Over the past few months when my Mac boots up, the grey screen with the apple disappears and is replaced with a unix style console screen, which scrolls like a linux PC booting up.
I have tried reinstalling the OS (10.13.6) (and restoring my account from a Time Machine backup using the Migration Assistant) and booting in Safe Mode.
- Recovery Mode (Apple-R) – does not appear.
- Fresh install prior to Time Machine restore – did not appear.
- Normal boot after Time Machine restore – appears.
- Safe Mode boot (Shift key) after Time Machine restore – still appears.
Verbose mode is not turned on: sudo nvram -p does not show a boot-args parameter.
Hardware test (booting with D key) shows no issues.
My guess is there is perhaps some kernel driver or add-on that is doing this that was carried over from my time machine restore. What is interesting is this continues even during a Safe Mode boot.
(apologies for the reflections on my screen when I took the image).
I'd like to know if it is possible to fix this without repeating a reformat and reinstall but with more selective Time Machine restores (using trial and error). Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
I know this may sound silly because it seems like you have a grasp with unix and Macs so you've already done this. try a pram reset and smc reset. I'm thinking something in nvram is doing this right? Could be way off and I know PRAM is so overused for the wrong reasons.