MacBook Pro bricked after failed Big Sur update 😵 ⚰️

had Same issue MacBook Pro 2014 13 inch

it actually changed my FileVault password after I tried to reinstall Catalina with internet recovery.

This happened me to during the Big Sur update on late Thursday when upgrading from Catalina. 

See link as it’s apparently happening to Mac’s of a certain year. 

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-macbook-pros/

I have a Mid-2014 MB Pro. 

I did a CCC clone and TM backup before this happened. 

During the Big Sur install it restarted to a black screen when it restarted.

Didn’t even see the installing happen yet when this happened. 

 I tried everything and still wouldn’t continue the update. Just stuck on the black screen. 

Holding option key didn’t work with USB thumbdrive installer when restarting and 

zapping PRAM worked at the beginning but later in the troubleshooting process it didn’t work. No keyboard commands worked except resetting SMC and internet recovery if I restarted many times while resetting SMC. 

I was able to boot into internet recovery mode if I did an SMC reset a few times. 

I tried to reinstall Catalina and got it to finish but wasn’t easy. 

I was able to startup the mac and see the desktop after that but I may have had to force shut down and SMC reset a few times perhaps. 

After that, i restarted the mac and it still kept booting to black screen. 

I tried to update to Big Sur but I couldn’t 

do that because when it got to the point to install, it didn’t recognize my FileVault password anymore and couldn’t login with both accounts. 

When I initially started the Big Sur update it did accept my FileVault password but not after I reinstalled Catalina. 

It couldn’t mount the data partition to do the install. It seemed in disk utility the system volume was mounted but not the data volume. When I tried to mount that it asked for my password but it wouldn’t accept that or accept the other accounts password. 

When I picked up my shiny new iPhone 12 pro max at the apple store the next day I had apple level 2 support on the phone while waiting in line at the Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles. 

They didn’t know anything about this issue but i told them I was just going to wipe it and restore from a backup. 

That night, after several attempts having to reset SMC as it wouldn’t do anything without doing that, I was able to get into internet recovery using command, option, R. 

Using Disk Utility I formatted with Mac OS extended journaled. Didn’t format as APFS as I knew it would convert it during the install. 

I installed Catalina successfully (as Big Sur is not available yet with internet recovery) but every time it restarted it went to the black screen so I forced it to shut down holding the power button and reset SMC. Did this a few times until I saw the keys light up and the apple logo with the progress bar and then the install continued. Had to do this several times until the install was complete as it always restarted to a black screen. I did wait to see if it would continue but the black screen persisted for a long time. 

The same thing happened when I updated to Big Sur after that but I just did the same thing. shut down and did an SMC reset to get it back to installing. 

After the install of Big Sur it started up and I set it up and finished but when I would restart the mac it still went to a black screen. The screen was dark but illuminated a tiny bit like before. 

I tried several times with the same result. 

After talking to an Apple Consultant friend on the phone the next day about this issue he asked does it startup now. 

I tried it and it started perfectly and is starting up normally every time now thankfully. I was going to call Apple but thankfully I don’t have to. I guess letting it sit overnight cleared up the issue magically 😎👍🏻. 

I am thinking it was some power issue maybe. I don’t know. 

I am very happy it’s working now. I am sure there are many people with bricked MacBook Pros. Hopefully they did a backup.  

Maybe leave it off the charger for a day or a while and try again

SMC resets with internet recovery is what helped me.

when it goes to the black screen force shut down by holding lower button down fir 10 seconds then do an SMC reset. If that doesn’t work shut down and try again

sometimes it takes 3 times. When it restarts the install will continue.

i had to format the drive and reinstall the OS. I had 2 backups so it was ok to do that.

I unplugged everything - power and all cables. Waited 20 minutes. Threw salt over left shoulder with right hand. Said a novena. Read a bird’s entrails for signs. Touched the power button and the apple logo appeared. It said 25 minutes to go and slowly progressed.

Then I must have lost faith because the screen went black. Touched a key and it started the progress bar all over.

Apple HQ used to have Infinite Loop address. I’m sensing why.

Oops, went to dead again.

and starting that progress bar again.

When did apple and Microsoft merge?

Force it to shut down

hold power button down for 10 seconds.

then do an SMC reset. Google it to do see how to do that. Use apple’s support article

then restart and the install will continue. If not do the previous steps again till it works. Keep doing that and if it restarts again to black screen later keep doing those steps until the install is finished.

I’ve had the same problem with my MacBook Retina 12” 2015. Updated to Bigsur it restarted, I saw the progress bar and then it went blank to never turn on again. Only thing working is the trackpad but the screen is blank, seems to output something to HDMI but the external monitor also remains blank. I tried resetting the SMC etc but nothing. I’m not sure what to do. I’ve only had this MacBook since last year when I switched from a MacBook Pro (late 2013 13” oddly), actually starting to wonder if that has something to do with it as I transferred from that MacBook.

Hi. Also updated my MBP 13-inch retina mid-2014 to Big Sur. The update went fine, I was able to use my MBP normally after the update. But when I powered down & tried powering up it got stuck with the black screen although I heard the usual startup chime. After many power on retries, one with more than an hour of waiting with the same issue I almost gave up. Did one last try but this time I pressed the Option/Alt button while pressing the Power On button. Voila, the familiar Apple logo appeared & the machine successfully started up. Happy me.

