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

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.

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

Wow I have read all the replies here and some people are just accusing others of being basically thick...

My 2017 MacBook has just died the same, it was all working fine with not a problem, I did the update as I had been holding off and boom the flashing folder icon.

MUST be a massive coincidence that others have had the same problem or my hard ware has just died....

I have an appointment at an Apple shop and if they try and charge me I will be quoting the consumer law, which I suggest other people do.

“I have an appointment at an Apple shop and if they try and charge me I will be quoting the consumer law, which I suggest other people do “



I hope you truly understand how the consumer law works? You have to have reported the issue at hand to Apple within the first 6 months of ownership. A repair needs to be done and documented by Apple. Most consumer laws are 2 years in length. During that time if the same issue comes up again and the customer reports it to Apple then Apple is obliged to repair it.

"DPJ is probably US based, their laws favour the seller of the item."

That's a total assumption and in the U.S they have lemon laws just like every other country. The issue is some of the people here mistaken consumer laws for warranties which they are not. But good luck to the ones with problems here. I don't think they would be posting here if consumer laws were as simplified as you make them out to be. They would've gotten their problems handled if that were the case.

The reason I assumed you were in the US was this comment to a UK poster:

"I hope you truly understand how the consumer law works? You have to have

reported the issue at hand to Apple within the first 6 months of

ownership."

The majority of people in the UK don't know about their rights as a consumer and the retailer goes out of their way to try and avoid/obfuscate their responsibility. If the retailer plays hard ball, then the Small Claims Court is the next place to go. The Court will always find in your favour if there is a good body of evidence (as there is in this case) The retailer will then have a judgement against them which is public record.

I agree, these consumer protection laws are not a warranty at all, the purpose of these laws is to prevent the customer from requiring to go back to the manufacturer of the product, thus, making the retailer (in theory) become more accountable for the products that they sell.

A warranty could be offered by the manufacturer, independently from the retailer, thus if the retailer went bust, the warranty would still be valid. A warranty offered in this way is always "in addition to your statutory rights"

The key to this situation is the wording you use when you return a product to a retailer - don't say "warranty repair" say "I am exercising my rights under the Consumer Rights Act" they will then ask you for evidence, you provide it.

Indeed, it is not straightforward, as you rightly point out.

Most people I know, will just shrug their shoulders, then buy a new "thing" when the old "thing" dies. Apple will always be able to sell you a new laptop, desktop, phone or tablet...

"System would not boot or charge, could not reinstall the OS, obviously battery died while troubleshooting."

Why would you troubleshoot your Mac from a faulty install while on battery anyway? Were you also installing Catalina while on battery??

SenorRobot wrote:

Thanks. Is there a method that would limit likelihood of this happening? Something like full wipe first then internet restore to do full new install?

Just do the updates in the usual way. If there were procedural differences that were needed, these have already been incorporated into the process by Apple.

Just to follow on!

Well I don't know how but mine is working again on 10.14.6!!

How strange as the only option Apple gave me was new logic board or install the os to an external drive!

Well I turned it on a few days ago and it booted up, I did the Catalina update and it was appearing to be broken again 🙁

I tried the recovery a few times to no avail, the drive did not show up again.

But I noticed every now and again it would find the drive and boot, well again I did a restore from April 19 from my TM backup and all was OK till I restarted and again the drive vanished, I mean it ran for a good 10hrs restoring with no issue?

Again I was restarting, trying the recovery and every now and again it would boot and run fine as it saw the hard drive.

Well I managed to get 10.14.6 installed and ran for 24hrs without turning off and again no issues, I checked the drives and hardware and no issues were showing??

I started looking at uefi and efi but came up with nothing, what I did do though was to create a spare 10gb partition and now it seems to be back to normal, maybe adjusting the boot drive/container helped?

I have turned off and re-started several times and it seems fine again, all I can say is what the ****!!

I don't think I will risk Catalina!!?

I tried to update and it would not complete. I got scared and thought it killed it. I managed to reinstall HS and thankfully back to running smoothly. I guess I will keep it on HS forever, it is still getting security updates.

I seriously doubt that.

It is more likely that the hardware just died rather than it being caused by the upgrade.

Why not just take it and find out?