FileVault 2 decryption can be initiated but will not complete while booted from Yosemite’s Recovery HD
To address this issue that caused problems for folks decrypting from Mavericks’ Recovery HD and Internet Recovery, Apple has made a change to Yosemite’s Recovery HD and Apple Internet Recovery with regards to FileVault 2 decryption. As of 10.10, you can initiate the decryption process from Yosemite’s Recovery HD and Internet Recovery, but the actual decryption will not proceed until you have booted from a drive that is running a regular Yosemite OS install.
When you decrypt from Yosemite’s Recovery HD, you will be notified that decryption is in progress and to run the following command to check on its progress:
diskutil cs list
When checked, you should see output for Conversion Status, Conversion Direction and Conversion Progress similar to what’s shown below:
- Conversion Status: Converting
- Conversion Direction: -none-
- Conversion Progress: -none-
These statuses will not change while you’re booted from Yosemite’s Recovery HD. If you reboot and boot back to Yosemite’s Recovery HD, you should see output for Conversion Status, Conversion Direction and Conversion Progress similar to what’s shown below:
- Conversion Status: Converting
- Conversion Direction: -none-
- Conversion Progress: Paused
Once booted from a regular Yosemite OS install, you should see decryption proceed.
I had filed a bug report about the decryption behavior in Mavericks’s Recovery HD which evolved into a bug report about this behavior. The bug report has been closed by Apple and I’ve posted the bug report at Open Radar now that the Yosemite NDA has been lifted. For those interested, the details are available via the link below:
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
 | Gourshanne on Using FileVault 2 recovery key… |
 | berazooka on Adding installer package code-… |
 | xzf on Logging into a SMB file server… |
 | Gilbert on Apple Device Management book n… |
 | FN on Rebuilding your macOS Recovery… |
I can’t even log in because my Mac will shutdown and when si try to decrypt in recovery mode it said that it has been an error and when I check in terminal it said Conversion progress: Paused. It’s like 2 days the same thing pleased help !!!
Very helpful. Also, after booted into Safe Mode, the decryption will be paused too. A normal boot will resume the decryption.
oh my god. Would it really be so hard for terminal to output a prompt to reboot? Who thinks “oh my hard drive is in the middle of decrypting, I think I’ll shut down!”
Thanks- I had been sitting here for an hour waiting for it to finish.
Im stuck with the Decrypting page for a week now and still not even a millimeter move,nothing,zip,nada!!!
Can someone please tell me what to do at this point? How can i stop this process?
I don’t even want to decrypt anything,it was a mistake and now i cant use my mac 😦 your help will be GREATLY APPRECIATED.
MacBook Pro(13-inch,mid 2012)
Processor 2.9 GHz intel core i7
Os X Yosmite
To continuosly monitor the conversion:
$ while true; do diskutil cs list | grep ‘Conversion Progress’ ; sleep 60; done
Just thought I’d mention in the bug report from Apple, Apple states:
“We are closing this report since our engineers have determined that the issue is not going to be addressed.
We have no plans to start the decryption while in the recover volume.”
Just in case you’re trying to do this in Sierra or High Sierra or some other mountainous, future OS terrain.