catalina killed my MacBook pro

Apple certified shops cannot re-initialise the EFI chip and only can recommend a motherboard replacement that the end user has to pay if the product is not under garantie. So a lot of Mac users will be exposed to this situation as Catalina's updates will start to grow in number...

It’s no use. I can tell 100%. Apple staff have no authority to fix this problem. Because it’s the EFI chip not the HDD.

as soon as the iMac or Macbook failed to recognize any usb external bootable HDD and it was fine before the upgrade. It’s not your HDD having issue. I guess you don’t understand how boot process work with any unix system.

Same thing happens to my computer under the recommendation of Apple to update my computer. According to certified Mac shop who is fixing my make to the tune of nearly $1000, they are seeing a ton of Macs coming through with the same problem.

Same issue. I have a 2017 Macbook that I purchased september 2017. I rarely ever updated the computer even though it asked me to update every single day. Im finally trying to connect external displays and they arent connecting, so on the apple forumn I see it says you might have to update to latest software... odd but I do it. So in the process of doing this everything is going normal and then when it finally gets to the catalina log in screen i get stuck in a reset loop. Every time i put in my password it will not start. I try updating the software again, un-encrypting and un-mounting and remounting the SSD (what the apple guy on the phone recommended) nothing works. He tells me to schedule an appointment with genius bar so I do. They tell me theres a known firmware issues for this mac that they need to specially install..... so that let's me know that this is a known issue. After that they proceed to tell me I need to format my macbook and that everything will be lost, basically making me buy a $100 dollar external hardrive or forever lose my irreplaceable data. After formatting and supposedly installing the new OS, the OS it shipped with they tell me that Its a logic board problem and not a software problem. Basically stating that it was my fault. They then proceeded to tell me the fix would be 449 dollars for a new logic board. PROPER SOFTWARE SHOULDNT CAUSE HARDWARE ISSUES. Mac is bricking computers and making its customers pay. Similar to them knowingly slowing down older iphones when the new ones come out. Apple has lost a life long customer because of there malevolent ways. PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE!

I have a number of Mac's and have recently updated them all - very cautiously I might add. I've updated a MacBook 13 inch 2013, MacBook Pro 15 2015, Mac Mini Late 2012 and last night a MacBook Pro 15 2018. All of them were updated from Mojave and only the last update had a problem which didn't cause too much of an issue. The download of the Catalina update seemed to encounter some corruption as the upgrade failed to start the installer after the download and came back with an error. I aborted the install, deleted the .dmg file and restarted the update. Second time worked fine. So - I've been lucky but I don't doubt the problems you have reported here. After being told by Apple Support that nobody else had reported a problem with their MacBook keyboard for 18 months I have doubts regarding their full disclosure at times. The point is that my download completed and it tried to run the installer when there was some corruption. I would have hoped that some kind of CRC check would have been performed before the installer had attempted to execute. If the corruption had occurred within a part of the download which was not actively executed by the installer but simply copied to the hard disk or flash memory I suspect this could be responsible for the issues people have reported.

It’s unfortunate they told me the same thing. They say that ooh that I must have messed it up before the update and that it’s not their fault. This is a known problem and Apple will never take care of. They have a firmware update that you can only get in an official Apple store that they say can potentially solve the problem. The only way you use the computer is in safe boot but it runs very slow

two MacBooks died a week apart here due to Catalina and one of them had a brand new 512gb ssd.

the only way I re downloaded one of them in recovery mode was by using vpn to get around what appeared to be a blocked ip on the servers., I re tested the vpn at work again and it was the reason...I would like an explination.

One then seeks third party support, because Apple chooses to replace whole components or entire systems at great cost to the consumer.

Can you reboot into recovery? Same thing happened to me but on my 2015. Seen my note before your post. I had to restore to Mojave.

Wouldn't say incredulously - many of us have had this experience, there's an embedded firmware upgrade that's been trashing lots of macs. (We think the EFI.)

Why? Nobody on here can answer for Apple. I suggest you contact Apple Support directly and ask them. They are not here on the forum, as you know.

Just seen this thread.

I’ve posted exactly the same problem.

I now have a dead MacBook Pro 2015 that was running Mojave (with APFS) just fine.

As I’ve said in my thread, this is a serious problem for Apple, and we all need proper instructions from them as to what to do now.

Same here. I was all excited, upgrading IOS 13 on my new Iphone 11 Pro Max. And now my fans are not recognized is my MBP-A1417. Trying to restore from backup but its just spinning.. Examining Volumes... for about 4 hours now.

My MacBook is Dead.