MacBook Pro bricked after failed Big Sur update 😵 ⚰️

I have a MacBook Pro 2014 edition. After installing Big Sur, during restarting it showed only a dark blue screen. No key combination worked out. After investigating it showed that the keyboard connector was burned out and I need to pay for the fix - 500€.

Is that the way Apple treats his customers trust in new operating systems?

I have access to an Apple Shop and I dropped the MBP on Friday last week for further investigation. Yesterday I got an phone call from the technician who told me that the problem is the keyboard connector and he’s not in charge to tell me how it got broken. He reinstalled Big Sur and said that everything is working fine now. The problem is I have to pay 500€ for this and I don’t think is fair.

I cannot trust that this OS will not cause further damages on my MBP.

They release 2 OS ( Catalina & Big Sur) who damaged perfectly well working MBPs.

Catalina - damaged the SSD card

Big Sur - damaged Keyboard connector

I feel very sad that Apple decided to go this road on getting rid of older systems.

Trust is more valuable than money.

Software cant damage a physical connector, it was either damaged from the factory or when the "tech" had his paws in it! I do analysis on customer returns for a major components manufacturer, I see this stuff all day.

From what I can tell, it seems to be a Firmware problem that has stopped the motherboard working. Apple issued a new version of the Big Sur installer, going from 20B29 to 20B50, that blocks affected models. I think these are 2013 and 2014 13" MBP's. So if you now see a warning that you cannot upgrade, be thankful.

For those people who have not yet tried upgrading, I suggest getting Catalina up to date anyway. I believe there may be a large security update for Catalina, coming, that may include firmware updates too. We all need to wait for Apple to come back to work next week, after Thanksgiving.

The technician mentioned that he needs to change the whole MBP front case because of the connector damage.

And YES, software can damage components due overheating. In my 20 years experience in software development on multi platforms, I have seen a lot of MBP damaged (Motherboard level) by Windows installations.

That's very interesting that the Apple engineers themselves at Genius Bar advised to avoid Big Sur until it's next release. One wonders why Apple hasn't issued an official statement to that effect on their actual website!?

Unfortunately I don't think it's a workaround that us users can do ourselves. They didn't provide any info on to how they did it but I can assume that apple have external recovery tools that can directly install OS's to the SSD. There's a chance that this workaround involved the temporary removal of the IO board as others have stated however as I said they didn't provide details on their fix. I just wanted to inform people that Apple fixed my device free of charge so taking it to them directly is likely the best solution.

It's worth noting that the invoice only stated a "Software Repair"

Same here as apple-magic reported from his call:

I had a good call this morning about the brick of my MB Pro Late 2013 (showing only the grey screen with no further reaction). First I had a brief call with a front-service support guy who again reviewed my case and tried the usual key short-cuts but it did not work out again. Then he forwarded my call to a senior apple care engineer who filled some kind of form together with me, asking several prepared questions, in particular about the hardware setup (however, I had no external screen connected or a SD card inserted during the installation but only the bare MB running). He asked me to record a short movie about the failure and I sent him the movie via a special link. He then sent the filled form to Apple engineers in California. We scheduled an update call for next week. My experience in a nutshell: Once you get behind the first level support and have a personal contact with a senior engineer, you feel that your case is now taken seriously and there is apparently a pattern of failures for vintage MacBooks under the update on Big Sur. Obviously, Apple is about to compile the cases around the world and review them collectively. After the bad experience with my MB being totally crashed, I now have the feeling that Apple is no longer ignoring the cases and that is good news. Let's keep updated about the progress!

Hello guys

I will revisit the Genius Bar in Düsseldorf, Germany to pickup my unresponsive MacBook Pro 2013 after installing BigSur OS.

The Tech Team refused to send me a protocol about the procedures they tried out for the recovery. The only solution from their perspective is to pay 500€ and get a completely new IO Connector & Case.

