Catalina installation damaged EFI firmware on MBP mid 2012

I have had the same problem that you all have described: after Catalina installation, my iMac a1419 did not start, the computer was bricked. I sent the computer to the Apple support in my city and they have diagnosed that the motherboard has to be changed. Is it reasonable that a motherboard got broken because of an OS update?

Since then, I read lots of comments of Apple users throught the world complaining for the same reason and everything points to be an EFI corruption by the Catalina installer.

I have solved the issue changing the EFI chip. I have bought the microchip here: https://www.macunlocks.com/

Afterwards I have changed the chip desoldering the old one and soldering the new one. The bad news is that you need some soldering skills and of course, the appropiate tools. You can see the complete process for an iMac 27'' a1419 here: hhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAFpI8tytEE

I hope this helps

Hi ! I did not forget you :)

I receive the solderless chip from macunlocks today, I manage to plug it onto the board and my boot like a charm. This is a chip that you plug onto a service port on the logic board.

I just reinstall mac os Maverick (old schooool) from internet recovery. I'm going to do some check before installing any EFI update.. For now i have a working mac for 500€ less than apple asked me

Guys, i finally bought an efi chip from macunlocks, and got it soldered by a local tech in my city, and my macbook is now fine... it costed me 100 euros, instead of 750 to change the logic board, all this happened because of an update my computer was supposed to handle.

The other Catalina killed my mac thread also has this video as an option to restore without replacing the motherboard. Good luck all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywvDgn7JR_c

All the people having this issue should be report it in a single post, a single thread (and also in the official Apple Feedback Site). There's a lot of threads already about the same, so the complain vanishes among so many threads. Making one big would be a first good step.

There are also communities like Reddit where you might make more noise. The Apple Repair Programs normally just start when there's a lot of noise in the media about the same problem, and this is by now an issue that requieres a Repair Program. Trying to reach big YouTubers might also be a solution. I don't know. But here you won't make it, this is an Apple's users forum.

This is not a poll or petition, it's an opinion that doesn't break any rule.

My mid 2012 MacBook Pro (A1286/EMC 2556) was bricked by the Catalina upgrade. After the install the machine was super unstable rebooting randomly constantly - prior to the upgrade it was running Mojave perfectly. I tried to get into recovery mode with Command-R (to clean the drive and reinstall Mojave) but it wasn't working...system would just boot on default drive which is the SSD that had Catalina installed. Frustrated, I finally took the SSD out and erased and put it back in to see if that would force a boot into recovery mode. Nope. Now I have a completely bricked machine. Called Apple Support yesterday with very low expectations that they could solve this problem, but was hoping that they'd at least acknowledge it (After I explain the theory that this is an EFI corruption). The service agent said he wasn't aware of the this EFI issue and that there weren't any known issues in their support system - malarky! All he could do is provide a list of local certified service providers, who I've already called already and none of them do board level repairs. So as a last attempted to revive this still very viable laptop, I have purchased and EMC 2256 EFI chip and a solder kit and going to attempt to do replace the EFI BIOS chip myself. Will update the forum in a couple weeks once I get the part and attempt the repair.

I just found that you can find a new EFI chip on eBay for around 12$, I just order one and i'll try to solder it on my board... There is also some sort of solderfree chips ça you can plug directly on the board without unsolder your old one. If the came from a corrupted EFI, it should work...

https://www.ifun.de/apple-hinweis-zu-startproblemen-nach-der-catalina-installation-144439/

Scroll a litte bit down to "weisser Bildschirm" (that is my problem)

https://macandegg.de/2019/10/startet-nicht-mehr-macos-catalina-kann-euren-mac-bricken/

And, if you're interested, see my Thread at:

https://www.macuser.de/threads/imac-late-2013-seit-10-15-im-koma.833179/

a few guys there flashed the EFI again

Fred

Hello, everyone. I have not installed Catalina, yet. So I don't have this issue. I'm a Japanese, in Jananese Apple User Forum, many people have this EFI problem right after Catalina install.

I hope Apple pay for fixing. Scary to install Catalina. Beta test of Catalina was not enough.

