MacBook Pro bricked after failed Big Sur update 😵 ⚰️

How about you leave the MBP on with a black screen until the battery dies? Then, try booting using internet recovery with the power plugged in.

How to boot into internet recovery - there are two options for you:

1. Install the latest OS release - Power on the Mac by holding Option/Alt - Command - R at the same time. This will bring up a spinning globe and load the Big Sur latest release recovery on the screen.
2. If you don't want to upgrade to Big Sur, then press Shift - Option/Alt - Command - R at the same time. Same as the other option, just adding a shift key to the combo. This will NOT bring up the Big Sur recovery - it will show a spinning globe and load up the macOS that came with your Mac. So when you bought your Mac brand-new and it came preinstalled with macOS Sierra, it will boot up macOS Sierra recovery screen. Then you can format the disk, install, etc.

NOTE: When using internet recovery, you might be asked to connect to a Wi-Fi network - if your disk is corrupted, it may not be able to get the Wi-Fi credentials from the disk to automatically use them.

I hope this helps everyone having these problems.

Cheers, Jack

I forgot to include my configuration:

• MacBook Pro 15 (late 2013)
  • Processor: 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
  • Monitor: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB
• Apple Thunderbolt Display 27"

GENIUS BAR UPDATE.

I handed my mid-2014 MBP to the apple store yesterday and they have just called to update, some key points.

• Device was unresponsive to their diagnostic tools.
• Engineers are aware of the issue, issue has been escalated to higher ups.
• They are awaiting information on how to repair the affected devices so that issues do not re-occur.
• If around 2% of devices sold have this issue, the cost to repair may be covered by apple however not confirmed as of now.
• Around 3 days for another update.

No problem, here are some extra things.

• I believe at the time I was on 11.0.1 Public Beta, it was the first public beta made available, sorry I cannot remember the exact version.
• I did have an SD Card inserted, I also had an ethernet to USB device plugged in on the left hand IO.
• There was no firmware password set and filevault had been turned off as it had caused issues with installing big sur developer betas prior to this.
• I had been using 11.0.0 developer betas for a while with no issues whatsoever.
• I first saw these symptoms when updating to 11.0.1 Developer Release, it failed to update and showed the black screen, however recovery could still work and the OS could be restored with a bootable USB.
• I then successfully updated to the 11.0.1 public release, but after a power cycle, the device showed the black screen issue with recovery completely corrupt.

Hi Guys,

I just got finished chatting with Apple Support here in Germany and am now writing through Big Sur on my mid-2014 MacBook Pro Retina 13".

What I've learned:

• The problem apparently is, as other people have mentioned here, an inserted SD card during the update.
• for troubleshooting everything needs to be unplugged, SD, USB, even the MagSafe power adapter (SMC reset only works with unplugged power)

What helped me:

• Turn off the device
• SMC reset (Shift-Cmd-Option-Power for 10 seconds)
• wait for a minute
• turn on again
• in my case I needed two tries because turning the device on first lead to the grey screen again, after the second SMC reset I got an Apple logo and a login screen in the Big Sur look
• if you get to the login screen plug the power back in
• in my case, after entering my password the progress bar kept climbing for about ten minutes and I finally was in the "after update screen".

I hope this works for many of you as well.

Good luck!

FINAL GENIUS BAR UPDATE

8 days ago I took my mid 2014 MBP to a genius bar as it was showing the symptoms outlined by others here, just a recap

• Boot chime sounds.
• Backlight and apple light on cover come on.
• Completely unresponsive to any recovery commands.
• NVRAM and SMC resets do nothing.
• Recovery USB does not work.

I just picked it up today and IT'S FIXED, the engineer said they had found a workaround to the issue and have downgraded the device to Catalina.

This was free of charge as it was just a software fix, however the laws on repair costs and manufacturer warranties may be different for you (I'm in the UK).

