Mac going into Recovery Mode when running OS updates

I’ve had the same issue (M1 Max MBP, 64gb RAM, 8TBssd) since upgrading to Ventura. If I don’t disconnect everything, including my two Apple Studio Displays and a USB-cable for charging my phone, the MBP will automatically go into Recovery mode during Software Updates. If I disconnect every cable, it boots up as it should. This has been happening since Ventura.

There could be some amiss on the drive of the iMac Pro

Apple suggests " Install after repairing your disk

Use Disk Utility to repair your startup disk. Then try updating or installing macOS again."

Full link for above info below

If an error occurred while updating or installing macOS - Apple Support (CA)

benekk wrote:

This is something that has now happened to me 3 times across 2 entirely different Macs when running Ventura updates and I'm wondering why it's happening and whether I can fix it?

So what happens is that I run the OS update from the System Prefs, the update will be doing it's usual thing and the Mac will restart a few times, but on one restart I get the Recovery screen. I managed to get around the first time by restarting in safe mode and the other 2 times I've just clicked restart and the Mac has restarted OK, and when it did I checked the About This Mac pane and noticed that the update had been installed.

So yeah, I'm confused as to why it would be going into recovery mode at all? It's something that's never ever happened before and now it's happened on my M1 Studio Ultra and my iMac Pro. Seems strange that it would happen on 2 entirely different Macs.

Try the update from a Safeboot...and compare your results

 How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

I'm experiencing the exact same issue on my Mac Studio M1 Ultra. Every MacOS update boots into recovery mode once the update is finished. A simple restart and everything is back to normal and the update was installed. I'm curious, by chance is anyone else that is having this problem have the SwitchResX control panel installed on your system(s)?

This happens to me every update. I have a less than 2-year-old l M1 Pro MBP and every update goes into recovery mode then I restart and then the update takes. I had better luck updating a hackingtosh.

Same issue on my Mac M1 Max Pro, every single update I've made on this machine since purchasing last year. When first moving from Ventura to Sonoma, it would NOT update, kept crashing, and there was a slew of problems (big question mark icons in the dock, wouldn't allow me to login after screen locked, wouldn't restart at all without hard reboot, and a few other unbelievable massive bugs). Sonoma is just a huge mess. I thought after getting through all of those previous problems, I would finally be able to run normal updates, but NOPE, crashed again for a recent update.

My impression is that this is something in my user account, because I've been using the same user account since 2013. I migrated from a 2013 mac to a 2017, to a 2020, to a 2023. Never had a problem until the 2023 migration. I think they made a breaking change in the user accounts and just haven't figured out what it is yet. I really don't want to create a new account and start over, but may try that next time it fails.

same thing here. i have called apple at least 4 times about this and they can never help me. what i do is when it sends me into recovery mode, i restart my mac from the apple icon and it works well. it downloads the update as well. its annoying but im able to bypass it and thats all that matters in my eyes

Personally on any of the 3 different M1 / M2 machines I have, never had to resort to Safe Boot to install any of the upgrades or updates.

Also, and personally, I usually do not have any non Essential External anything attached during updates or upgrades

Very " Old Thinking " here, but if it is not broken, why try to fix a good thing.

Same here. Have a new Mac Studio M2 Ultra and the two times I've performed a system update I ended up in the recovery mode screen. I have to click restart to finally reach the login screen. No external drives. Next time I'll try to perform the disk repair from disk utility.

This happens to me on every start up after an upgrade since Ventura I'm now on Sonoma and it's still happening not only that I'm an editor and I have three monitors and all my monitor preferences are erased on every update and I have to go in and fix everything again. I'm on an M1 Mac studio.

No I don't. I've had the same issue every single update since I bought the Mac Studio. I recently updated to Sonoma 14.1.2 and it still happens. And I'm experiencing some issues with apps freezing when opening since Sonoma upgrade. It looks like a Windows OS more than a Mac one. :(