guidelines Apple advises against such progress bars:

https://developer.apple.com/library...tual/applehiguidelines/Controls/Controls.html

"Ensure that a determinate progress bar accurately associates progress with time. A progress bar that becomes 90 percent complete in 5 seconds but takes 5 minutes for the remaining 10 percent, for example, would be annoying and lead users to think that something is wrong."

So, it's not the "amount of work done" that should be represented by the bar, it's the time.
 

abcdefg12345

macrumors 6502
Jul 10, 2013
281
86
My Retina MacBook Pro (late 2013) boots to a grey screen by default on Yosemite. Only if I set it manually to boot into a black screen, will it do as you have described. However, I've set my boot screen to be in black since Snow Leopard, if not earlier (on my older MacBook Pro), and on both laptops, booting to Mavericks loads up the grey screen, then switches to the black one for Mavericks or whatever OS I have installed.

----------

Anyone wanting to set a black boot screen needn't modify boot.efi files or anything. Simply open: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist then add:
Code:
	<key>Background Color</key>
	<integer>0</integer>

This should set the boot screen to be black, and this works on previous OS X versions as well...

----------

You can also add a boot logo if you want. Choose an image and save it somewhere safe, in my case /System/Library/CoreServices/BootLogo.png

Then, as in my case, in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist add
Code:
	<key>Boot Logo</key>
	<string>\System\Library\CoreServices\BootLogo.png</string>

actually theres a better guide on how to make it work that's been posted in here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1751446/

all you need to do is add your mac motherboard model number to the supported macs list in the boot.efi file and reboot and you should get the same black boot screen as the supported macs
 

MrAppleseed

macrumors member
Apr 26, 2010
76
0
its a progress bar.. if they did your idea then its just a visual thing to look pretty. Progress bars are supposed to have a FUNCTION

if you got 50% of your bar then 50% of the work its doing or the items its loading or scripts its running (what ever the bar represents) is done.

If they use your idea then they might as well just remove it and go back to a spinning fan thing. It's just a useless visually.

Actually, progress bars are in large parts just a visual thing to look pretty. Accuracy in progress bars is often not even possible. You can look it up:

Be sure to allow the fill to complete before dismissing the progress bar. If you dismiss the progress bar too soon, users are likely to wonder if the process really finished.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
A regular Mac user walked by as Yosemite booted up.

He asked, "Oh, is something wrong with your hard drive?"

That to me is what is wrong here. If you had HD issues and held "shift" for a safe boot you saw something very similar. Kind of confusing to change to this now.
 

53kyle

macrumors 65816
Mar 27, 2012
1,282
111
Sebastopol, CA
A regular Mac user walked by as Yosemite booted up.

He asked, "Oh, is something wrong with your hard drive?"

That to me is what is wrong here. If you had HD issues and held "shift" for a safe boot you saw something very similar. Kind of confusing to change to this now.

Honestly, if I hadn't read about the new boot screen before installing yosemite, I think I would have flipped out when I turned my computer on. Of course it would have been confusing when the computer actually booted up, but still...

Now I want to see what happens if I hold the shift key.
 

Manic Harmonic

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2011
299
1
My Retina MacBook Pro (late 2013) boots to a grey screen by default on Yosemite. Only if I set it manually to boot into a black screen, will it do as you have described. However, I've set my boot screen to be in black since Snow Leopard, if not earlier (on my older MacBook Pro), and on both laptops, booting to Mavericks loads up the grey screen, then switches to the black one for Mavericks or whatever OS I have installed.

----------

Anyone wanting to set a black boot screen needn't modify boot.efi files or anything. Simply open: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist then add:
Code:
<key>Background Color</key>
<integer>0</integer>

This should set the boot screen to be black, and this works on previous OS X versions as well...

----------

You can also add a boot logo if you want. Choose an image and save it somewhere safe, in my case /System/Library/CoreServices/BootLogo.png

Then, as in my case, in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist add
Code:
<key>Boot Logo</key>
<string>\System\Library\CoreServices\BootLogo.png</string>

I suppose this works as well, the only thing is wouldn't the progress bar still be black and therefore not visible on the black background? Also does that change the initial boot up screen color (before the efi picks a partition to boot from)?

Also isn't your rmbp supposed to have the black boot screen by default in Yosemite?
 
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