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The issue

Regularly, the following happens:

  1. A Mac computer, running mac OS 10.15.3 (19D76), with Filevault enabled, is turned on,
  2. If the user logs in immediately, everything is normal.
  3. Otherwise, after a couple of minutes, the following message appears:

    If you’re having a problem entering your password, press and hold the power button on your Mac to shut it down. Then press it again to start it up in the Recovery OS.

  4. After ~5 minutes, the screen goes black.
  5. Then, the screen can not be brought back up. Pressing keys or touching the touchpad does not bring back the screen.
  6. The only way to interact with the computer again is by hitting the "Power" button. Once hit, there is a ~2 minutes waiting time, and the "Reset password wizard" appears.
  7. Since we do not want to reset the password (after all, we know it!), we have to reboot the computer, which takes some time, and to go back to step 1.

Can you make password recovery starts only if explicitly asked, and not if this time limit, or whatever it is, was triggered?

What I've Tried

None of that raised any issue nor changed this behavior.

Related Questions

The process looks fairly similar to what's described here.

I'm assuming this comes from some time-delay we trigger, but it is annoying. We are not not entering the password because we forgot it, but simply because we were doing something else at the time.

This question is loosely related, and suggests that this behavior comes from enabling Filevault. I do not want to deactivate it, but would like for the log-in screen to "simply come back" when the mouse is moved or a key pressed, without having to exit the "reset password wizard" and rebooting.

Clément
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  • Time triggered Safe mode is new to me, check Shift key first. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/36636/how-can-i-disable-safe-boot-or-the-shift-key/97107#97107 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/linked/36636/ – anki Jan 19 '20 at 12:34
  • Are you saying that if the user logs in immediately, everything is normal? – Allan Jan 19 '20 at 16:24
  • Did this error occur after some update (like Catalina or 3rd party software), or did you buy this machine recently? – X_841 Jan 20 '20 at 06:58
  • There is no time limit trigger for Safe Mode (Safe Mode is also, not for forgotten passwords). Was this an upgrade or did you do a clean install meaning you erased the disk drive and installed Catalina? – Allan Jan 20 '20 at 17:20
  • After rereading the question, It sounds to me like macOS thinks you are trying to input a password, even though it should go sleeping after some time. What happens if you use a different keyboard/no keyboard? Can you set the sleep time to something small? – X_841 Jan 21 '20 at 11:42
  • @X_841 Thanks for your recommendation. With a keyboard plugged in, I get the same behavior (I cannot try without keyboard, as it is a laptop). I don't think the sleep time can be set differently: remember, it's before I even log-in, so I don't think I have control over the sleeping time. – Clément Jan 24 '20 at 16:36
  • Ok, you might have a hardware issue though with the keyboard. Can you run diagnostics? – X_841 Jan 25 '20 at 11:51
  • @X_841 Thanks for your suggestion. I did run it, and everything was fine. – Clément Jan 26 '20 at 01:06
  • Can you try booting from a different startup disk (install macOS an a USB drive and start from there)? That would clarify if its hardware or software related. – X_841 Jan 26 '20 at 11:32
  • @X_841 Thanks for your comment and recommendation. Unfortunately I do not possess a different drive that I could use to install macOS. – Clément Feb 16 '20 at 06:51
  • @Clément Is the Mac bound to an AD domain or in any other way managed by a 3rd party tool/service? – klanomath Feb 16 '20 at 08:12
  • @klanomath Nope, no AD domain, no 3rd party managment. – Clément Feb 16 '20 at 08:22
  • @Clément It looks like a (typical) 300 seconds security policy used in various tools. – klanomath Feb 16 '20 at 08:34
  • @klanomath I agree! But any idea where this policy comes from / how to edit it ? – Clément Feb 16 '20 at 15:22
  • @Clément Is this a T1/T2 (security chip) Mac? – klanomath Feb 16 '20 at 15:24
  • @klanomath Nope, it was bought in 2013! – Clément Feb 16 '20 at 15:41

1 Answers1

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Even if it is not mentioned in the release notes, it seems that migrating to macOS Catalina 10.15.4 fixed the issue.

Clément
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