iMac late 2014 5K 27-inch File Vault crashing/freezing

[BenjaminGodfrey]

Hey,

So I have been bashing my head against this iMac for a while... So every time I FileVault the drive it will encrypt and work for a while until there is heavy disk usage. Then after a day or so you will try to unlock the drive by logging in but it will hang at 100%. When booting in verbose mode or signal user mode it will hang on "pci pause: SDXC". The drive in it has been replaced with a 2TB SSD and it all appears healthy when diskutil checking. When mounting the drive in recovery or booting of external drive it fails and the whole system freezes. Also in Singal-User mode it will boot and unlock the drive but when touching some low level files the whole iMac freezes. I cannot try using the iMac in disk mode as I do not have a cable for it. I am not sure if it is hardware or software related.

Thanks
Benjamin Godfrey

 

[BenjaminGodfrey]

Update: So it seems to be mode to do with the fusion drive. Just using "ls" to access a volume that is mounted makes the machine freeze. Also signal user mode and verbose mode output nothing before it freezes it just hangs. Recovery mode dose not freeze it just gets stuck loading and you have to close the terminal.

Thanks
Benjamin Godfrey

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

I have heard reports of this issue with iMacs with Fusion Drives. There are many "fixes" I have seen, but none seem permanent. The error is actually reporting the SD Card Reader, but I believe it may share a controller/bus with the Fusion Drive.

Personally, I don't recommend using FileVault, as I have seen numerous issues with corruption, system hangs, and folks losing their data simply because the password no longer works.

-Which version of OS X/macOS?
-So you replaced the standard HD with an SSD - the Flash stick is still installed and you recreated the Fusion Drive?
-Is there a specific reason you are using FileVault?

C

 

[BenjaminGodfrey]

Hey Mr. Cooper,

Thanks for your reply. Sorry I was. not clear, when I say fusion drive I mean it has been formatted the same as a fusion drive. I have to use file vault on MacOS as it is a company policy. I am using Mojave version 10.14.3. If you mean did I leave the usb in when setting up the drives then yes. When re installing OSX would not let me format the drive as it would freeze. I had to go into Ubuntu as it cannot understand the drive and format it.

Thanks
Benjamin Godfrey

 

[BenjaminGodfrey]

By formatted the same I mean it is using apple virtual partition thing. Bit like LVM.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks.

Understood about company policy regarding FileVault.

As for the drive situation, I meant if you removed the HD that came in the iMac, and replaced it with a 2 TB SSD. If that is what you did, then the SSD part of the Fusion Drive is separate from the hard drive. If not, can explain further about the 2 TB SSD that replaced something?

And, what USB drive are you referring to?

Sorry, just trying to get a clear picture of what has been done, so we can see if we can figure out the hanging.

C