Imac won't shut down or restart automatically

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I've been using an iMac, running on El Capitan for about a year. I have never been able shutdown the iMac automatically - or restart it. This is OK up to a point, as I close everything and power down using the power button. The trouble is, I cannot install any updates that require a restart. I'd like to upgrade to Sierra, but cannot do so without being able to restart.

I bought the iMac to replace my older macbook pro - and wanted to duplicate exactly the same applications that I had on the MBP on the iMac. I used Migration Assistant, which worked great, but I wonder if that's possibly got something to do with the shut down/restart problem.

Can anyone help?
 

Cory Cooper

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Hello and welcome.

That can be caused by a variety of issues. The first thing to check would be what is listed in  > System Preferences... > Users & Groups > your user > Login Items. Let us know what is listed there, and we'll tell you which to remove if that could be the cause.

C
 
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Pallaskeys,

Welcome. Hopefully we can help you.

Did you purchase your iMac new? If yes, did El Capitan come pre-installed on the machine?

If not, what OS were you using, and how did you get to El Capitan? Also, do you have the latest version of El Capitan, V10.11.6? If not, you can get the Combo Updater from here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1884?locale=en_US

As for Migration Assistant, I too have used it a number of times, but it is always "migrating"/copying needed "stuff" from the SuperDuper! backup of the same Mac I am migrating to. I've often wondered exactly what "stuff" is being migrated, especially anything OS-related. Even if one wants to just migrate Applications (maybe not enough), there could be OS items associated with those apps that would be needed, and possibly such OS items could be somewhat "tied" to the particular Mac they are running on.

When you attempt to shut down your machine, do you first quit all stuff you have been running?

Also, I just did a google search of "Cannot shutdown an iMac automatically", and this link contains some useful things, especially the last part of it:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/fix-mac-that-wont-shut-down-3597343/

One other thing that could be pertinent: are you doing any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs on your internal drive? There are both free and commercial programs that are good for that. If you rely on Disk Utility, you would need to do that in an "isolated" manner, and that would require booting your iMac from the (hidden) Recovery HD partition. This link describes how to boot to that partition, and what it can do:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

Hopefully if you did that, you would be able to restart your iMac. But again, you'll need to have a backup first before doing that.

Sorry to "throw" so much your way, but as Cory so correctly stated, your issues could be due to a variety of issues. And I wish I had a better answer regarding the use of Migration Assistant for migrating stuff from another Mac.
 
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Hello and welcome.

That can be caused by a variety of issues. The first thing to check would be what is listed in  > System Preferences... > Users & Groups > your user > Login Items. Let us know what is listed there, and we'll tell you which to remove if that could be the cause.

C
 
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I have the same problem, and Cory helped me once before, with a different problem. The off/on commands (sleep, restart, shut down) do not work, nor does the About this Mac command.

My login items are iTunes Helper and Advanced Mac Cleaner, the latter of which has a yellow alert triangle next to it.
 
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You MUST get rid of Advanced Mac Cleaner, based on this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7135825?tstart=0

There are some good instructions within that link for getting rid of just about everything associated with that piece of cr*p.

If that software is in your Applications Folder, there is another way you could proceed. First, download and install the excellent freeware program AppCleaner, available from here:

https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

After installation, launch AppCleaner, then from the Applications Folder, drop the icon for Advanced Mac Cleaner onto it. All files associated with it will be found, and you can delete them.

In actuality, having AppCleaner available is good anyway. I use it, and it works well.

A couple of other malicious products to stay away from are MacKeeper and CleanMyMac. There are some excellent free and commercial products that can be used instead.

I would also recommend you download, install, and run the excellent Anti-Malware program Malwarebytes, available from here:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

But do that after you get rid of Advanced Mac Cleaner.
 
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