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

sorry to see more people having the same issues.

I coudn't rescue mine so gave in and paid apple to £520 to fix my 2017 mac book pro after getting the folder? icon after the catalina update. It came back with mojave installed and i've updated to catalina now and so far all good .

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

So firmware is what will understand those keystrokes. If the firmware is corrupted. None of the keystrokes will work

You should get in touch with Apple Support. Apple does not read this forum, it merely moderates it.

hi iyou can find the tutorial here https://uptobox.com/em7im31n79do

C'est en français et c'est avec l'aide de Stef95 c'est les emails, j'espère que ça pourra t'aider :)

And sooooo, finally, the diags is : logic board needs to be replaced, for ~$750.

So DIY flash reprogramming it is going to be.

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. 🤦🏻‍♂️

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.

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.

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.

What is even more amazing is that this was not caught in any beta testing. What is the point of beta testing if you leave something out? We have to assume that this EFI upgrade was not in any of the beta tests.

Quite funny you mention that, as I recall an Apple support advisor saying that had I purchased the laptop from Apple directly, I could have proceeded further under consumer law. Sadly I purchased it from Curry’s but they’ve taken it in under the pretext of consumer and said that anything other than liquid damage will be regarded as a manufacturing defect and repaired if “economically viable”.