They have advised to avoid Big Sur until it's next release however I will be waiting for a few releases or until apple makes an official statement as to whether it's 100% safe to install.

Hello friends, I may have found the fix you've been looking for *jump to the end for the fix, and keep reading to see my story*

I have a late 2013 MBP 13" Retina. Big Sur completely bricked it, magsafe light would come one, fans would "show signs of life"(per genius bar) and the LCD backlight would activate. Doing all the SMC, PRAM and Command R failed with all attempts by everyone. Here comes the "everyone part"I talked with support via chat, via phone, was escalated to a manager, was setup with a Genius appt and they ended up telling me they could fix it for $470+ US and that "My computer is 7 years old and probably on the way out anyway, and something as an (and I quote) 'as invasive as an OS install' finished it off. I had him repeat that for me. I also heard many times that software cant kill hardware. We know from firmware viruses that is basically half true, + heat can kill hardware. Apple care said they would not override the genius bar store conclusion but we should watch for apple to see if their is a fix coming. I plan on calling the genius bar, and apple care to share the following fix that worked for me.

Turns out your MBP was probably just in a Big Sur induced coma like mine, and everyone thought it was dead...turns out it just needs the right TLC. Ok so hear we go, the fix and process. I would be posting this on that mac right now...but I have to do some password recovery for my apple support email and I'm lazy. Big sur is up and working on my 2013" MBP (i'm on a 2019 now) So I was googling reseting the SMC and PRAM and recovery mode again when I stumbled upon this gem about getting into the bios.

The Problem, Big Sur buggered your MBP bios.

However your milage may very as I attempted everything in the book before this. I will list them below in case you want to repeat my entire process.

First I drained the battery, cuz someone had some luck with that, I plugged in power and accidentally unplugged and the out of power light showed on the screen. HA it has battery awareness life!

Attempt to reset SMC half a dozen times, then end up holding option shift (maybe control too) and power and watch the machine quickly turn off once hitting power (this gave me hope). I kept trying Command R every time on the restart but no joy. Then I saw the following below some of the google reset results (and this fixed it)

"How do I flash my MacBook pro bios?"

To access your MacBook's Open Firmware, you must first shut off your computer. Then turn it back on, holding down the “Command,” “Option,” “0” and “F” keys simultaneously as the machine boots to access the Open Firmware interface.

(plug in to power if you drained the battery, you don't want it to die during this)

1. To start with, make sure the machine is off.
2. Hold Command + Option + Zero + F at same time then turn on power (ask a friend or like me perhaps stretch your pinky finger or something press power. Remember keep holding these keys for a time.

2a. If you get REALLY lucky like me the The apple logo appears and the process bar start moving.

2b. If not keep trying the above sequences of clearing SMC then trying this. I really think this may bring your vegetable brained mac to life again. Sending you lots of positive vibes and hope for you (Don't despair)

3...Let go (of the keys), leave it to do it's thing with the laptop screen up and put on a show. 10-15 minutes later after what looked like and endless cycle of restarts with the apple logo and status bar at various stages, the login screen with the Big Sur wallpaper showed up.

3a. It walked me through all the accessibility options and here we are.

If this works for you please post and let me know.

If you are in management for apple...I can really use a well paying job right now.

Hello again from Duesseldorf - Germany

I just came back from my visit to Apple Genius Bar Düsseldorf and I had the most unpleasant customer experience ever!

I picked up my unresponsive MacBook 2013/2014 after installing BigSur refuse to pay the 500€ for the repair.

My intention was to make Apple aware of this problem of the new OS system destroying older systems, so I asked how can I escalate this issue to the Apple Engineers.

I haven’t required any free repair or discounts - I was just asking how can I escalate this issue.

The manager I talked to, told me following:

• I cannot report any issues / problems at Genius Bar because they I only fixers and do not communicate with Apple.
• They are not interested in customers having issues with older devices.
• They don’t recognize that this OS is causing any damages so far and if so, there are older devices anyway.
• Apple is not responsible for any updates failures - if the device gets broken is too old.

