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macOS Monterey, released last week as the latest version of macOS, is bricking older Mac computers, rendering them unusable and unable to even turn on, according to a number of reports from users across social media and online forums.

macos-monterey.jpg

If this sounds oddly familiar, it may be because last year, with the launch of macOS Big Sur, similar reports surfaced about that update bricking older MacBook Pro models. Less than a year later, similar issues are now seemingly taking place once again.

At least ten separate posts (1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) on Apple Support Communities contain users complaining that as they were attempting to update their Mac to macOS Monterey, the Mac went completely black and they're unable to turn it on. One post in specific includes several comments from users also reporting similar issues. Reports on Twitter are also plentiful.


















A comment on a post on Reddit includes a user chronicling their experience, saying that the macOS Monterey update bricked their 2017 iMac, declaring that "it's just dead."
Same thing happened to my 2017 iMac. Said it needed to restart. Never restarted. Waited a couple hours and tried to power cycle it. Reset pram ect. Nothing seems to be working it's just dead. Took a couple tries to get it installed on my 2015 Mac Air. That seems to be running but I'm at a loss as to what to do with the imac. I unplugged it and headed to work. Hoping to find some solutions tonight to get this resolved in the am.
One possible solution floated on Apple Support Communities is that users may need to revive or restore their Mac's firmware. "In very rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS update or upgrade, a Mac may become unresponsive and so the firmware must be revived or restored," Apple says in a support document.

All user reports suggest the issue is impacting older MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac models. More recent computers such as Apple silicon-based Macs are not seemingly having problems, at least according to the lack of user reports suggesting so.

While the issue with macOS Monterey bricking Mac computers is not as widespread as last year with macOS Big Sur, enough users are reporting that the update is causing problems to warrant some concern. It's possible that following this article, even more users will come forward and share their experience with macOS Monterey causing issues on their Macs.

Apple is currently testing macOS 12.1, but that isn't expected to be released for at least several more weeks. macOS Monterey is still in its first version, and it's typically a safe bet to wait until several updates are released before updating to the latest version from a previous generation. It's possible a smaller dot-update could be released to address bugs and security fixes.

Article Link: Some Older Macs Reportedly Bricked After Installing macOS Monterey
 
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hagar

macrumors 68000
Jan 19, 2008
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Big Sur was very problematic for my 2015 iMac, with horrible performance issues. They were never fully resolved as Apple doesn’t properly support Fusion Drives anymore with Big Sur and later.

I did upgrade to Monterey, no additional issues but still no great performance.

Because of these issues I never upgraded my 2014 MacBook Pro. Guess it’s time to upgrade the hardware.
 
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Sydnxt

macrumors regular
Apr 24, 2021
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I work at an AASP and the most amount of MacOS reinstalls we ever did in a month was MacOS Big Sur (11.1-11.3) Probably did over 100 in a single month.

I have not seen a single Monterey boot loop yet. Probably just unlucky or very rare.
 

TallGuyGT

macrumors 6502
Aug 8, 2011
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Well that’s one way to encourage users to upgrade to Apple Silicon Macs. If only they could manufacture them fast enough.

Seriously though, sounds like a failed firmware update.
 
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heystu

macrumors regular
Jun 30, 2021
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Norwich, UK
This should never be allowed to happen, and saying “it’s typically a safe bet to wait until several updates have been released” doesn’t offer any comfort or assurance - Apple should be stress testing releases to the extreme before letting them out into the wild. I’d be really screwed if my MBP got bricked being self-employed and relying on it for my sole source of income.
 

MacinMan

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Jan 27, 2011
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I was waiting to see if anything like this showed up. I like with Big Sur, had no issues in fact, I got Monterey working perfectly on a late 2013, 13" MBP with opencore legacy patcher. Works just as well as Big Sur did on that machine with official apple support.
My mac with official Monterey support is a late 2015, 27" iMac. I thought it would be fun to use the MBP as a test machine to see how well the legacy patchers work.
 
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alien3dx

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Feb 12, 2017
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I was waiting to see if anything like this showed up. I like with Big Sur, had no issues in fact, I got Monterey working perfectly on a late 2013, 13" MBP with opencore legacy patcher. Works just as well as Big Sur did on that machine with official apple support.
My mac with official Monterey support is a late 2015, 27" iMac. I thought it would be fun to use the MBP as a test machine to see how well the legacy patchers work.
hehe .. not sure if 2011 macbook can patch ? dam too old
 

MacinMan

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Jan 27, 2011
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hehe .. not sure if 2011 macbook can patch ? dam too old
I think it can with Opencore, the thing to remember though is, it's probably a pre metal supported machine so it requires more. On my older MBP it just needed the new bootloader installed and then when booted from the new boot loader, it functions as if it was natively supported, with the exception of recovery mode not working, but the OS itself runs fine. With a Mac as old as yours, it should work, but there are extra steps to take.
 
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MacinMan

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Jan 27, 2011
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@MacinMan On a legacy machine, macOS Monterey will not patch the firmware. Which seems to be the main problem here.
Oh, I know, I was simply sharing that I did it successfully. As far as the firmware, it must have done something though, because after the first reboot it went completely black for almost a minute or more before coming back on. I don't remember the iMac going black for any length of time, and it's officially supported. Both machines rebooted several times though.
 

reyesmac

macrumors 6502a
Jul 17, 2002
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During the last Big Sur security update the hdmi video on screen went crazy like an old TV set on TWO m1 Mac mini’s I updated. Never saw this behavior in any update ever before. So I can believe that some machines are getting bricked. That stinks.
 
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arildd

macrumors newbie
Nov 12, 2020
7
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So I assume late 2013 trashcan Mac Pros are okay to install then?
Yes, assuming you have the original Flash Drive/SSD installed. It seems like the firmware update only goes through if the original Apple-disk is installed.

For me, using the OWC Aurora X2, the workaround (thanks to this post by akro) was to update with the original disk then go through the same process one more time with the OWC disk. My guess is that the firmware update then will be skipped as it's already finished. Ridiculous but works, and so far without further issues.
 

Will Co

macrumors 6502
Feb 21, 2021
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It's extraordinarily rare that any bit of modern consumer hardware can truly be "bricked" by a software problem. It's basically always recoverable by the user, even without specialist tools.
Generally I'd agree with this. But it wouldn't take much to "soft brick" one of these machines. By that I mean not actually stone-dead forever, but effectively unusable, which to most amounts to the same thing.

Lots of users are reporting that the update to Monterey seems to cause problems with their USB ports, preventing them from charging the battery. Eventually, that has only one outcome. This sort of thing often ends up at the Genius Bar, with specialist tools required to bring up power rails to allow a bug fix to be installed.

I'm not one to start sounding off about "a big issue" so soon, but there seems to be a lot of noise about this. And if it does prove to be a thing, then really it can only come down to poor testing on the part of Apple. Very concerning.
 
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