El Capitan Beta 6 + Photos app killed my machine

Question

Created Aug ’15

Replies 7

Boosts 0

Participants 3

I have been using El Capitan Beta 2,3,4,5 somewhat smoothly (maybe a crash or two) on my new Macbook Pro (mid 2015), but ever since I installed Beta 6 yesterday, I have experienced about 10 crashes, and now ultimately cannot use my mac at all.

The only thing differently I did yesterday was mess with the Photos app. I bought space in iCloud, imported my old iPhoto library, experienced the **** which goes along with trying to combine two different iPhotos/Photos libraries, and set up my Photos app to sync my 60 GB of photos (fortunately they're backed up on an external HD) to the cloud. While the Photos app was open and syncing I got several crashes. I noticed that if I let the Photos app run in the foreground without switching apps, then it would be okay, no crash, so I let it "do its business" overnight, with the iCloud syncing turned off.

Today I was stupid enough to re-enable the iCloud syncing. Things were going well for a while and then randomly it crashed on me, but the difference here is that when I reboot I saw the flashing folder icon with a question mark in the middle. Somehow I was able to reboot and use it for a little bit, but it crashed again, this time with just a plain black screen.

A few hours later I got the flashing folder icon again on launch, and tried to follow if a flashing question mark appears when you start your mac,but unfortunately I cannot even start my mac in Recovery mode (Command+R). I also can't enter Safe mode (Shift) nor single user mode (Command+S) as suggested here https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13630. I've tried the reseting NVRAM or whatever (Command+Option+R+P), with no luck (I mean I heard the startup sounds, and now I hear the startup sound when I boot, but I still can't boot into any mode).

I've tried just letting it sit for a while and one time I saw the Globe and selected my network where it then started to download. I come back 10 minutes later and it's a black screen again.

I've tried booting with my external hard drive connected in case it can recognize the backups on it and start in recovery mode. That didn't work possibly because I still hadn't selected the option in time machine to "Inherit backups" of the Macbook which I initially cloned this guy from (which is a 2013 MB pro on Yosemite).

I'm pretty sure I'm using FileVault as well.

If reverting to the Time Machine backup of the original Macbook pro it was cloned from is my only option, I'm fine with doing that. I just don't understand how I can at this point without being able to boot up into any mode. What are my options?

Boost

Answer 1

bob133 OP

Aug ’15

Max108 seems to be something of an expert on solving system configuration problems with the OS X beta. Hopefully he'll join the thread and help you out.

For now, I'll tell you what I've learned. Do you have access to another Mac? If so, you can use it to create a bootable USB installer, which you can use to boot your Mac even if the internal storage is scrambled. Again, check out some of the other threads for tons of related info.

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Answer 2

Max108 OP

Aug ’15

Hi skensell,

bob133 is generous, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to add much to what he has already suggested.

From your helpful description of the events leading up to the current situation and the fact that you can not now even boot into Single User or Internet Recovery Modes, I would not rule-out a harware fault. A new internal SSD shouldn't have any trouble with being written to all night but bad SSDs do happen, even in top end laptops like yours, and that kind of intense activity could result in more cells failing in a bad SSD than the SSD controller could compensate for.

Anyway, lets assume for now that it's not hardware. Do you have a Thunderbolt cable for connecting both MBPs? If so, the simplest solution will be to connect them and put your 2015 MBP into Target Disk Mode by booting up holding the T key. Its internal SSD will appear as an external disk to your 2013 MBP and you'll be able to completely erase it from there using Disk Utility. You can also install etc. to it like this.

If the above is not viable for you for some reason, Bob's suggestion of a bootable USB installer is a good plan - you'd be able to completely erase your internal drive after booting into it and install afresh.

If you have any unexpected trouble with either of the above two methods, I'd suggest you delay no further in making use of your AppleCare warranty.

Let us know how you get on,

Max.

1

Answer 3

skensell OP

Aug ’15

Thanks for the help. I may have access to a Thunderbolt cable. If not, for the bootable USB installer, do you know how big the storage space should be?

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Answer 4

Max108 OP

Aug ’15

At least 8GB.

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Answer 5

skensell OP

Aug ’15

It was a company laptop so our IT guys are on it now. Surprisingly the Target Disk Mode didn't work either.

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Answer 6

Max108 OP

Aug ’15

That's the kind of trouble I was referring to above - further indication (but not conclusive proof) of the failiure being hardware related.

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Answer 7

bob133 OP

Aug ’15

I remember reading (at least for the public beta) that participating in the beta program won't void your hardware warranty, but I'm not sure the same applies to the developer betas. So yeah, if it's an SSD failure it might have been exacerbated by the massive workout Photos was giving it.

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