Mac going into Recovery Mode when running OS updates

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.

Mac Studio, macOS 13.4

Posted on Jun 16, 2023 9:30 AM

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Question marked as Apple recommended
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


Posted on Jun 17, 2023 11:47 AM

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11 replies
Question marked as Apple recommended

Jun 17, 2023 11:47 AM in response to benekk

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


Jul 26, 2023 10:53 PM in response to leroydouglas

So I tried running an update from safe boot and it didn't make any difference. On both my iMac Pro and my Mac Studio, whenever I run a Mac OS update, towards the end of the update when restarting, the Mac will restart in Recovery Mode. I now know to just click on restart, the Mac will restart a couple more times and will then bring up my usual log-in screen. Once logged in, the first thing I notice is that True Tone and Automatically Adjust Brightness have been enabled in the System Settings (I run dual screens).


I would like to get some understanding and ideas of what could potentially cause the Mac to restart in Recovery Mode during an OS update. As far as I'm aware, there is no new software on either of my Macs which I believe could be doing this. I'm just working the same as I always have done, but I've never encountered this before now and I don't have any ideas right now why it would be happening … It happened again this morning when updating my Mac Studio to Ventura 13.5.


If someone can give me some ideas of what could could make the Mac go into Recovery Mode during an OS update, then I can start trying to localise the problem.

Jul 28, 2023 1:47 AM in response to P. Phillips

Yeah, me too… I've been working on the Mac since the mid nineties and I've never had one go into recovery mode during an OS update and I've never ever felt any need to unplug any attached hard drives or displays, so to me it seems very odd that over the past few updates of Ventura that I've run on my Intel iMac Pro AND my M1 Ultra, both go into recovery mode during the install … but oddly my MB Air doesn't – and that has nothing attached.

Mac going into Recovery Mode when running OS updates

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