MacBook Pro bricked after failed Big Sur update 😵 ⚰️

Okay from now on no more 2013 and 2014 macbooks will have this problem. This solution is not very elegant but its better than running into further problems.

I hope someone will offer a solution for those who tried to do the update in the last couple of days and now sitting in front of a useless machine.

I know many people who can easily afford not only one new macbook but they stick to their older ones. They mentioned that their machines could easily do the usual work and in times of climate change they see no need to buy new hardware.

Long lasting products are a statement for an environmental friendly corporate policy and that is one big reason for me to buy Apple products.

Apple's official response is pathetic! Particularly as it has taken it 7 days to get to the point that everyone else on this thread reached a long time ago.

My machine has been broken by Apple. They need to accept liability to move this forward.

I was on the support chat for 20 minutes explaining everything I had tried and was told to try one more thing.... after rebooting and rejoining I was told that my Vintage MBP wasn't entitled to chat support and that I would have to phone up (which is always fun trying to get an English speaker on the German support line)

the chat agent signed off with:

"I want to thank you for being the best part of Apple, and a 5 star (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) customer! Have a fantastic rest of your day"

WTF!! thanks for that. Now I will start again on the phone....

This morning, Update offered 11.0.1 on my MacBookPro 13" (mid 2014), which i did not take for other reasons. Now, Update says 10.15.7 is up-to-date without any offer to update to 11.*. Looks like withdrawn by Apple. I am afraid that it will not appear again and making a perfectly working Mac Book obsolete after just 6 years. Not happy.

calviticus wrote:

apple do monitor it

Let me reword that. The people that you actually want to make aware of this issue do not monitor this forum, because, you know, they are busy working on other technical issues. From their point of view, it's more like the saying "the mosquito that buzzes the loudest, gets swatted first". You need to make "this issue" become the mosquito that is buzzing the loudest, and you do that by having a lot of people contacting them directly. Yes they are aware of the issue, but they may not be aware of how wide spread it is. Filling in the form above will give them that specific information.

Here's an odd clue. My MBP 13" late 2013 had a hard time in the upgrade. Hours of black screen and all they various key combination restarts. It finally came to life and I was using, noting all the havoc it wreaked on apps. I happily was working and had need to reboot. It wouldn't back to the black screen. I let it be for an hour and it was still black. I disconnected absolutely everything and restarted again and it did boot up. Slowly, but it did.

I'm confused... why did you pay for it? I would have insisted this to be done for free! You installed a piece of software that Apple made for Apple hardware, and Apple insists (via system notifications) that you install it. So you followed their instructions and installed the update, and it broke the hardware. That is NOT your fault, it's Apple's fault. No where in the install documentation does it say "Install this update at your own risk. If it breaks anything, this is at your own expense."

I did. First when the technician called me letting me know that my io board is gone and needs to be replaced. He first shamelessly said that it has not been established yet that your io board was damaged by BigSur (he had a nerve to say that even though when I handed over the laptop in the morning, the lady at Genius Bar told me that there have been 4 such cases in last 2 days). I said I would like to speak his manager. But his manager kept repeating I am sorry about this but we have no instructions from Apple to do it for free......Extremely frustrating of course....I am therefore venting it on these forums making this information public so apple can know how it is loosing its loyal customers....

That's unbelievable! Apple has only just recently updated their macOS Big Sur download installer to temporarily exclude certain MacBook Pro models (such as your MacBook Pro Late 2013) while they figure this out - as they know it is bricking some of them. And obviously your MacBook Pro was working fine prior to the update... otherwise how would it be possible to update it? I would go back to them and ask why you were charged when Apple have now removed your MacBook Pro model from the supported installation list.

I shared it many days ago but I will not take the risk to be permanently banned from apple discussions. Therefore I will not give the advice to open your mac as other users did. Go to the Apple store and let the genuises fix the problem by replacing the I/O board. With a new I/O board your mac will pass the seftest and the installation will finish.

Maybe the board is not broken but the system do not recognize it or it seems to be broken. I think Apple will fix it by excluding the board during the selftest and reconnect it before the installation goes on as you can see when the apple lights on and the progress bat starts moving. But this is up to the apple engineers. They maybe will provide a repair routine for the genuises to do this job. So stay calm, let them do their job and keeps hands off your mac.

i knew it was risky to update this early before seeing if others had issues first or even to wait a few updates before upgrading. It’s best to wait a while to see if the new OS release is causing issues before updating so soon. I’ll bet the update they released for Big Sur that only will show up on macs that haven’t upgraded yet probably addresses this issue maybe.

luckily I was able to fix mine without having to replace any parts although if I didn’t have a backup I would have been in trouble as it wouldn’t recognize my FileVault password anymore so I had to erase and reinstall using internet recovery combined with a lot of force shutdowns and SMC resets when restarting.

after successfully installing Big Sur or even Catalina before that it went to a black screen every restart. I kept it off the charger and the next day around 3 or 4 it started working normally again and restarted everytime with no black screen. i have been using it for over a week now with no more black screen. I updated first day it was released. I have a mid 2014 MB Pro.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/19/apple-releases-macos-11-0-1-big-sur-revised/

I have the exact same issue did all the trouble shooting "of SMC, PRAM, holding shift, option keys, recovery mode etc" with an apple support tech over the phone, then they said it was hardware and head to take it the genius bar. They got an appointment scheduled for 5 days later. So (today) I brought it in today. They tore it down all the way down to the mainboard, and found that it wouldn't post but the magsafe light, fans and all that start up.

"Something as invasive as a software install broke it "it wont even post".

The genius bar tech says that they can order the new motherboard for me for $474.00 US

They said there was nothing they could do more there, as they are not authorized to do free hardware repairs, but I could call apple care and see if they can do anything.

I am a front line worker (therapist) and use this daily. I loved this machine, it showed no signs of issue at all, and then the big sur install bricked it.

I'm on the phone with apple care now, got through to a nice lady named Kim, who I explained the issues too, and the above trouble shooting. Now Kelly.

Apple shouldn't be charging for hardware failure as a result of installing a software update that Apple themselves released on supported models, while actively requesting each user to install it. If it causes a hardware failure that's not our fault, it's Apple fault. It's that simple! It takes a very brave (and irresponsible) person to try and convince me of any other form of logic.

This is infuriating! My iMac is at "less then a minute left" & hung. These guys bricked my wife's iPhone with an update and we had to replace it at our cost which was BS, now this? Been an Apple user since 1989 and never until recently had hardware destroyed by a software update!

I’m still waiting for tech repair feedback, but I’m already feeling Infuriated by all this. Are we all expected to take up a kind of “ you’re updating it wrongly” response?! Most of the these machines are the main professional resource of people affected by this. This delay in a proper answer, i.e. Apple stepping in and quickly assume it’s responsability is overwhelmingly disgusting and disappointing and is forcing truly hardcore faithfull customers wonder if it’s reasonable to keep paying premium for this unresponsive and carelessness corporate policy...all this and the drift towards “online service provider” strategy is really compromising the touting reliability of the brand among us...