Macbook 2016 stuck in an update loop

Hi All,

This turned out to be a hardware problem with the display connecting to the logic board. This was causing a short which in turn caused kernel panics. Apple replaced the logic board (which did not fix the issue) then the display and cabling which resolved the issue.

if you are having this issue I would send your 2016 MacBook Pro back to Apple. I suspect that there might be a design flaw that can cause the display cable to short out the logic board.

Regards,

Stephen

Same problem here. Brand new MBP bricked thanks to this critical update loop. Tried everything from every thread on the subject. Hard to believe that after 9 months of this happening to people, there is still no known solution

Hi guys, please help..

I bought a 2017 13in MBP with Touchbar while on holiday in the USA 2 weeks ago. I brought it back to my home country (Indonesia) and promptly migrated everything from my 2011 Macbook Air...

A few days ago, I ran into this Critical Update Loop problem. I have disabled the firewall of my wifi router, and SOMETIMES it allows me to complete the update & log in normally (other times, it will keep looping and I have to hit RETRY several times until it completes or I give up and try some other time)

Even if it manages to complete, the next time I power off and on again, it will take like 2-3 minutes to boot & that is a sure sign the Critical Update loop is back.

I seriously doubt the local Apple engineers will have a clue. Even if they do, they may be unwilling to help coz I did not purchase my MBP from them... and thus returning my MBP for a replacement is also not an option 😟

My OS is already 10.12.5 btw..

@Alen Salamun: I don't have similar items under my /systems/library/extensions

@DiegoCAS: I tried an SMC reset, but the loop comes back if I reboot (or maybe I'm not doing the SMC reset properly)

How can I resolve this issue once and for all?

Thanx so much for any help...

Thx, that worked for me, too. Macbook Pro (2017) was stuck during shut down (High Sierra beta 4), when re-booting showing this weird screen I never saw before, re-istnalled, etc, no luck. After reading this thread and already dealing with returning the Macbook I tried the SMC reset and it worked, thx again!

Its the same for me.

The answer of technical service is

- Hard disk erasure and operating system installation is performed and failure persists

- Various software and hardware tests are performed and the fault persists

- Logic card must be changed, the hard disk is included.

- Unfortunately this piece is not in Chile and the time of arrival is estimated in 16 days approximately

Just ran into this "critical software loop" today when updating my 2017 MacBook Pro 15 with touch bar to MacOS High Sierra. And I finally made my mac out of the loop.

Here is the frustrating part:

At the end of updating process, this critical software loop showed up, try again was never helping. So I made an internet install (when restarting mac, press Option-Command-R, and choose reinstall MacOS on existing disk, thank god I didn't format it), when the reinstall process reach the end, this “critical software loop” showed again…

Here is where magic(or luck) happens:

During the whole updating/reinstall process, I had a third party USB-C hub (it also deliver power to my macbook)and logictech mouse signal transmitter (connecting via a USB-C to normal USB connecter) attached to my macbook’s two thunderbolt 3 ports.
At the last time this “Critical software loop” showed up,
I removed these two peripherals (now the macbook is on battery only), and I see the screen went black, and I then plugged the original power cable to my mac, and the install progress bar showed again, and boom! the login page showed up!

This might be single case, but worth a shot.
Just play around with the power cable (unplug it and later plug it).

I had this same problem. I tried reinstalling the OS by hitting command + r, but ran into the same prompt and error message upon startup all over again. I made sure my computer was connected to an adapter and just kept hitting "try again" over and over again until it worked. Better get something to do during this process as it takes a good 2 minutes between error messages and it took me about 5-10 tries before the "critical update" finally installed.

In my case the problem was caused by a Hama USB3 hub. Every time I booted with the hub plugged in any of the USB-C ports, the "Critical update" recovery window showed. Resetting SMC also worked, though it was quite unnecessary. I even reinstalled a fresh macOS High Sierra before I came to the conclusion that the hub was causing the problem and now I feel stupid.

Hope this helps.

In my case it was caused by several reasons, only when "Kensington SD 15500" dongle was connected, the message appear. I've fixed removing Mac Pro's old extensions, installed via Time Machine in the first user recovering. These extensions was in /Library/Extensions:

ACS6x.kext

ArcMSR.kext

ATTOCelerityFC8.kext

ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext

ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext

CalDigitHDProDrv.kext

HighPointIOP.kext

HighPointRR.kext

PromiseSTEX.kext

SoftRAID.kext

Removing they has resolved my problem.

