10.15 Catalina....bricked my Mid 2014 13" Macbook Pro? Blinking file icon

Just replying to say that i have this same issue and am taking my 2015 MBP to Apple store today, will report back with findings but I’m sure i know how it will go. Unfortunately nothing much we can do until Apple admits this issue and creates extended warranty program for it.

"Unfortunately nothing much we can do until Apple admits this issue and creates extended warranty program for it."

Firstly, this needs to stop. Every single time someone here has an issue with their Mac (when they are out of warranty) they automatically think Apple should have a repair program in place in order to rid themselves of any responsibility of paying for repairs. By that logic Apple should provide a non-expiring non-limited warranty with all products so there would be no reason to buy AppleCare. Many of us (including myself) buy AppleCare and I find it offensive that people like you come here with an attempt to bully a company into a free repair.

There's no way the installation of an OS can cause hardware failure. I'm sure the Apple stores would have no problem assisting people in or out of warranty with properly installing Catalina but if there's any hardware failure that's another issue outside of the OS installation.

Dude seriously?!? the install updates the EFI firmware. If this update gets borked then this issue will appear as a hardware failure as the EFI doesn’t even know how to boot any drive, much less the recovery partition. I’m sorry but if this is the hill you chose to die on, you’re very wrong.

No, maybe it's time that people recognize they don't know what they are doing when installing an OS. As I mentioned earlier I had zero issues installing Catalina. If your Mac is bricked there's two things. Hardware failure already present but didn't show up until one tries to install an entire OS or you simply don't know what you're doing in terms of installing an OS. How about explaining how I and many others installed Catalina with no bricking?

Does this OS have some bugs? Yes. But bricking the system and causing hardware failure is certainly not one of the things being shared around the web.

"If this many people are losing their Macs because of an OS upgrade that is *allowed* on those machines in the first place, this is Apples issue to fix."

I just went through a count of members here complaining, including the links they posted to other threads. I counted about 10 people. Each of the links they posted either had only one page of one person complaining or up to 3 pages of a few of the same people posting on this thread. All pages I checked equalled to about 10 people. Best of luck to them but chances are they already had a hardware failure and didn't know it. Often hardware failures rear their ugly heads during OS installs.

I had the same problems years ago with my new iMac. It was only 8 months old and Apple released their new OS. I installed it and the iMac came to a halt. Took it to the Apple store and the hard drive had failed. It had errors on the drive. The warranty covered it.

Apple (including many tech sites) explained that a hard drive failure may not be immediately present with application installs but when an OS install happens it scans the entire drive and hardware failure will become present. Facts are facts.

"already had a hardware failure and didn't now it" LOL thats a good one. Some software action is actually triggering something to the point of failing... be it already failing or not cause and effect is clear. Report is an EFI is scrambled and some Apple employees are reprogramming them... (its just hit or miss that someone will actually take the time to help). Doesn't sound like so big a pre-existing condition to me.

This isn't the first time a similar issue happened and eventually Apple relented. Battery's etc.... its always the same. 10 users here and I'm counting dozens elsewhere and quickly growing. Just hours ago tech sites are picking it up. Not everyone complains online, most just believe its their fault until they find out otherwise. (I was in the same camp until I saw 9to5's article)

If its just 10 people then why even hang around here... just move along.

I had already ordered a new iMac... its arriving today. I'm sending it back. Apple pays shipping from China to here and from here to the return center... prob has to sell as refurbished. If I heard they were fixing our Macs I'd have kept it. Time to go shopping for a new Windows box... maybe something that has actually changed its style in the past decade.

Just spoke with an Apple engineer and pointed him to this thread to ask about his thoughts. He said although this is Apple's discussion thread they are instructed to ignore all social media threads as there are constant agendas in them. He also explained to me that Catalina has had very few problems despite what is heard from the small amount of people shouting.

It is more likely DPJ's reaching out to that Apple Engineer.

Apple Engineers do not generally come here looking for trouble, they have better sources, such as Developers, Educational Accounts, and National Accounts that can do some filtering and debugging for them first.

Hey Alex! I've talked to you long ago when this problem begun.

I'm still string to solve this problem with apple; I'm in contact with the senior support and this Wednesday I'll take my MBP to Genius Bar - so as they can scan every component on my motherboard and give a precise diagnose - if it is faulty hardware or some EFI related problem. It seams that apple here in Brazil is really trying to understand what is happening - I did send them many threads from here and they are looking for what is happening.

As soon I get some answers I inform you guys.

Let's hope apple do something! ;D

Yes Kappy.

additionally, I heard back from the repair shop. The only solution that they have is replacing the motherboard, and they are quoting me the equivalent of 700 USD. They don’t know how to update firmware. I am not based out of the USA( based out of India), so I do not have access to official Apple service centres.

No Allan,

This is a failure to install EFI MBP12.1 187.0.0.0.0, a fresh wipe of the UEFI via the JTAG to EFI MBP12.1 186.0.0.0.0 allows the machine to boot as normal and upgrade to Catalina from Mojave. As this cures the problem, it is not a sudden fault, it is a fault of the update to EFI MBP12.1 187.0.0.0.0 that came with early versions of Catalina. From what I can see, EFI MBP12.1 186.0.0.0.0 is now the current version. Bear in mind, this is not an Apple part, this is an Intel part, like the Windows PC and its UEFI BIOS, it is possible to corrupt it by asserting a reset or entering into a low power S state. The process is much the same, serial number is required for Apple, Windows 10 product key is required for Windows UEFI. One wonders what went on in the early version of Catalina, is it lack of physical machine testing? Everyone seems to be using virtual machines to run testing these days... (sounds a lot like Microsoft...)

I was quoted the price of 1350 USD by official authorized service here in Ukraine that Apple Support recommended. It is the quote for motherboard change, just because I "upgraded" to Catalina... Ridiculous. MBP 15 2017 here.

" just because I "upgraded" to Catalina... Ridiculous. MBP 15 2017 here."

Often existing hardware failure doesn't show up until you do something major with the system such as an OS upgrade. You'd have to prove that Catalina caused your entire logic board to fail just because you were installing it. If you can't prove that then you'll have to accept that you already had hardware failure and pay for the repair.

Sometimes I feel DPJ is a bot. He doesn’t respond to questions, but comes up with a very reasoned response to a very particular type of post.

@landscape_artist please guide on the JTAG reset of the EFI

Fixed my 2014 MBP with the above issue.

My issue was the same as the OP: Flashing ? folder and computer unresponsive- no recovery mode, not bootable from USB.

Genius Bar answer was the same as we've heard- underlying hardware problem exacerbated by the update, only option being $600 logic board and SSD replacement.

Another thread suggested a solderless EFI unlocker chip, which I obtained from macunlocks.com (to which I have no affiliation.)

I was immediately able to boot into recovery mode, so was very encouraged.

I was initially not able to install from a bootable USB installer, getting an error that the hard drive needed a firmware update.

In Disk Utility (accessible from recovery) I erased the HD, then partitioned it from APFS back to MacOS Extended (Journaled).

After that, the bootable USB installer worked perfectly.

I hope this helps others. And for some of us, at least, this certainly is strong evidence that a firmware corruption is possible during the OS update, and not always an underlying hardware defect.