2023 14” MBP booting into a strange state, unable to click almost anything.

thomasrc150 wrote:

I recently restarted my mac and upon boot it went into a strange state. It goes to a black screen with only the rainbow spinning cursor, but it will change to a regular cursor if I press the power button once. I tried restarting into the Startup Options menu but when I click the drive or options button nothing happens. The shut down and restart buttons also appear to click, but nothing happens. I found that if i click continue on the drive then restart the laptop manually it will enter into Boot Recovery Assistant, but nothing happens when I click Startup Disk or Recovery. If I press the enter key it will bring me to the macOS recovery screen but I can’t click the next button or use the tab and enter keys to access it. I can click things in the menu bar at the top but nothing else. Apple Support directed me to an appointment, which is scheduled for next week.

Does anyone have any idea what’s going on?

Is it possible to save the files on my laptop if I reinstall MacOS?

Any help at all is appreciated.

Would have no idea...

If you have a second machine you can try revive (saves user data) or restore you lose user data:

Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon using Apple Configurator - Apple Support

do not wait for a catastrophic failure to get the backup religion

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

Use Time Machine to back up - Apple Support

Have you tried to use an external keyboard & mouse in case the built-in keyboard & trackpad is the problem?

If you have access to another Mac running macOS 14.x, then you can try a DFU firmware Revive to see if that makes any difference to access the recovery options.

How to revive or restore Mac firmware - Apple Support

If you perform a DFU firmware Revive, then try to boot into Recovery Mode to see how the keyboard & trackpad are working. If they are working fine, then you may have some options. It is very important to boot into Recovery Mode immediately after the DFU firmware Revive since booting into macOS may bring the problem back & require yet another DFU firmware Revive. I personally experienced an issue with one of my organization's Apple Silicon Macs where this occurred.....I had one chance to access Recovery Mode after the DFU firmware Revive....if it tried to boot to the internal SSD, then the odd behavior returned where I had to perform another DFU firmware Revive so I could access Recovery Mode again. After the firmware Revive, you will be asked to authorize the Mac, after that is accomplished, you should hold the power button for 10 seconds until the laptop powers off completely. Then make sure to access the special startup mode for accessing Recovery Mode Options screen.

Try booting the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected.

Also try disconnecting all external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.

thomasrc150 wrote:

Is it possible to save the files on my laptop if I reinstall MacOS? Any help at all is appreciated.

Not if you cannot boot normally, boot into Safe Mode, or select the Options boot menu item. All special boot modes & options on an Apple Silicon Mac must go through one of these areas/options. That is the only way you can access the data on the internal SSD of an Apple Silicon Mac. Even Target Disk Mode is accessed through that Options menu item since you need to boot into Recovery Mode.

The new hardware, software, and security changes greatly restrict your options here. There are a lot of new ways to permanently lose access to your data on these newer Macs if you don't have good backups.

Have you tried booting into Safe Mode?

Edit: Do you know the exact version of macOS you are using on this Mac? I mean specific, like 13.6.1 or 13.6.3 specific.

Why were you restarting the laptop? The reason may be important as it may relate to the issue I alluded to earlier with my organization's Mac. Do you know if any macOS updates were pending and may have been applied when you rebooted the laptop? Do you know what exact version of the update was going to be installed?