macOS Big Sur is bricking the 2013 and 2014 Macbook Pro
Many owners of 13-inch MacBook Pro late 2013 and mid-2014 are reporting the macOS Big Sur update is bricking their computers. Macrumors has a large the running and to date users have been reporting the issue since Thursday. Other sites like Reddit are reporting similar issues.
macOS Big Sur is the 17th and current major release of macOS. It is the successor to macOS Catalina. macOS Big Sur was just released to the public for install on November 12, 2020.
Overall the main thing seems to be updating to macOS Big Sur causes macbooks to get stuck displaying a black screen.
macOS Big Sur Known Issues
- 1. Big Sur Full Installer.app Download Problems – “Installation Failed Error Occurred while installing the selected updates.”
- 2. Big Sur progress gets stuck mid installation – Black Screen with Apple Logo stuck or stopped progress bar
- 3. Big Sur Install failing and bricking some older 13″ MBPro’s – Installation fails and the Mac has a black screen – Will not respond to any startup commands.
- 4. Big Sur stuck in an endless boot loop. – Certain users are reporting after a good install the Mac is stuck in an endless boot loop.
- 5. Slowness after upgrade to Big Sur – Some users have said their Mac is very slow after upgrading to Big Sur.
NVRAM, SMC, safe mode, and internet recovery, are all reportedly inaccessible and/or are not working. Those methods are not allowing bypass of the black screen,
There is a running thread at MrMacintosh for the issues and hopeful fixes.
Most importantly, If you have had a failed update and do not have a known good and current backup contact me for data recovery. Even at best (with an official fix), having OS upgrade problems on an SSD with trim can lead to data loss.
Until Apple issues, a fix MacBook Pro owners of late 2013 and mid-2014 13-inch models should update to install macOS Big Sur.