On THREE SEPARATE MACHINES now, when I do a clean install of macOS Mojave from external USB drive the OS seems to freeze once I finish the setup steps and login. This happens within a few minutes of logging in, before installing any other software or devices.
The first machine I must have rebuilt half a dozen times, trying to determine the pattern. Eventually I discovered that this seemed to happen while FileVault was doing the initial encryption of the drive (APFS was chosen when wiping the drive with Disk Utility, but FileVault was enabled by default in the OS setup process). At first it was hard to believe, but I was able to reproduce this: once the machine hung when FileVault was 3% done encrypting, another time 10%, another time 18%, etc.
On all three machines, after FileVault eventually completed (which required me to hard-power-reset several times for each machine), I have not had any other issues.
I semi-verified the negative case as well: after installing Mojave on one machine, it did not enable FileVault by default (I don't think it asked me, but I'm not sure why). After login, the machine seemed to run fine for about 15 minutes. Then when I enabled FileVault, it froze a minute or two later (and 2-3 more times, until it was finally done).
It feels to me like Apple has a bug with their FileVault initial encryption effort... and though I was able to eventually work through it, I'm not sure if my OS/disk data is damaged by me doing hard power resets when the machine froze.
Has anyone else experienced this?
- Rebooted from USB install drive
- Ran Disk Utility to repartition or erase drive using APFS
- Installed macOS Mojave with all default settings
- HANG! FREEZE!
- Power cycle the machine (press and hold power button)
The first machine I must have rebuilt half a dozen times, trying to determine the pattern. Eventually I discovered that this seemed to happen while FileVault was doing the initial encryption of the drive (APFS was chosen when wiping the drive with Disk Utility, but FileVault was enabled by default in the OS setup process). At first it was hard to believe, but I was able to reproduce this: once the machine hung when FileVault was 3% done encrypting, another time 10%, another time 18%, etc.
On all three machines, after FileVault eventually completed (which required me to hard-power-reset several times for each machine), I have not had any other issues.
I semi-verified the negative case as well: after installing Mojave on one machine, it did not enable FileVault by default (I don't think it asked me, but I'm not sure why). After login, the machine seemed to run fine for about 15 minutes. Then when I enabled FileVault, it froze a minute or two later (and 2-3 more times, until it was finally done).
It feels to me like Apple has a bug with their FileVault initial encryption effort... and though I was able to eventually work through it, I'm not sure if my OS/disk data is damaged by me doing hard power resets when the machine froze.
Has anyone else experienced this?
