What does the startup error -1002f mean?

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Level 1

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What does the startup error -1002f mean?

My wife and I have been intermittently seeing startup errors on her 2016 MacBook Air. She'll see a blinking question mark on a folder. Usually, holding down the power button and restarting works ok, and the problem goes away for a few days. But today it came back and we couldn't get the machine to boot up.

We found instructions to boot into Internet Recovery Mode, by holding down command-R on bootup. When we do that, we see the globe icon, and then after a while sometimes we see a select that we use to join a wifi network. But immediately after filling that out (and sometimes, before we even get to see the select at all), we see a triangle icon appear with the text:

apple.com/support

-1002F

I can't find anything at all online about what that might mean.

Any ideas what that means? Any ideas of things to try? Should we take the laptop in to a Mac store?

Some notes:

1) we have tried all this both plugged in, and not plugged in

2) we cannot get the device to boot into recovery mode using command-R

3) nothing unusual has occurred lately -- no drops, power surges, etc.

4) no external devices are plugged in

Image of the error: https://photos.app.goo.gl/EjCpAMtFgcANTR339

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 1, 2019 6:56 PM

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Answer 1

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y_p_w

Level 6

17,648 points

Dec 1, 2019 7:06 PM in response to brw12

That means it's trying to get into Internet Recovery mode and it's timing out. That could happen if a Wi-Fi SSID isn't selected and it times out, if the Wi-Fi selected isn't connected to the Internet, or if the internet access is too slow. It might also be possible that a particular internet connection is blocking access to Apple's servers.

I generally recommend connecting using a wired ethernet connection, although that will require some sort of adapter with all MacBook Air models. Other than that, a fast internet Wi-Fi connection that doesn't require a "splash screen" (think an approval screen at a cafe or hotel) will work.

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Answer 2

y_p_w

Level 6

17,648 points

Dec 1, 2019 7:35 PM in response to brw12

It's really hard to diagnose intermittent problems on a discussion forum like this one. It could be the drive is failing. Maybe a bad connection somewhere. I believe your model has the SSD in a separate card that isn't soldered to the logic board.

I would suggest taking it in to an Apple Store for a diagnostic. Maybe run Apple Diagnostics first?

How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

brw12 Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 1, 2019 7:29 PM in response to y_p_w

Thanks, that's helpful for understanding that -1002F error.

Any idea what could be going on with the startup problem? The MacBook Air just did successfully boot into recovery mode (and didn't even say "Internet recovery" this time, not sure why), I verified that the correct startup disk was selected (it already was, there's only one choice -- the built-in hard drive), and then it restarted fine and we see the desktop and apps and everything. The problem is, she's running into this problem a few times per week... it's bizarre.

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What does the startup error -1002f mean?

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