A new “improvement” in Yosemite is the progress bar that comes up when you start your machine. What you Mac does under the hood hasn’t really changed from Mavericks, but the progress bar implies that a long running operating is happening the background.
It can look grey with a black background, or dark grey with a lighter grey background, depending on your hardware. It’s been familiar to us before only when firmware updates were applied, but now we get it even when the computer starts normally. It looks like this:
If this seemingly takes a long time, there may be an issue with your hard disk permissions. Upon start those errors are acknowledged under the hood, but they are not rectified. Here’s how we can do that:
- open Disk Utility (Applications – Utilities)
- select your main hard disk from the sidebar (something like MacintoshHD)
- select Verify Disk Permissions
This can take a moment and will flag up any problems there may be.
Note that this is not related to your disk having a problem though: this is purely checking if the system folders have the correct read/write permissions. To check the integrity of your disk, choose Verify Disk instead (which in turn does not flag and file/folder permission issues).
The Yosemite installer is prone to screw up permissions from an older installation, so if you find any errors, click on Repair Disk Permissions.
When everything is repaired, your Mac should start up a bit faster, and that pesky progress bar should show up for a shorter period of time. Note that it will always show up and never quite go away though.
Here’s a list of trouble I found with my system. I had a vanilla Mountain Lion system which I’ve upgraded to Yosemite 10.10.2:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”Verifying file system.Using live mode.Performing live verification.Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.Checking extents overflow file.Checking multi-linked files.Checking catalog hierarchy.Checking volume information.File system check exit code is 0. Verifying permissions for “Macintosh HD”Group differs on “Library/Printers”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Icons”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Icons”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be -rw-rw-rw- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .Permissions differ on “Library/Java”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxrwxr-x .Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Frameworks”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Frameworks”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Plugins”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Plugins”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/CIJIcons”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/CIJIcons”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNCICA”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNCICA”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2413”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2413”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2414”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2414”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4808”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4808”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4809”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4809”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9601”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9601”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9602”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9602”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/apple”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/backend”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/cgi-bin”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/daemon”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/driver”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/filter”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/monitor”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/notifier”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .User differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; user is 244.Group differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; group is 244. Permissions verification complete Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”Group differs on “Library/Printers”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Icons”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Icons”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Icons”Group differs on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”; should be -rw-rw-rw- ; they are -rw-r--r-- .Repaired “Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist”Permissions differ on “Library/Java”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxrwxr-x .Repaired “Library/Java”Group differs on “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”; should be 80; group is 0.Repaired “Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Frameworks”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Frameworks”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Frameworks”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Plugins”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Plugins”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Plugins”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/CIJIcons”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/CIJIcons”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/CIJIcons”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNCICA”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNCICA”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNCICA”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2413”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2413”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2413”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2414”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2414”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ2414”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4807”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4808”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4808”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4808”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4809”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4809”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ4809”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9601”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9601”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9601”Group differs on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9602”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9602”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Resources/Parameters/CNQ9602”Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/PPDs”Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents”Group differs on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources”; should be 80; group is 0.Permissions differ on “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/apple”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/apple”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/backend”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/backend”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/cgi-bin”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/cgi-bin”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/daemon”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/daemon”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/driver”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/driver”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/filter”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/filter”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/monitor”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/monitor”Permissions differ on “usr/libexec/cups/notifier”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are dr-xr-xr-x .Repaired “usr/libexec/cups/notifier”User differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; user is 244.Group differs on “private/var/db/displaypolicyd”; should be 0; group is 244.Repaired “private/var/db/displaypolicyd” Permissions repair complete
My Mac still takes forever to boot. What gives?
I once selected an external hard disk to boot from (under System Preferences – Startup Disk). Sometime later I removed that disk and my Mac took 2 minutes to boot. It was looking for that missing disk and eventually gave up, booting into my internal hard disk.
It took me a while to figure that one out 😉