Cheers. Edwin

Hello from France

Same black out for my MacBook Pro (late 2013). Another victim on a French forum thinks it's because a SD card was in its slot during the installation of Big Sur and it resulted in a damaged USB HDMI SD droit I/O Board 661-02457. I also had a SD card inserted in my Macbook when I tried to update. How about you?

I had a similar thing today with my iMac. Updating fine then the screen went off, waited 2 hours for something to happen, nothing. Tried the power button still the same, switched the power off then on from the wall and the apple appeared and the update continued and finished.

No help as such unless there is a way to fully power down your MacBook.

I too had an SD card in the mac during the install. I used a Baseqi adapter and a Samsung evo card. Just bought a 512 on Amazon to replace the 256.

i was able to fix the issue see my last post.

strange thing is when I formatted my internal drive and named it Macintosh HD it also formatted my SD card and.gave it the same name. I had a backup for both thankfully.

i was thinking the same thing as you. Could having the SD card have anything to do with it.

although I don’t think it did any permanent damage to my machine. I too had the black screen many many times upon restart.

1) Power on your Mac.

2) As you hear the startup sound, hold the Command and R keys on your keyboard.

3) Once the Apple logo appears on your screen, you can release the keys.

4) You can either connect your Mac to the internet using an Ethernet cable, or, when prompted, select the specific WiFi Network.

5) Once the recovery menu appears on your screen, you can opt for the option of installing OS X.

6) You are now required to follow the onscreen prompts and select your destination disk and complete the installation for OS X.

Through these steps, you can reinstall the latest version of OS X that you had previously been using on your Mac.

For the ones who are looking to restore Mac to its factory settings using the same version of OS X, they must hold Command-Option-R at startup instead as this starts the Mac from Internet Recovery.

Reinstalling Catalina is not necessary most likely. Only internet recovery worked for me Command R didn’t work. Just keep resetting SMC until install continues again. After resetting SMC and powering it back on the install will continue. At least it did for me. Hopefully it will for you too.

I tried to reinstall the previous version and it made it so it didn’t recognize my FileVault password anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I clicked the checkmark to save it to the keychain when it asked me to enter the password but after I reinstalled Catalina successfully and tried to install Big Sur again it wouldn’t accept my password anymore so I had wipe the drive and restore from a backup. It couldn’t mount the data volume and in order to mount that I had to enter my password which it refused to accept.

It wasn’t easy as it kept booting to a black screen but with many SMC resets it finally finished the install

While my clean install of Big Sur via USB drive on my MacBook Pro 2018 went without any Problems, I had my own little adventure when updating to Big Sur beta 4 and 5 this summer. After this Big Sur beta install the Macbook was not able to play certain videos anymore, for example any video on twitter. I thought ok, it's a beta, this can happen, I just go back to Catalina, so I did a fresh reinstall of Catalina. But the video problem persisted. After some research I read somewhere that the T2 chip got promoted to handle videos on Big Sur. And since the Big Sur update also updated the T2 chip I figured that this T2 chip is the culprit. At the end I had to downgrade the T2 chip with Apple Configurator 2 utility with the help of my Mac mini 2018 with Catalina installed. It is very important that both Macs, host and target, have the same OS otherwise the T2 downgrade might brick the T2 chip beyond recovery. But thankfully it worked out fine for me. Not sure if this helps with the black screen problem here.

Similar for me - update fine on early 2015 macbook, MacBook Air (though zoom not working on latter) and 2020 iMac. But it got stuck on 2017 iMac. Black screen, Apple logo and about 95% or more complete on the status bar. Decided to unplug per BankTheGain suggestion. Left it for a minute and turned on. Colour screen with login appeared... great! Logged in, still in colour, and saw a white status bar at 95% below login name... and then it burst into life, all good. It asked about accessibility features but that was it. Not the same ‘welcome, let me take you through new features!’ message that other computers had displayed.

Just rebooting again to check what’s what... seems a bit slower than before but all okay.

Haha classic...

While what's happened is a terrible Apple's mistake. I still don't understand what people thought when they worked as software testers _for free_. In fact, new operation systems rarely have new features that people _really_ need. Most people update just because... "New" does _not_ mean "better". If that was true, operation systems would become waaay better since 2000. Being a Mac user since 2009, I don't really see anything really important for me in Catalina (for example), if compared to that old MacOS I used in the past. It's all just marketing BS, all you get is just a different (different does not mean better!) graphical design, mostly.

Never, never ever update your software to new versions "just because". We are not paid for being software testers here

I updated last night and when the screen went blank I figured it was busy so left it overnight. By morning, 8 hours latter nothing had changed. Been on the phone with apple support doing all the reboots with the key combinations and nothing at all works. Its been booked in for repair tomorrow. Fingers crossed they can sort it out, and they best not be thinking about charging me. It was working very nicely till the update. For what its worth since someone mentioned it above, I had an sd card plugged in at the time.

13" MBP Late 2013