catalina killed my MacBook pro

Which part of that post do you want an explination for?

Were you able to restore both MacBooks?

It's called getting estimates and you chose one company over another.

Any other conclusions are your opinion and probably litigable.

Great video! And multiple repairs done now without replacing the logic board at all.

Apple page on firmware restoration on T2 MAC.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/apple-configurator-2/apdebea5be51/mac

So despite all the denials and deleted posts from the forum moderators it final comes to light that there is indeed a problem - its just so much work getting to this stage - hope the fix works.

Same problem here. Upgraded my MBPro 13’’ Mid 2014 to Catalina. After the restart needed, it just don’t start and appear the folder logo blinking. there is no command working, any combination, nothing. Apple Portugal answered, by phone, that “It was my choice to upgrade”. How can I report this to Apple Engineers?

I've just fixed mine, by buying a broken MacBook Pro just like mine (with previous version of MacOS) and changed the board. But I'm sending a letter to Apple Europe. I've sent a letter before and they called me giving me an answer. For those who also want to write a letter, here it's the address:

Apple Distribution International 

Internet Software & Services

Hollyhill Industrial Estate

Hollyhill, Cork 

Republic of Ireland

Good luck guys!

I have the same issue. 15” MacBook Pro late 2013. Worked great prior to OS updates.... I cannot boot with previous OS usb disk. —-“Cannot load EFI drivers”. I’m guessing my firmware has been corrupted after upgrading to Catalina. The fans are on full when hitting power button. I’ve tried resetting smc and nvram so many times. Now I don’t get backlight on keyboard or power display on cord. Machines cpu is high idle but not hot. It’s like all the sensors have died. Will schedule to take into Apple repair but I think I will need a new logic board.

Just come back from the Apple Store.

Apple worker had not come across/ heard of this problem.

After “diagnostic testing” they say I need a new logic board at £465 plus 20% VAT!

£558 for a failed software upgrade and not my fault.

Not happy and declined.

How does one contact senior staff at Apple?

This morning's little issue is the battery has stopped working - 1% charge and if you disconnect the power cable the mac shuts down. i had the battery replaced 6 months ago and was absolutely fine before i updated to Catalina - have tried reset and doesn't help. Now whilst this might be a complete coincidence its a **** of a coincidence!

It appears to be a watchdog/timer non-activity kernel bug, when the caller to the kernel for sleep 3 mode entry status is called a panic occurs. At least this is what I gather from having reduced the surface area of the problem to a minimal environment and running in safe boot. My circumstance differs in that instead of a kernel exception, the power state is changed from on to off atomically (non-serial event delivery) and straight to "truly dark-mode".

I retrieved my MBP 15 from the Apple store this past Thursday after it had been in repairs since Oct. 8 because the Catalina update (applied Oct. 7) fried the hardware in the machine. After the initial logic board replacement (Apple also replaced the HD and the top case/battery), the machine ran well and experienced no spontaneous shutdowns. The keyboard backlight, however, was not working. So the machine was sent back to the repair depot to replace the top case/battery component. That repair of the repair done I went back to the Apple store to get the machine. Still, the keyboard backlight was nonfunctional; the onscreen display worked, but there was no corresponding illumination of the keyboard. Rather than send the machine back to the same depot, which appeared to have a bad run of components, the Apple store tech said he would find a part from another store and repeat the repair. This was a Sunday. Having received no update, I called the store the following Thursday and was told the new component was expected in that day. That's when I looked at the calendar and realized I had been without a functional MPB from Oct. 7 through Oct. 31. Fortunately, the store called that evening and the repair is holding, of both the keyboard and the logic board. No more issues so far. I had a better repair experience when my circa-2000 iBook went through 5 logic boards. To date, Apple has provided no relief and still blames the hardware as the fault when I know Catalina fried the machine.

Hello all,

Same story, working on a MBP13" late 2013 under MacOS High Sierra with an external TB2 SSD and Catalina (beta and then official release), end of august all things turn wrong. Upgrading from beta3 to beta4, download ok and after reboot during upgrading processes I get a black screen with a beautiful question mark. Trying all possible to make my MBP booting, no way.

Then a call to Apple's support, same result. The kind guy really tried to find a solution but we have to admit that there's a hardware failure now on motherboard, likely EFI !

Later I could connect the external TB2 storage on another MBP and had a look on what occurs in "Updates" in Library folder. As usual during updates, the first stage is a firmware update followed by all other software updates, spread over several individual processes. Il could clearly see that on this Catalina partition, the firmware process was ended (process is suppressed from this folder when achieved) and machine tried to reboot the MBP13" 2013 to make pure MacOS software updates.. which were still present, but machine of course couldn't reboot as mentionned : EFI is corrupted.

Then I had a meeting with a 'genius' technical staff in my Apple-store, who looked on all possibilities to make the MBP booting. Nothing ok as expected. I tried to explain him in detail what happens, conditions and what conclusion we came with Apple's phone support.. He told me he knows better (personally I only have 40 years IT experience) : "Nothing to do with EFI and there's no way to flash and reinitialize the EFI. It must be a SSD or a motherboard failure..". My MBP was kept by Apple-store's technical hardware staff to examine the machine deeply and make a repair quotation. Kind people but inexpert..!

In the meantime I upgrade this external partition to final Catalina release on another MBP, thus avoiding same "upgrade bug", which also use another upgrade scheme now and all is working fine. It's an early Catlaina release, so bugs are still present.

Some days later I receive a message indicating diagnosis and related repair price. SSD is ok but motherboard must be changed. approx 550 €.

I've got my machine back without repair, convinced that I'll be obliged to switch my request to another level.. but who will admit this Apple failure ?

Perhaps also try to find a third-party partner who is able to flash the EFI.

NB : I'll avoid to speak more about Apple's service quality.. this story like others, about same subject, already tells what's clearly possible to conclude.

I've bought on the last 3 months a new iMac Pro, a new MacBook Pro, a new iPad Pro and a new Apple TV.

I thought that when I would explain to apple that my old end of 2014 iMac 5K was made useless by just updating to Catalina, they would recognise the EFI deprogramming problem and replace my motherboard without any costs. Given my history as a client and all the new products I bought, I was expecting apple to trust me on this. Specially because the accredited repair center admitted to have seen other cases and that it was probably the EFI and not the motherboard that was causing the problem. But they did not have permission from Apple to make the motherboard change without charging me.

I know that my problem can be fixed by just replacing the EFI chip on the motherboard. I bought from Mac unlocks the good chip for my model and I will find someone to replace it on my motherboard. I refuse to pay Apple a new motherboard. Not because of the money. As you can see I did not have a problem buying all those new expensive equipments. But because of the way they're treating this problem and clients.

I was considering changing to PC before buying all my new devices... I decided to stay with Apple products and I am starting to regret it.