I am speechless.

Hi Julia,

What seemed to work for me was SMC resets.....I must have done 100's of them before my MacBook came to life. Lots of advice on doing a SMC Reset but what worked for me was:

• With power cord in, shut down unit;
• Remove power cord;
• Do SMC reset - Shift, CMD, Option and Power for at least 10 secs. (For most MacBooks it is left shift, but for some right shift is advised; try them both);
• Power cord in;
• Switch on, with single press of key, not an extended hold down).

I stress that I was trying this repeatedly for two weeks and it only worked after I had effectively given up and abandoned the laptop. However, I was struggling with buying a new machine; couldn't really face a pc but could not spend money with Apple and gave it a last few tries.

13" MBPr, Late 2013, 16 GB Ram, 500GB SSD. No peripherals connected. So, here is a summary of my 11.0.1 experience:

• Installed 11.0.1 just a day or two after release. All was fine, at first. As about 4 or 5 days went by the beach balling became more frequent and with shorter time intervals between events and freezes until I could only boot to a black screen.
• Tried all resets mentioned here and anything else. Went through 2 calls will Apple Support.
• Tried to reinstall the OS from the web. Also tried reinstall backup from an external HD.
• I did a disk repair/diagnostic and found out I only had about 3 GB of SSD total causing any installation of an OS or backup to fail. What?
• Made an appointment with the Genius Bar and they ran their ethernet plug-in diagnostics and said my SSD was shot giving me the 3 GB reading.
• So, I asked how that could happen by just upgrading an OS and he said when it installed the OS it "stressed" (his word, not mine) the SSD. They would take it in and try to wipe the SSD clean and re-install the Catalina but the SSD may have to be replaced.
• Well, you guessed it, the SSD was replaced ($399 + $79 "hardware charge") and Catalina was installed.
• I have no intention of putting Big Sur on this MBP anytime soon. Interestingly, when I got my MBP back home I looked to see if an update was available and it came back saying my Catalina was up to date and no upgrade was available. Now that 11.1 is available it is telling me an update is available. No thanks!

I looked up some background on the SSD technology. They have a limited number of read/write cycles and the average life is about 10 years. Mine was 7 years. I always had at least 200 GB or more "free" over the years and suppossedly if individual cells go bad the memory repairs itself by blocking off the bad cells and moving the data to "good" memory locations.

So, my question for the collective braintrust here: Is it possible that the Big Sur installation with all the manipulation and reconfiguring of the SSD memory could cause 497 GB of SSD to fail prematurely?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 16 GB

My Big Sur install was 'successful' but only once I disconnected the MB from by 27" Thunderbolt Display.

However, now, if connected to the display, the MB will not reboot / restart.

If I disconnect and do a SRAM / PRAM reset - this is what comes up:

Therefore, I disconnect from the screen and just do a normal reboot - then the MB will restart - but there obviously is some problem here.

Any ideas / fixes Apple?!

When trying to install the Big Sur update, this happened to my MacBook Pro 2019: it got stuck on the installation screen and that’s it - nothing helps. It has been like that for more than 12 hours and I don’t know what to do :-(( I’m utterly helpless...

I just updating my Mac with the new Big Sur notification. I clicked to the installation process, get away for a while and when I returned to activate the screen, it appears black with vertical white lines. I feel so exhausted to know what happened.

Exactly the same has happened to my Macbook Pro. None of the recovery methods suggested do anything.

Only possible option I see is to create a bootable USB drive.....but you need a Mac for that, which I don't have because mine is bricked!

And the Apple stores are shut here, of course.

At my third attempt at SMC reset before giving up I finally got a boot (on my bootcamp partition so some reason). Now trying to restore a time machine backup. At least it cale back to life. Check what the protocol is for your mac. On iMac unplug for 15s, plug back, wait 5s and press power. Do no hesitate to try multiple times. Good luck.