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Catalina bricked my 2015 MacBook Pro. What to do now?

I’ve just “upgraded” to Catalina.

My laptop is now bricked.

All I get is the “folder?” logo or nothing at all if I try “option” or “command R” on boot up.

What to do now?

Posted on Oct 8, 2019 12:06 PM

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3 replies
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Oct 9, 2019 4:59 AM in response to rkcomp

Hey, me too. 2014 MacBook Pro 13. Same exact issue. It seems the update must have corrupted the firmware on the logic board since it no longer recognizes key combos. I had a call with Apple support last night. Couldn’t get anything to work. He said it was a hardware problem not caused by the update. But I don’t agree at all. My computer was perfectly fine until I attempted to install Catalina.

Question marked as Helpful

Nov 2, 2019 4:53 AM in response to rkcomp

Here’s my original thread. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250715174?answerId=251542984022#251542984022


Hi. I seem to have made some progress in getting my logic board replaced for free.


I visited the Genius Bar a couple of weeks back. The engineer checked my mac over and confirmed that he was not able to get it working and that it did look like the logic board was the problem.


He raised a ticket with the Apple engineering team and provided them with the tests that he had performed along with the description of what my mac was doing after the failed upgrade to Catalina.


I got a call from the engineer last night at the Apple store saying that the engineering team had come back to him advising that it was at the discretion of the store whether they wanted to replace my logic board without charge.


The store has agreed to this so my mac has gone in today to have it’s logic board replaced without charge to me.


i am a UK customer. My mac is long out of warranty and I do not have any Apple care support in place.


When reviewing the repair email, Apple have stated that the logic board will be replaced under consumer law which I guess is a UK specific thing.


Hopefully I will be back up and running with my 2014 MacBook Pro within a week.


Happy days.

Question marked as Helpful

Oct 9, 2019 5:33 AM in response to alexscheppert

I followed the update instructions from “Settings - software update” as one would normally do.

I am now left with a laptop that flashes the “?folder” icon after a couple of minutes.

No combination of boot up keystrokes work.

This is a serious problem that Apple need to address.

How do we consumers get help from them?

210 replies
Question marked as Helpful

Oct 9, 2019 4:59 AM in response to rkcomp

Hey, me too. 2014 MacBook Pro 13. Same exact issue. It seems the update must have corrupted the firmware on the logic board since it no longer recognizes key combos. I had a call with Apple support last night. Couldn’t get anything to work. He said it was a hardware problem not caused by the update. But I don’t agree at all. My computer was perfectly fine until I attempted to install Catalina.

Question marked as Helpful

Oct 9, 2019 5:33 AM in response to alexscheppert

I followed the update instructions from “Settings - software update” as one would normally do.

I am now left with a laptop that flashes the “?folder” icon after a couple of minutes.

No combination of boot up keystrokes work.

This is a serious problem that Apple need to address.

How do we consumers get help from them?

Oct 9, 2019 5:41 AM in response to rkcomp

I am not sure at this point. The first step would be calling Apple Support, but like I mentioned, they were not able to help me. I have a feeling they will say the same to you. I think the next logical thing would be to take the machine to an Apple store. I think that they will quote a costly hardware repair, which is not fair to the consumer since the malfunction was caused by their 'improved' software upgrade. I posted here so you know I am experiencing the EXACT same issue. I also found another user who had the same issue during Catalina Beta 7 here.


I am going to try and schedule and appointment at an Apple store and see what they say. I will update here and the post I made here when I know anything new. Please do the same, as we need to document the issue for ourselves and other consumers!



Oct 12, 2019 2:08 PM in response to rkcomp

Hi, i have the same problem.

After the genius, like me, had done all the shortcuts, he said it might be the logic board. I can't imagine that, after all, the iMac has been running smoothly since 2014.


The Genius replied to my question what it would cost to replace a Logic board "about 700€". That's a bit much for just starting the installer for the official Catalina version.


I have written to Tim waiting for a possible answer.

Oct 12, 2019 5:02 PM in response to rkcomp

Hi rkcomp,

I went to the Apple store today, and just as I feared, they quoted me to replace the logic board and SSD. $475 for something their software "upgrade" caused. Needless to say, I declined. They will probably tell you the same. Unless you have apple care (expired by now I am sure), you are out of luck as I am. That is, unless they declare this a known issue, and issue free repairs, which I doubt they will. I will probably buy a used logic board and replace it myself for 50% less.


If you need to install 10.15 Catalina on your 2012-2015 Mac, please wipe the drive and install fresh from a 10.15 bootable disk. Do not take the chance and end up with your Mac bricked as I, OP, and many others have. I have read this may be a way around the issue, but I am not sure 100%. I would recommend waiting until later releases to install 10.15 Catalina.

Oct 12, 2019 9:21 PM in response to alexscheppert

This "Bricking after upgrading Catalina" is spreading like the plague, it happened to my 2014 MacBook Air and I have two other friends with MacBook Pro 2015 that have the same issue. No keys are recognized by the device and 5 minute after turning it on the flashing question mark folder. Everything points to be a BIOS-EFI firmware corruption by the catalina installer.

Oct 12, 2019 9:49 PM in response to alexscheppert

This is bad, very bad, Catalina upgrade is randomly bricking devices and forums online are starting to sum up with the exact same problem. Alex, keep us posted on how it goes with you, I will also contact Apple support myself tomorrow. Today I got a call from 3 friends who are facing the exact same problem, one with a MacBook Air 2014, other with a 2015 Air and another with a 2014 MacBook Pro 15". All the same symptom and happened just after upgrading to Catalina and asked to restart their computers.

Oct 12, 2019 10:14 PM in response to guzzy92fs

At this point there is nothing else I can do. Today at the Apple store they did not seem to want to believe that the software was doing this. I mentioned multiple times that this is not restricted to my machine, and that there are lots of others having this issue as well. They more or less just shrugged their shoulders, told me it would be $475 to fix my computer.


I am really upset that just because these devices are a few years old, they seem to refrain from testing certain functions of software upgrades on them.. When someone buys a Mac, they do so because they are supposed to last many years. I will update here if I manage to learn anything new, but I am not incredibly hopeful at this point. Please do the same, I would be interested to hear what they tell you, and I am sure everyone else would be too.

Oct 12, 2019 11:42 PM in response to rkcomp

I seem to be lucky as I only have a bluetooth and wifi radio problem. It consistenly disconnects and reconncts and bluetooth devices will no longer stay connected. these devices all working fine before the upgrade. I did notice the Catalina upgrade seemed to take an inordinate amunt of time to restart and then shut down and I had to do a manual restart. I have a 2014 15" MacBook Pro. I dare not upgrade my Mac mini. What a mess. This is the first time I have upgraded without waiting a couple of months. Never again. Apple I have bought 5 computers over the few years. Daughter, wife, work office etc. I am feeling unloved.

Oct 12, 2019 11:48 PM in response to rkcomp

I have had the same problem. I’ have made a telephone call with the apple support and they coached me how to get back mojave. This was a bitcomplicated. First they downgrade me to the first mac os when I bought my laptop. Thereafter they sent me the link to update to mojave. You must do this by that link; [because when you ckick on update (only) the system wil update to catalina.] This works!

After this I used my time machine backup to get back my contents. Now it works fine again. With thanks to apple support.

Catalina bricked my 2015 MacBook Pro. What to do now?

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