macOS recognizes when it’s been restarted without a proper shutdown or restart operation from the menu. When that happens, you see a dialog at startup that tells you that “Your computer was restarted because of a problem,” and offers to let you send a report to Apple. There are lots of reasons that your Mac can restart, including a power failure, and you typically know why it happened.
But for some people, every time they restart their Mac after that, whether using > Shutdown or > Restart, they see the same error. They know everything’s all right, why doesn’t macOS?
This dialog should only appear the first time you restart after a problem.
Apple
The answer is a diagnostic file that can be left in rare circumstances after the problematic restart has resolved itself. You can fix this problem easily enough:
- In the Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder.
- Enter exactly the following and press Return:
/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports - Look for any file starting with the word
Sleepand ending with.diag - Delete those files and empty the trash (Finder > Empty Trash).
On your next regular restart, the alert will not appear.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Henri.
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Author: Glenn Fleishman, Contributor, Macworld
Glenn Fleishman’s most recent books include Take Control of iOS and iPadOS Privacy and Security, Take Control of Calendar and Reminders, and Take Control of Securing Your Mac. In his spare time, he writes about printing and type history. He’s a senior contributor to Macworld, where he writes Mac 911.