I attempted to update my Mac Mini (Late 2012) with Catalina and received EFI firmware error. I called apple support, and we attempted various reinstall methods. After a few failed attempts, we scheduled a Genius Bar appointment. A couple of things. The hard drive was replaced June of 2019. This device basically is seldom used. Fast forward,  dropped off my mini, explained the problem, provided screenshots. Twenty-four hours later, I received a call from an Apple representative, who explained to me the hard drive was bad and they could replace it for another $200, oh, and the 2019 replacement drive should have been an SSD drive, you know, no moving parts. With that being said, I vented my frustration and shared that I would be picking up my device. So I travel to BestBuy, purchase and have installed a SSD drive, installed original OS, no problem. Upgraded to Catalina and you guessed it, EFI error again. So of course my frustration level is high, but on top of that, I also tested the June 2019 SATA drive and it WORKS! So, I purchased a 2.5" USB3.0 hard drive enclosure and am using the SATA drive as a portable travel drive. To say the least I am EXTREMELY disappointed in Apple. They should own up to this problem and provide a FIX. DISAPPOINTED AND DISGUSTED IN DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA.

I wrote about possible ways to fix MacBook bricked by Catalina, including forcing Apple to do it for free (I succeeded but I pressed really strong), having it done at unofficial shop or doing it yourself. See here: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/612997/Catalina+Bricked+my+Mac.+Now+What

I have a MacBook Air 2012 with MacOS High Sierra. After installing Catalina, my Mac would sometimes boot up but hangs whenever I try to use it. Most of the time, it would just show the infamous folder with a question mark when I try to boot my Mac. I know Catalina has been installed on my internal SSD as I’ve managed to boot it and can see my files, so I was reluctant to reformat my internal SSD. After days of research and trials, I’ve managed to solve the issue. This is what I did:

I prepared two external USB storages:

• Storage 1: Thumb drive 16GB or larger
• Storage 2: External storage HDD/SSD/Thumb drive with greater than 30GB

Step 1:

I made Storage 1 into a bootable Catalina installation drive. I did it myself as I have another Mac. You can either do it yourself on another Mac or Windows machine, OR get a friend to make one for you. There are many sites that can guide you through this process. This is one of them:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3442597/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-catalina-installer-drive.html

Step 2:

Inserted both Storage 1 & 2 into my problematic Mac. Hold down OPTION and power up my Mac. I chose to boot from my Storage 1 (Installation disk).

Step 3:

Once the Catalina installation has loaded, I ran the Disk Utility. Formatted Storage 2 to APFS using GUID Partition Map scheme. APFS did not appear as an option, so I formatted to Mac OS Extended first, then reformatted to APFS.

Step 4:

I installed Catalina on Storage 2. Followed setup instructions and continued until my Mac booted from Storage 2. Once my Mac has booted with Catalina on Storage 2, I shutdown my Mac.

Step 5:

I reset the SMC. I made sure I’ve connected my Mac with power adapter. I held SHIFT+CTRL+OPTION and the power button for 10 seconds, then release everything together. At this point expect to see the MagSafe charging LED to change colour to indicate that the SMC reset has been completed.

I reset PRAM by pressing the power button then immediately held CMD+OPTION+P+R until I heard the startup sound twice. I released all keys and let my Mac boot.

And my Mac booted directly from my internal SSD! It seems that by reinstalling Catalina on an external USB drive it had also reinstalled my EFI firmware. I believe the previous EFI firmware was causing my Mac not to recognise the internal SSD. As for the question why the new EFI firmware wasn’t installed when I first upgraded to Catalina, well that remains unanswered.

Resetting the SMC was necessary to flush out the previous EFI settings. The PRAM reset was probably unnecessary but I did it anyway! 😊

Give it a try. This problem kept me awake for a few nights as the Mac actually belongs to my wife!  Now you know why I was reluctant to format the internal SSD. I do hope this post will help someone. Good luck!

This is primarily a user-to-user support site in which Apple's participation is very limited. To contact Apple, click the Contact Apple link on their home page.

If those questions are for your fellow users, I doubt anyone will be able to provide a constructive answer, but it seems you were given sort of a runaround at first. No it's not normal, but fixing a seven year old MBP fixed for only $100 seems like a satisfactory outcome.

Excellent post, Jaygrow. You are spot-on in your recommendations. We also know this feedback link also works from changes made to other Apple software products:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

For the others: The people at Apple who work on this stuff will NOT see complaints posted here. Use the link or phone support.