Mac computers are famous for their advanced security, lightweight, and sleek design. However, it’s not flawless as well. You can easily see breakdowns users have complained about on the website. Let’s have a look at what users say on the forum:
I have a 2018 MacBook Air running the latest version of macOS Catalina. After shutting it down whilst unplugging an external monitor something happened and it is now in an infinite login boot (with my user account). Can anyone tell me what to do now?
Chances are you have experienced the above situation, the question is, how to solve the Mac freezes at login issue?
Solution 1: Bypass Login items when booting up
Sometimes it’s the software that prevents your Mac from loading up. Under this situation, you can try bypassing the sign in items at startup. Let’s look at more detailed steps below:
- Restart your Mac.
- Click on the admin account and password when the login window pops up. DON’T click on Log in immediately (in case of a login loop).
- Press and hold the Shift key to stop frozen apps launching. And then, you can click on the Login button.
Solution 2: Boot your Mac into Safe Mode
Safe mode is able to prevent your Mac from loading certain software at startup, including login items, system extensions not required by macOS, and fonts not installed by your Mac. It can also check your startup disk at a basic level. When you get stuck on the login screen, booting the computer into Safe Mode can be a good option. Here’s how:
- Press and hold the Shift key while restarting your Mac.
- Release the Shift key till you see the Apple logo and loading bar, or any startup image.
- If your Mac loads successfully in Safe Mode, try to uncheck login items in Users & Groups.
Note: if you have switched on FileVault, you are unlikely to boot into Safe Mode since the startup disk is encrypted.
Solution 3: Boot your Mac into macOS Recovery mode
There are a lot of operations you can perform in macOS Recovery mode if you have trouble booting up your Mac. But first, here’s how you boot your Mac into Recovery mode:
- Press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off.
- Restart the Mac and immediately press and hold the Command and R keys.
- Release those keys when you see the loading bar.
- Wait till the macOS Utilities window shows up.
Once you are under the recovery mode, now we can dive into viable solutions:
Repair the startup disk in Disk Utility
It’s quite easy to understand. The startup disk goes wrong due to some reason, then your Mac has difficulties loading it. The good news is that Disk Utility can do you the favor. Want to know how? Follow these steps below:
Step 1: Select Disk Utility from macOS Utilities window and click Continue.
Step 2: Click on View and choose Show All Devices to list all detected disks and volumes.
Step 3: Select Apple startup drive (Macintosh HD) in the left sidebar.
Step 4: Click First Aid on the top menu of Disk Utility.
Step 5: Click Run to check and repair errors in this drive.
If it says operation successful, congratulations! You can try restarting your Mac.
Reset your password
Memories can fade away and it’s conceivable that you forget your password. Once you enter the wrong password too many times, the Mac will lock the system even if you finally got the code right. Under this dilemma, you can reset the password. Here’s how:
- Entering your Apple ID
- Providing recovery key if you have created on before.
- You can also reset your login password via Terminal.
Reinstall macOS
It may not be a perfect solution since reinstalling the macOS will take away the previous data and settings, but if you got nothing to try, this looks like the last hope. To reinstall the macOS, follow the guide from Apple and hope it can solve your issue.
Conclusion
Apart from the above methods, there are other ways you can try. For example, you can
reset NVRM, check and fix user preference settings, and reset launch services database to
fix Mac stuck on login screen. Hope you won’t panic next time you encounter this issue!
