FileVault Stuck on Paused Encryption

[saberahul]

Hoping someone here can help with an answer other than reinstall OS X. I enabled FileVault due to work requirements on my work Mac running El Capitan. Now, I seem to be stuck on the Encryption Paused - connect power adapter to resume encryption. Of course, connecting it removes the "connect power adapter..." message, but encryption remains paused.

How can I get rid of this without reinstalling OS X?

Here's what I've done so far:

• Reset NVPRAM
• Repaired base SSD via First Aid by going through CMD + R on startup
• Did same as above within OS X

Screenshot below is power attached.

Any advice?

 

[southerndoc]

My wife has Yosemite on her MBP and it's in a similar situation. I've Googled and tried everything, and I've yet to get it fixed. I cannot upgrade to El Capitan until it's fixed.

I'm going to schedule an appointment with an Apple Genius and take it to a Genius Bar. They can copy it and reinstall the hard drive. She has about 500 GB of photos, and I definitely don't want to be the one responsible for losing those if something happens. We back up via Time Machine anyhow in case the Genius somehow messes it up.

 

[NoBoMac]

Have not tried to setup Filevault in a while, and not at my Mac, so, can't remember the exact command sequence to make checking a little easier. But, might try the following from a Terminal to see what information might be showing:

diskutil cs list | egrep 'Total|Converted|Status'

From memory, that should just list the information related to the encryption process. Is it done? How big a drive? How far along? If that command does not work, just do the "diskutil cs list" to get all the output, then scroll through the transcript to find the information.

In the past, when I've had issues getting Filevault to start encrypting, the above command would show zero progress. A second attempt at setting up Filevault would "fix" the issue and getting things to kick off.

 

[saberahul]

Have not tried to setup Filevault in a while, and not at my Mac, so, can't remember the exact command sequence to make checking a little easier. But, might try the following from a Terminal to see what information might be showing:

diskutil cs list | egrep 'Total|Converted|Status'

From memory, that should just list the information related to the encryption process. Is it done? How big a drive? How far along? If that command does not work, just do the "diskutil cs list" to get all the output, then scroll through the transcript to find the information.

In the past, when I've had issues getting Filevault to start encrypting, the above command would show zero progress. A second attempt at setting up Filevault would "fix" the issue and getting things to kick off.

Thanks. This doesn't show any progress though. Here's the code and output:

diskutil cs list | egrep 'Total|Converted|Status' | pbcopy

    Status:       Online
    |   Status:   Online
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Conversion Status:       Converting
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          496323264512 B (496.3 GB)

 

[NoBoMac]

Looks like maybe not converting, so, should be safe to restart the FileVault process.

Can't reproduce, since not converting anything of mine, but, just do the "diskutil cs list". See if you can find something between "Conversion Status:" and "Size (Total):" that reads along the lines of "Converted", "Processed", "Encrypted", etc. In past version of diskutil, it listed the amount of the drive that has been encrypted. If zero, or not ticking upward after a couple of minutes, restart the FileVault process.

 

[saberahul]

Looks like maybe not converting, so, should be safe to restart the FileVault process.

Can't reproduce, since not converting anything of mine, but, just do the "diskutil cs list". See if you can find something between "Conversion Status:" and "Size (Total):" that reads along the lines of "Converted", "Processed", "Encrypted", etc. In past version of diskutil, it listed the amount of the drive that has been encrypted. If zero, or not ticking upward after a couple of minutes, restart the FileVault process.

Thanks. How do I restart the process?

 

[NoBoMac]

Memory is hazy at this point, and have not had to do this in several OS versions (ie. probably Mountain Lion was last time when I replaced HDD with SDD), but at the time, just needed to re-boot and go back to System Settings and re-do the FileVault setup. All the usual options/setup items were available at that point.

From what I remember, my early FileVault setups might hang, and I rebooted, at which point, everything was at square zero, so, restarting was an option and usually worked on 2nd or 3rd attempt.

 

[JohnDS]

Have you tried to click on the lock at the bottom left of the window?

Also, is the computer plugged in to power?
[doublepost=1456111086][/doublepost]By any chance are you using a UPS? If so, either disconnect the data cable or plug the Mac directly into the line power.
[doublepost=1456111232][/doublepost]There is a long discussion here with a number of possible solutions:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6602802?start=315&tstart=0

 

[southerndoc]

I ultimately had to reformat my wife's hard drive. I couldn't upgrade to El Capitan, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fix the FileVault being paused. Took her MBP to an Apple Genius, and several of them spent 2-3 hours with it (after the first guy said "nobody has been able to fix these, but we'll try... going to warn you, you'll probably need to reformat your hard disk and restore a Time Machine backup").

That's what ultimately solved the problem. Reformatted the hard disk, installed El Capitan, then restored from a Time Machine backup.

 

[tiran]

Hoping someone here can help with an answer other than reinstall OS X. I enabled FileVault due to work requirements on my work Mac running El Capitan. Now, I seem to be stuck on the Encryption Paused - connect power adapter to resume encryption. Of course, connecting it removes the "connect power adapter..." message, but encryption remains paused.

How can I get rid of this without reinstalling OS X?

Here's what I've done so far:

• Reset NVPRAM
• Repaired base SSD via First Aid by going through CMD + R on startup
• Did same as above within OS X

Screenshot below is power attached.
View attachment 611916
Any advice?

update to the last OS X (10.10.5) from app store
[doublepost=1465236558][/doublepost]

Hoping someone here can help with an answer other than reinstall OS X. I enabled FileVault due to work requirements on my work Mac running El Capitan. Now, I seem to be stuck on the Encryption Paused - connect power adapter to resume encryption. Of course, connecting it removes the "connect power adapter..." message, but encryption remains paused.

