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

That it "shouldn't be doing it" is beyond dispute. Of course it shouldn't.

But, then again, computers don't develop problems because it's "reasonable" for them to do so. :)

They do because of one of two reasons:

A. Something has stopped working properly.

B. Either an oversight in programming (the OS // SMC // EFI, etc.) or there's an interaction which they didn't anticipate sufficiently.

Just because something shouldn't happen, from a consumer perspective, doesn't mean it's "wrong". It just means it's annoying, or, your covered. Or, you're justified in being upset.

What's not for debate, is whether it IS the case ...

Just because a product is fairly new -- or under warranty ... in NO WAY INDICATES THAT A DEVICE WILL NOT BREAK.

All it does is establish who's responsible (insurance policy) so long as you satisfy the conditions.

Things can break at ANY. TIME.

BUT: Remember, Apple is definitely 'motivated' to ensure products don't break. People get angry at them, they have to provide tech support, and replace product for free ... as well as pay employees to do it, and then to ship it back and forth.

Some times they could have been an bit more careful in R&D (test things across more models and in more circumstances) ... but there are instances in which nothing but 'real world' testing will suffice.

#1 reason for crashes in F1 -- in which vehicles are basically brand new starting each race; Sudden mechanical failure.

Fair enough trumanhw, of course F1s and Macbooks can crash.

New hardware can crash the same way as older can. No issue here.

Still I did not crash my Macbook, it crashed itself after an update made by Apple, so I really think that it's not fair why I should pay EUR 600 to repair something I did not provoke. OK, I should not have updated my Macbook in the first place.

Well, you basically have 2 options. Keep arguing about how you don’t think it’s fair and do without your bricked MacBook unless and until Apple “does” something or some lawyers files a class action lawsuit, which will take years to resolve. Or you can get your MacBook fixed and deal with Apple later. A third choice would be to abandon the Apple platform and get something else. It’s your choice. By the way, Apple has not acknowledged or addressed this issue and there are no rumors about them doing so. As this very forum thread shows, there are differing opinions as to what “bricked” means and what the causes might be.

I’m sorry to say I have to agree. I left the Windows platform years ago after obtaining an MCSE, then realizing how bad Windows really was. At the time Apple “just worked”! Now, Apple is every bit as bad as Windows, every bit as buggy, every bit as deaf to it’s users and every bit as so sure of their superiority that they can’t fail. Might as well go back to Windows so I can at least repair my own computer!

Well since you now hate both major platforms I think that says more about you than the two most popular operating systems in the world, used by literally a few billion people without problems. I guess technology just hates some people.

Thanks to Stef95 my macboopro to restarted, I flashed the EFI rom with this adapter https://www.befr.ebay.be/itm/SPI-SAM-EFI-ROM-Debug-Connector-FLASH-Service-tool-J6100-Icloud-Apple-Macbook-Pr/133104579410?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Stef95 really helped me, he gave me a Tuto in French and it took me an hour and the price of the adapter, it's still a shame for Apple not to acknowledge its mistake and ask for $500 for the repair. Technicians should be able to do this without any problems. After the start the update continued and my pro macbook is now with Catalina.

Many thanks again to Stef95

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!!!

I have exactly the same issue. Update to Catalina went fine until I clicked the restart button. After that the macbook pro 15.4 is completely bricked. It doesn't react to the power button or any suggestions found online.

Have you tried to get any satisfaction from Apple? I have used betas for many years and never had any problems.

While I did make a couple of efforts at the Genius Bar to reload Mojave, the machine continued to fail and now is completely worthless with possibly replacing the logic board as advised by an independent computer shop. Apple has advised they will not offer any service because they consider the machine obsolete.

As mentioned earlier, the machine was fine running Mojave. Very disappointing.

I've left it at official Apple Authorized Reseller in Poznan, Poland. The girl taking it from me said that she had the same issue and they have lots of support requests after update to Catalina, so it will take longer to fix it. I'll have to pay for the system reinstallation :(

Hi all,

I’m not sure if my problem is the same. I’ll try to explain: after catalina update my macbook pro 2016 doesn’t start, only a blinking folder after few minutes. In recovery mode I’m able to access the re-installation process but the problem is that no internal hard drive are displayed! Please help me , I’m from Italy, sorry for my bad english

MaxForconi wrote:

Hi all,

I’m not sure if my problem is the same. I’ll try to explain: after catalina update my macbook pro 2016 doesn’t start, only a blinking folder after few minutes. In recovery mode I’m able to access the re-installation process but the problem is that no internal hard drive are displayed! Please help me , I’m from Italy, sorry for my bad english

No one here can help you. Take your machine to an Apple store or authorized service provider.

Your English is just fine.

I had a similar event occur. This is how I recovered -- this may or may not work for you and I do recommend going to an Apple Store if you can.

Using a different Mac, I created a bootable installer for Mojave and placed it on a USB thumb drive.

I was able to boot into the disk utility -- and I deleted all of the volumes present. (The Catalina install does change your drive configuration.)

After that, I used the installer to get me back into Mojave successfully.

I have not tried to reinstall Catalina, though there were some changes made in the installation file since I tried this a month ago, maybe it is safe to do so now.

As best I can tell, there are several different failure modes being reported on this forum. Some see "nothing" when trying to boot, others get the ? File, and so on. Some folks have reported that flashing their EFI has worked -- I don't think this will apply to your situation, but it is hard to tell.

Best of luck.

See. You can boot from a different drive because your EFI is working. I am like the initial poster.

none of the boot key works for me my EFI is dead.good to know I am not alone. If they charge me money I will show them this!

How old was your computer? They played with mine twice at the Genus Bar and told me it could be repaired and then when I called Apple and asked for a shipping box they would not honor the commitment. Not a happy camper!