A tried a billion suggestions, but this one worked. Get a book, hit the button to “try again” i hit it five to eight times, and suddenly the touchbar lit up, and then a black screen with an Apple and below it a sentence like,... update continuing to load,... the bar advanced, finished, screen went black and the it pop to life, touch bar lit and the issue resolve.

So,...I then decided to update all Securities updates and **** if it didn’t do the same thing, but I decided to just push the “try again“ another five times around, and again, same thing, it finally loaded the update. Personally I think this is a software/hardware issue. Apple hasn’t figured out their code implication with the touchbar integration and so they write updates that get looped.

This has solved the problem for me.

Before this incident my USB 3 hub (Anker) kept preventing my MBP from booting up. I have to unplug the hub in order for the machine to start. I am still through with the diagnostics as I need to find out if it is one of the USB devices plugged into the hub or the hub itself.

All I can say is that this MBP is the most unreliable so far. I had 3 before this, never ad many issues. Sorry Apple!

As of November 2017, if you still have the error, boot into safe mode by holding shift. Then go enrol your mac in the public beta and download the latest software update from the Appstore. For me it's 10.13.2. Let the process complete. The touchbar will reappear and the boot will complete successfully.

I just experienced this problem on my TbMbp. When you boot into normal mode, it will present you the Network Connection screen to choose a WiFi access point or Ethernet. No matter what you do, it will always fail and leave you with the message where the Mac can't start up unless the critical update is installed. This was performed on a 2016 model 15 inch MBP (flagship model).

Here's what I tried:

- SMC and NVRAM reset
- Online Recovery, First Aid on internal SSD
- Mac Diagnostic Utility (showed no problems)
- Time Machine Backup from an earlier, working point in my backup history
- Delete Partition, reload OS from scratch via Internet Recovery

None of these worked. It will always present you with the description at the top of this posting.

Symptoms:

- Will boot into Safe Boot fine. (This is how I managed to save my files to an external HDD)
- Touchbar will not light up, no way to control brightness, volume, etc. from the touchbar.

What I found on the internet about this problem:

- The Mac's OS and the Touchbar's OS (two separate OS's) are having a problem recognizing each other. The T1 CPU for the Touchbar cannot start up because the Macbook's OS (OS X High Sierra) is unable to "see" the Touchbar.

Solution:

- After chatting with Apple online and trying a few things listed above, I asked to schedule my laptop for service at the nearest Apple Store Genius Bar.

- At the Genius Bar, the tech has never heard of this problem at his location, and connected my TbMbp (Touch bar Macbook Pro) to their in-house diagnostic server, and ran something called "Mac Resource Inspector" (MRI) from an iPad. MRI is some kind of Apple Tech-only diagnostic software which connects to a machine inside the store.

- After 15 minutes, I noticed the Touchbar light up, I could see some of the Touchbar controls show up. The diagnostics did not complete until 5 minutes later where it said it found no problems.

- The tech then restarted my machine but each time performed a NVRAM reset before allowing my computer to continue booting into Normal Mode. I noticed my Touchbar light up before finally showing me the login screen.

Final Thoughts:

- I read that some people had their machines shipped out for servicing or replacement. I can't be sure if the problem I experienced is the exact same thing as everyone else but it appears that the MRI software was able to either reset something or actually loaded something into my machine allowing the problem to go away.

- I would strongly suggest that you schedule an appointment and have the Apple Genius Bar technician run the MRI software on your machine.

I hope this helps.

Just experienced the same thing on MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports).

I inadvertently let the battery drain to 0% which seemingly triggered the update loop.

Resetting the SMC solved the problem.

I believe that I have resolved the issue through the simple process below:

1. As I use my mobile phone to access the internet, I simply connected my mobile to the MacBook via a cable.

2. I accessed the App Store/Update via the apple menu on finder

3. Selected the critical update and asked it to install.

Seeing as it no longer asked me for a wifi network and simply accessed the internet as required during the update process, it finally managed to install the update and I no longer see it in the App Store. It has only been a couple of days, but to date there have been no issues and because it is no longer an update in the App Store, I don't believe it will be.

Hope this helps.

Mike