What are you recommending? Should I pay this money and for a downgrade to the Catalina OS and a Firmware Update?

Thank you!

Iulia

So just had the strangest thing happen.

See my earlier post but in the main MB Pro bricked, not stuck on install as some people have had no logo no chime no ability to recover. Calls to apple support and the a trip to the apple store where they said they'd fix it for £500. Followed by an official complaint

Picked it up today and was planning to run the battery down as someone found a workaround with this, the machine came on black screen then the apple logo came on asked for my login and started install!!! was not expecting that. I'm letting the install run rather than trying to reboot in to recovery its got 25 mins left i will let you know how it goes.

But if you've left your mac for a week like I have, try it again just in case.

KevKir this is almost what happened to me. I had the black screen with a logo but the bar not moving for days on charge past a 3rd way through. I put it in recovery but had not time to recover my data. Accidentally lost battery power and upon charging, the installation process burst into life and all is well.

I took the gamble to upgrade the other half’s MBP, which I think is late 2013 or early 2014 and painstakingly sat through the upgrade. I can see why an unattended install (which by the way has worked fine all these years since new ownership) is such a problem and likely the MBP falling asleep whilst connected to the power outlet is a concern. Attended restarts and logs in I thinks about 3 times which I don’t ever recall in the past.

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.

I have the same issue.

A week ago I was using my Macbook Pro (running Catalina, if I remember correctly) as normal when suddenly it said it encountered an error and needed to restart. It never did. Loading bar, apple logo, but then nothing. It would load 90% of the bar fine but the last 10% would take a long time, and when it finally reached the full bar, nothing happened.

I had to pay $200 to get as much data pulled from it as I could (not all of it was saved), and then I was able to get it to launch back into Mojave. But some of the files I have were saved in newer versions of software - software I couldn't even re-download from Mojave due to the issue with the AppStore - so I backed up everything onto an external HD and then went to update the software back to Catalina. And it wouldn't finalize. Can't save to disk, can't find this, can't restore that. WTF?

I started in recovery mode but running First Aid doesn't fix anything, I can't boot from my external HD backup, trying to reinstall to Mojave doesn't work, and now I'm back to being unable to even start up my laptop. What in all **** is going on with this? Granted, I've never experienced this issue with Macs before, but the attempted auto-update to Big Sur has effectively ruined my laptop, unless I'm forced to work only in Mojave moving forward (and thus not have access to a number of my files).

Is Apple going to buy me a new computer for the trouble? Of course not.

I tried all the key combinations possible - recommended by Apple Support.

I cannot go further - the blue screen persists. It seems to be a hardware issue.

Next week I will try to reach out the apple genius bar in Düsseldorf, Germany again. This time with a case number from Apple Support.

It seems that going to apple genius bar on your own will not bring much. The guys over-there will not report anything to Apple - at least this is my current experience in Duesseldorf, Germany .

They don’t feel responsible/ or in charge to report this issue further. It looks like a management problem there. This is what the manager Tobias (probably a nickname, he wasn’t wearing any badge) - from Apple Shop Genius bar Düsseldorf told me: „ I am not responsible for customer satisfaction“. :)

Take care!

Since I only what to escalate this problem - I will at least try to make sure that Apple is aware of this issue and can start taking care of it.

I am not sure how to call Apple Support US Hotline directly.

Yesterday, I was directed to the Apple Support UK by accessing this link:

https://getsupport.apple.com/

I received a case number and with that I will go to the Genius Bar in Düsseldorf again next week.

Hopefully, this time the technicians from Apple Genius Bar Düsseldorf will log/report this failure into the case number so the Apple Support can see it in their system:

MacBook Pro 2013/2014 -> Big Sur Installation -> I/O Patina defect.

I know this process sounds stupid but the Apple Genius Bar from Düsseldorf doesn’t report any of this issues to Apple!

They don’t know how and there are not interested in doing it - as the shop manager Tobias told me yesterday.