You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iMac does not shut down

Trying to avoid potential problems with Catalina, I delayed downloading until the first part of July. Unfortunately, immediately thereafter my iMac (2015 late 27in) began having problems shutting down. It does not happen every time but almost and it seems to be getting worse. I have two 4 Tb encrypted My Passport time machine drives and 32Gb of RAM, if that helps. And I am concerned that hard shutdowns could be damaging to my Mac. I have seen a thread about this problem that ended in the early part of this year, apparently without a solution. Was one found? It was suggested that doing a Command R reinstall of Catalina might help. It didn't. My digital knowledge is limited so I hope a solution is available and simple.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 7, 2020 5:04 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 10, 2020 10:19 PM

Karina184,

Option 1: Log out. I closed all open programs indicated, then apple/logout. At the Catalina screen I clicked shut down. This was a successful shut down each time. Two tries. In neither try were the TM drives ejected.

Option 2: Safe mode. I booted up to the safe mode screen. There were no warnings or instructions. I hit shut down and it shut down properly. I then booted, did not eject the TM drives and then hit shut down. It seemed a proper shut down.

 

I don’t know what that tells you but these actions seem to have corrected the problem. It seems odd that the shut down was a problem when it would appear that nothing done seemed much of solution. Should the problem return, I will get back to you.

 

Steve

Similar questions

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 10, 2020 10:19 PM in response to SteveGai

Karina184,

Option 1: Log out. I closed all open programs indicated, then apple/logout. At the Catalina screen I clicked shut down. This was a successful shut down each time. Two tries. In neither try were the TM drives ejected.

Option 2: Safe mode. I booted up to the safe mode screen. There were no warnings or instructions. I hit shut down and it shut down properly. I then booted, did not eject the TM drives and then hit shut down. It seemed a proper shut down.

 

I don’t know what that tells you but these actions seem to have corrected the problem. It seems odd that the shut down was a problem when it would appear that nothing done seemed much of solution. Should the problem return, I will get back to you.

 

Steve

Aug 10, 2020 2:08 PM in response to SteveGai

Hey Steve!


Based on your post you've been struggling to shut down your iMac after installing Catalina. We've got your back with some troubleshooting steps to isolate and possibly resolve this for you.


You mentioned having a My Passport external drive that you use to backup using Time Machine. Does this issue persist when you disconnect these external drives from your iMac and then try shutting down?


If not, do you have any open or unresponsive apps when you attempt to power off? How to turn your Mac on or off under section, "Turn off (shut down) your Mac" has some steps by force quitting any unresponsive apps before attempting to shut down.


Does the same thing happen when you try to log out of your user or only when powering off?


Test this out in safe mode and attempt to power off in safe mode to see if it persists there: How to use safe mode on your Mac This is a good step to test because it will tell us if there are any processes installed that might be preventing it from working properly.


Wishing you the best!



Aug 10, 2020 6:21 PM in response to karina184

Karina184

Question 1: I have ejected my time machine drives 2 times prior shutting down and each time shutdown was successful.

Q2: Prior to ejecting the TM drives, I closed all apps that were open and the shutdown failed. I tried Command/Option/Escape but it also failed because there were no open programs. I have had some successes in shutting down but the failure rate is high and getting higher as far as I can tell. Nearly every time.

Q3: I have not tried logging out. I am the only user. Never considered it. Never had to before.

Q4: I have limited computer literacy. I will try to safe mode as instructed and shut down then report back.

I had considered the Disk Utility. But when in Apple support I tried to get information about the utility relative to Catalina. There was a link to the repair function of the Utility but when I tried to link, a "Page is not accessible" warning or something similar came up. Just thought you should know.

iMac does not shut down

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.