Startup Options on Macbook M1 or M2

Timing is everything and following the steps as outlined by Apple is critical.

You may need to perform a DFU firmware "Revive". Sometimes these Apple Silicon Macs can get into a weird state. I had two laptops recently that encountered two firmware bugs which made it nearly impossible to get into Recovery Mode. Usually after a DFU firmware "Revive", I had one chance at accessing the Options screen for Recovery Mode.

It these Apple Silicon Macs are running an older version of macOS 13.x or earlier, then it is possible you have encountered one of these firmware bugs.....Apple finally fixed them with macOS 13.6.2 and 14.1.2 (or 14.2.x+). You can try clearing the NVRAM using the command line either while booted normally into macOS or in Recovery Mode.

In macOS:

sudo  nvram  -c

In Recovery Mode:

nvram  -c

Make sure to reboot the Mac after issuing the command. Normally you want to avoid modifying the NVRAM on an Apple Silicon Mac since most settings are not valid and can temporarily "brick" the Mac. I successfully used the given command on one of my organization's Apple Silicon Macs without issue and it solved a boot related issue which also affecting being able to access the Options screen for Recovery Mode.

V8Driver wrote:

I would like to know how come sometimes when you are 'following the directions' to get into startup options, and you hold the power button down, it will sometimes (often) shut down after the backlight comes on, or when the apple logo just shows up. It's not the battery, and not just one machine. This is after working on a batch of about 100 macbooks. It seems like when the operating system is loaded this will happen more often. Most of the time, Option R will work, after power cycle. It's too random to just say it's one thing or another, these are corporate machines that are in service, and not junk.

Please don't spam boilerplate about resetting SMC (that sure doesn't help), or single user mode or other obnoxiousness that is irrelevant.

You can’t reset the SMC, because the M1/M2/M3 Mac doesn’t have a System Management Controller. You can’t manually reset the NVRAM / PRAM because your Mac does this automatically, if needed, during every startup or reboot.

Startup key combinations - Apple Support

If your Mac starts up to Options with a gear icon - Apple Support