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I've been reviewing my system log file on my MacBook Pro.

I came across this log entry 'Power button HID event - flushing proactively'. Just wondering, does this just mean that the computer was shutdown by holding the power button?

Thanks in advance!

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A little Google searching led me to the fora at MacRumors with this tantalizing comment and log file excerpt:

Ok, what’s in this log is not the kernel panic on boot but apparently the last thing the computer was doing when my mother started having problems (Safari seemed to freeze up) and she killed everything by long pressing the power button.

Nov 15 15:06:52 macintosh logd[75]: Power button HID event - flushing proactively

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  • Thanks so much for this! Although I previously tried to use the 'last shutdown' function in the Terminal to see my shutdown history, it appears that forced shutdowns by holding the power button are not recorded -- weird.
    – Jason Ye
    Dec 4, 2019 at 13:04
  • The power-button shutdown method is a 'last resort' method, and if the system is seriously borked, it has no way of writing any normal logs. I think this particular log message is generated after the system restarts.
    – IconDaemon
    Dec 4, 2019 at 13:32
  • But it seems that if you forcibly shut down the system, even if it is otherwise functioning perfectly well, the forced shutdown would still not be recorded on the system log. So I am not sure it is true that the reason it is not recorded is because the system is otherwise incapacitated. But thanks again for your help!
    – Jason Ye
    Dec 4, 2019 at 15:08

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