How can I get rid of this without reinstalling OS X?

Here's what I've done so far:

• Reset NVPRAM
• Repaired base SSD via First Aid by going through CMD + R on startup
• Did same as above within OS X

Screenshot below is power attached.
View attachment 611916
Any advice?

Update to the latest OS X (10.10.5) from app store

 

[Caviar_X]

I'm having the same problem and I have version 10.11.6. My rMBP is very new and I have time machine so I wouldn't have any problems reinstalling the software. I am curious if I'll have any issues installing Sierra when it comes out.

 

[JohnDS]

From the initial screenshot, it looks to me like File Vault wants you to click on the lock, then click on Enable Users.

 

[chabig]

I'd make sure power is connected and then try a restart.
[doublepost=1473511956][/doublepost]

From the initial screenshot, it looks to me like File Vault wants you to click on the lock, then click on Enable Users.

That just means some users aren't able to mount the hard drive. It's normal. A privileged user has to log in before the affected user can use the machine, that's all.

 

[Caviar_X]

I ended up deleting my hard drive and reinstall El Capitan then used time machine. I'm never turning that on again.

 

[KALLT]

I ended up deleting my hard drive and reinstall El Capitan then used time machine. I'm never turning that on again.

A paused encryption is usually indicative of another problem. FileVault pauses the encryption if something is wrong with your disk or your power supply. What you could have done is rebooting the Mac to see whether it resumes afterwards. Then try rebooting into Recovery and using Disk Utility to unlock the disk and perform a First Aid operation on it, then restart. I have been using FileVault extensively for many years and have not run into this problem. I encourage you to try again, because disk encryption is a security asset.

 

[Caviar_X]

A paused encryption is usually indicative of another problem. FileVault pauses the encryption if something is wrong with your disk or your power supply. What you could have done is rebooting the Mac to see whether it resumes afterwards. Then try rebooting into Recovery and using Disk Utility to unlock the disk and perform a First Aid operation on it, then restart. I have been using FileVault extensively for many years and have not run into this problem. I encourage you to try again, because disk encryption is a security asset.

I did all that you suggested and it didn't work. The only thing I could think of is that I turned it on when my laptop wasn't originally connected to a power source. When I got the message to do so I connected it but never fully resumed the encryption process. I'm not going to worry about it anymore since my rMBP is still a week old and there isn't any personal information that's stored locally that requires encrypting at this point. Plus I automatically backup documents to Google Drive and One Drive in addition to my time capsule backups being set to encrypted for extra security. I'm not sure what more I need at this point.

 

[saberahul]

After having months spent on it, I realized that it wasn't affecting much of the performance. It was killing battery life though, but I said oh well. Now it is an issue again. Try to update to Mac OS Sierra and behold: stuck on encryption!

I've tried everything above plus all that the internet has offered and finally Internet restore, all to no avail. Left with no choice but to delete everything. Damn you .

 

[Caviar_X]

After having months spent on it, I realized that it wasn't affecting much of the performance. It was killing battery life though, but I said oh well. Now it is an issue again. Try to update to Mac OS Sierra and behold: stuck on encryption!

I've tried everything above plus all that the internet has offered and finally Internet restore, all to no avail. Left with no choice but to delete everything. Damn you .

yup...that's the ONLY option. Thankfully I had a time machine backup.

 

[Binva]

Would any of your answers change if this question arose today? Just had to delete and reinstall on a computer that's only a few months (weeks??) old. It has said "filevault conversion..." for over 24 hours.

Assuming I should still allow filevault to run. (novice user here)

Any other tips? Am concerned that this means there is a problem with the computer itself based on this:

A paused encryption is usually indicative of another problem

 

[porg]

How to continue a partial initial FileVault encryption which is stuck​

Tested on macOS 11.3.1 Big Sur


Starting position: Booted into boot volume clone on external SSD, changed FileVault from OFF to ON.
(A scenario which no longer is on Apple's agenda anymore as of Apple silicon Macs and macOS 12)
Encryption started. Booted back into productive system on my internal SSD. Encryption continued.

FileVault encryption may pause by its own proprietary rulesets (i.e. heavy CPU or I/O usage, i.e. Spotlight, or more privileged processes) or when you disconnect the power adapter. Usually it just continues flaw-lessly when reconnecting the power-plug or when the system is "idle/ready" enough again. But I experienced some scenarios, where even after dis/re-connecting the power plug and having an idle system, encryption remained paused forever, as show here:

$ diskutil ap list <YourDiskID>
[...]
Encryption Progress:       74.0% (Paused) (Unlocked)
[...]

The easy trick: Just cause some file activity on that partially encrypted volume. I.e. in Finder copy a file there and delete it again. That re-triggered the FileVault process for me! The "(Paused)" got removed from the "Encryption Progress" status.

 

[stilbedarf]

This was the only solution that worked for me. After a restart/sleep mode my decryption paused and did not start decrypting again on its own.

I have gone through all the suggestions, nothing has solved the problem... I found the solution posted elsewhere...

First you have to boot from the recovery partition or USB stick.

Next, open terminal, and resume the encryption/decryption process by typing:

/usr/libexec/apfsd (for apfs file system)
/usr/libexec/corestoraged (for others)

Now leave this terminal window open and open a new terminal window and run:

diskutil apfs list (for apfs file system)
diskutil cs list (for others)

Repeat this command from time to time and you will see the progress of encryption/decryption