Macbook won't shut down

I have a 2.7Ghz Macbook Pro about 2 years old. When restarting after installing updates, or just shutting down, the computer just gets to the grey screen and the spinning ball and that's where it stays. Only way out is to perform a hard shut down and then restart.

Other than that the computer runs fine. OS is 10.8.6. Any suggestions other than just re-installing the system software?

Thanks, Bill

I would try running the free maintenance program called "Onyx"...and see if that helps.

Also...I do not believe you are running Mac OS X version 10.8.6...since version 10.8.4 was released only recently.

- Nick

Thanks Nick, will try Onyx and let you know how it goes.

Correct about the OS - must be getting dyslexic - it is 10.6.8.

tadmore said:

Correct about the OS - must be getting dyslexic - it is 10.6.8.

Click to expand...

Ahh ok...that makes sense!

- Nick

Back again.

I downloaded and ran OnyX after doing a backup. First shutdown was successful, but after running a few applications and trying again, back to the blue screen & spinning ball. Re-ran OnyX again but the result was the same, initially OK, but the problem just returns again.

Any further advice?

Thanks

How much ram do you have?...and how full is your hard drive (gigs used/gigs/free)?

- Nick

If you're making it to the point where the desktop goes away, would head into Sys Preferences - User Accounts - remove everything you have in Login items and see if that takes care of it.

pigoo3 said:

How much ram do you have?...and how full is your hard drive (gigs used/gigs/free)?

- Nick

Click to expand...

4 Gig Ram; around 500Gb hard drive, of which 190Gb free

Run Disk Utility and try to verify the hard drive. If any problems are found have it attempt to repair the disk. You will probably need to boot from the CD to repair any issues that may be found.

Slydude said:

Run Disk Utility and try to verify the hard drive. If any problems are found have it attempt to repair the disk. You will probably need to boot from the CD to repair any issues that may be found.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but that was my first port of call and no problems detected.

Bobtomay's suggestion to delete any login items in the SysPref Accounts seems to be on the mark. First shutdown after that was almost instantaneous. Will see what happens after some general use of the computer.

Cheers all.

tadmore said:

Bobtomay's suggestion to delete any login items in the SysPref Accounts seems to be on the mark. First shutdown after that was almost instantaneous. Will see what happens after some general use of the computer.

Click to expand...

Good deal...hopefully that solved the issue!

- Nick

It seems that the problem has been resolved following my deletion of the login items.

Thanks to all who offered help.

tadmore said:

It seems that the problem has been resolved following my deletion of the login items.

Click to expand...

Now that you've got it narrowed down to those, you can add whichever ones you want loading at startup back in one at a time to find the specific culprit.

Then you can see if that app has any updates available or email the dev with a bug report.

My first guesses would be an AV or cleaning software but could be just about anything.