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

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.

For those who have a Bricked system the only reasonable fix seems to be flashing the EFI on the mainboard. It would seem that older mainboards don’t take one firmware being updated with the Catalina update. I finally finished the update this afternoon (started yesterday morning) on my 2 year old Mac 21”. Although I didn’t have a problem with the update itself even after two weeks of preparation making sure all my drivers and apps were 64 bit. All my Dymo hardware bricked on me, and I couldn’t access the updated software due to server problems. Catalina seems to have a problem accessing many 3rd party sites and servers. Ended up downloading the drivers and software I needed to my iPad, then using Airdrop to transfer it to my Mac. Bit of a hassle but it worked.

I too had the same issue with my 2014 Mac Book Pro. It just stopped working all of a sudden. It too was running on Mac OS Catalina. Hardware diagnostics at Apple Store did not show any hardware issues but they were not able to reinstall the OS. Eventually I had to agree to pay $475 for SSD replacement.

Ssd replacement is different from logic board. I’m now hearing two different things... a corrupt EFI is a logic board issue. An ssd, imho, means you can probably get past the black screen and are actually seeing an error message on the screen?

Well, $700 CAD later I walked out of the Apple store with a new system board and my iMac works just fine. I told the tech about the possible EFI firmware solution and he tried it. It didn't work so I gave him the go-ahead to replace the system board. The Catalina install finished and all of my data was still there. Hopefully I'll get another 3-4 years out of this machine as a web/email /YouTube surfer before I have to spring for a new one.

There seems to be 2 issues being confused with each other in this thread.

1) The ?folder issue

2) The blank screen.

Mine was issue 2. No boot chime and no key combinations worked. The ones that have been able to self-recover seem like they had issue 1.

Same here with my Macbook 12" Early 2015: Stalled after Catalina installation.

In the logon screen the mouse pad and keyboard got frozen.

Rebooting resulted in a infinite black screen with the Apple logo.

With the chat help of Apple Support tried to do SMC-reset and NVRAM / PRAM-reset to no avail.

Took it to Apple and they told me that it must be a EFI issue and that the logic board to has got to be replaced at EUR 600!

Today I received my Microsoft Surface Pro 6 to replace my faulty Macbook.

Tomorrow I will hear the final result of the authorized Apple repair shop's diagnosis.

Apple, what are you going to do about it?

Robert

The same thing has happened to my 2013 late MacBook Pro retina 15". I was never aware that Catalina would not install properly on this machine. Went to the Genius Bar a couple of times and they tried to reinstall an earlier OS but that didn't work either. The machine would go black screen and not come back up. Then I would have to shut down and try to restart. Has difficulty restarting and would usually have to go to recovery. Finally Apple told me the machine was too old to service and they wouldn't do anything to help me with the problem. Said the machine was obsolete. At this point the machine doesn't even show a start up disk. Sometimes I can get to recovery but once there I can't even use disk utility. So the machine is a brick and I've been told by independent computer service that it is a corrupted logic board. It was working fine before I tried to install Catalina. I understand Catalina has created many of these situations and Apple is doing nothing to correct their problem. Not happy!!!

Again, Apple does not monitor these threads to keep account of the users affected. Please contact them directly via phone or chat so that they can be made aware of the problem.

Its not bricked if they talked you into a downgrade... this issue requires some type of reprogrammed EFI

Same here, MBP late 2012 totally bricked. I tried everything but no success. Black screen, fans running, no logo, no folder ... nothing. Contacted Apple Support and only solution is service. 🤦🏻‍♂️

My story has a happy ending.

I had bricked my 2018 MacBook Pro 15 trying to revert to the original OS (High Sierra) after installing Catalina. My screen looked exactly like the one in this post.

I took the computer to the Apple Store with one day remaining on the warranty. They replicated the problem but were unable to restore the OS immediately. I had to leave the computer.

The solution involved removing the computer from iCloud. A security feature in iCloud was preventing their recovery software from accessing the computer. They called me and asked me to go to iCloud and remove the computer, which I did. After that it was only an hour or two before I got a call saying that they had recovered the machine. I picked it up the next day and put it through its paces, upgrading to Mohave, and downgrading back to High Sierra. I'm relieved to report that all is well.

Lessons

1. I would stay away from Catalina until this is fixed. I had installed 10.15.1. Don't assume that this version is safe.
2. Work with Apple, even if your computer is out of warranty. This is a known problem now. This post from an Apple community specialist makes that clear. The Apple Store techs I worked with advised me that they had seen a number of cases like mine. And there are surely many others in this thread alone.
3. If your computer is out of warranty, I would still try to get Apple to fix this for you free of charge. It's not your fault if a an official-release OS upgrade bricks your computer. Apple encourages you to upgrade. You trusted them.
4. I wouldn't pay for a new logic board. There are a lot of reports on this thread of people being charged for new logic boards. In my case at least, that step wasn't necessary.

It's just nuts that this is happening to people. I got my computer fixed for free, but if you count the number of hours and miles driven getting this fixed it was anything but free. Something in the beta process broke down with Catalina. Or, maybe it was just rushed out the door.

Wait six months before upgrading to an new OS

The final lesson may be to just be patient and wait. Don't be the first to install a new MacOS on your machine. Wait six months or so until the bugs are worked out. Check the discussion forums to make sure the OS is stable. Then upgrade.

Your kids will laugh at you. But they'll learn their own lessons. And you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

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.

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.

Agreed. I even told the genius today that same exact thing. I am blown away that they can't reflash that firmware to an otherwise functioning board. Or they can, but would rather charge for a new one. I am hoping they make a statement about this... but I doubt it.