Account Won't Log Out After SD! Scheduled Backup

[Kurt Todoroff]

Hello, Dave.

I don't know what happened during restart number two. The iMac was responsive, seeing how I entered my login credentials in the blind, successfully. Also, all five Safe Mode boots had different appearances, insofar as the rippling blinds effect that transversed up the screen, and, the timing of startup events. I'll write that one off as a one time glitch.

If you don't recommend Crash Logs and Console Logs to aid in uncovering this problem, then, I will wait for one week, with SD! automatic scheduled backups disabled.

Thank you.

[dnanian]

This all feels rather unusual, Kurt. Perhaps you have a hardware problem that's manifesting itself in unusual ways? Certainly, you should never boot to a black screen with just a cursor, and that's distressing close to your shutdown scenarios as well.

[Kurt Todoroff]

I agree that this feels unusual. However, it is unlikely that the problem is hardware-based, seeing how this identical problem affects three different Macintoshes (2009, 2010, 2015). I attempt to maintain the operating system and the application complement identical on all three computers. The singular noteworthy difference is that my small business office McIntosh includes Parallels, while the two home Macintoshes do not.

When I purchased my new iMac, a couple months ago, this was the last thing that I expected to happen. In fact, given my minimalist, lean and mean, software philosophy, I have installed even less software on this new iMac, than is on my previous two iMacs. Once I had completed configuring my new iMac, I had planned to erase the internal boot drives of the other two iMacs, and then, use SuperDuper! to copy the new iMac boot drive backup (even leaner and meaner) to the other two iMac internal boot drives.

Are you familiar with MacTeX/TeXShop? I have installed it on all three iMacs. I have used LaTeX for thirty years, starting with VAX/VMS. I can't imagine not having it installed on my Macs, yet, sometimes I wonder if it is the culprit, since it installs at the UNIX level. I can't put my finger on it. I guess that I am searching in the dark.

[dnanian]

I'm certainly familiar with TeX, but I haven't used it since the early 80s.

I'm hunting in the dark, too. Safe Boot, though, should disable everything but Apple kexts, and it's strange that you'd end up with a blank login. Certainly not something I've ever seen...

[Kurt Todoroff]

Going forward, if you give this problem any thought from time to time, remember that this problem started when I upgraded to Yosemite. Prior to that, my Macs worked almost flawlessly for years.

Thank you, Dave.

[dnanian]

I'll certainly keep a look out for others who are reporting similar issues; that's why I pointed you to Jason's site.

[Kurt Todoroff]

I read your most recent message, and, I decided to perform more than a perfunctory review of Jason Snell's article.

I booted into Verbose mode.
I launched SD!.
I performed two backups of the internal hard drive.
I quit SD!.
I restarted the system.

The display became black, immediately. The arrow remained on the screen. Five minutes later, the arrow disappeared. I wiggled the trackball. The arrow reappeared on the black display.

Interesting note, with the arrow visible on the black screen, if I wiggle the trackball quickly, the arrow becomes large, as I would expect it to during normal operations. It seem that, despite a black display and a visible arrow, the system has not logged out of my User account. I wonder if the Finder is running, or, has quit, at this point.

I waited fifteen minutes. The iMac still had not restarted. Then, I performed a hard power down. Up to this point, I had not seen any verbose mode data on the display during shutdown.

Thirty seconds later, I powered the iMac up.

I launched the console. I clicked on SYSTEM LOG QUERIES > All Messages.

I scrolled down to the time index that I remembered commencing the restart. I'm not familiar with the log entries. Would you like to take a look at them? Some of them contain references to SD! I can send the entire log, or, I can send a small snapshot of the few seconds before and the few seconds after the restart event.