How safe is Force Restart [Control-Command-Power Button] keyboard shortcut? There have been a couple of occasions where I haven't been able to restart my macbook. Both times I've used this shortcut to restart but I am concerned about the state of the system upon reboot.

The log says:

kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 5

a quick search didn't offer much. 

Official Apple documentation lists the shortcuts, even the one to Power Off after 5secs without shutting down, with no explanation as to the consequences.

So, are there any documents that explain what exactly happens when this shortcut is used? Does it simply flush buffers, umounts filesystems and poweroff/restart....?

Thanks.

PS: I've already seen this question as regards to the code in the log.
Force restart is not safe mode of operation.

What happens is the power to the system is simply just cut off.

There is no soft landing in here, no flush buffers, umounts filesystems ect.. just brute force pull the plug.

You might want to consider following shortcuts in order before forcing it.


Hold down the power button for 1.5 seconds -    Show the restart / sleep
/ shutdown dialog in OS X Mavericks
Hold down the power button for 5 seconds    -Force the Mac to power off
Command-Control-power button    -Force the Mac to restart


As said, it is not safe mode, so frequent use can lead to multitude of problems. It is not possible to exactly specify what can happen, but results could be as bad as damage to the computer, mostly to the hard drive.