PIA made my mac unbootable

AfroDembo

On my iMac (El Capitan) I have run PIA pretty fine for a couple of weeks. About two weeks ago the program started acting weird. It didn't respond while being active, it froze some apps so hard that only a reboot would get my mac back to normal. I tried uninstalling it and then reinstalling it and that worked the first time. Now when I try to reinstall it doesn't work because it says there is a running PIA instance atm. Even though I can't find any trace of it (Nothing in menubar or activity monitor as far as I can see). I have since then just not used PIA.

Yesterday I wanted to run the VPN again and started it up by searching for it in spotlight. No app came up in the menubar but other apps were starting to act slow or even freeze. Nothing could budge it. Not even CMD+ALT+ESC. 

So I did what I could and emergency shut down my iMac by holding the power button for 3 sec. When I try to reboot now, I can't get past the loading bar. It shuts down by itself mid way through. I have tried all sorts of boot codes. Safe mode: nope, Diagnostics: Everything fine, Emptied NVRAM: Nothing new except brightness. 

What can I do??
Does PIA install or alter System files that are used on boot? Which ones if so?
Would Installing Sierra write over these perhaps?

Thanks for your help!

Khariz

No, PIA does not alter any boot files.  Your problem sounds massively more complicated than something PIA should be able to cause.  May just be a coincidence that you recently started using PIA.

Osborne_Cox

I had the same problem with my Mac. I don't believe it was PIA related, however. I don't think force power down is kind to hard drives.

Have you tried booting into recovery HD, verify and repair disk?

In the end after trying the usual suggestions I installed a new hard disk, reinstalled the OS and transferred data from the original HD mounted externally.