22 ms·

macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

667 points by _susn 3y ago

RadixDLT 3y ago
there's something fundamentally wrong at apple theses days, macos just doesn't work like it used to
gcr 3y ago
TL;DR: Recent macOS Sonoma and 13.6 Ventura have upgrade bugs that brick some macs and make recoveryOS unusable, causing a black screen that requires a DFU revive. Issues on Sonoma appear most often on dual-booting macs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 Ventura upgrades can also bite you if your display refresh rate is set to anything other than ProMotion, for unclear reasons. The doc is on the Asahi Linux wiki because their developers discovered this issue, but it's not unique to Asahi. In fact, running the Asahi Linux installer can detect whether your mac will be affected by this issue, even if you ultimately choose not to install Asahi Linux. See the article for details.
- markmark 3y ago
  Erg, I ran into this on my mac twice when I upgraded. I have two bootable OSX partitions and it hit on both upgrades. I'm not really a mac guy and it took a _lot_ of messing around (and learning that DFU exists and what it does) to sort out. Just lucky that my daughter has a mac so that I could even use DFU without having to take the thing into an apple store.
neilalexander 3y ago
Interestingly I ran into this exact problem with my work MacBook Pro M1 upgrading to Ventura 13.6 and assumed it was a totally isolated incident. I don't have a dual-boot setup either, just a single macOS install. The computer was connected to a Thunderbolt Display during the update which I assume had the same effect of changing the refresh rate to something other-than-ProMotion that the linked article mentions. I had to do a DFU restore from another Mac and then run the macOS Sonoma installer from USB, which thankfully detected the existing install and did an in-place upgrade, preserving all of my data. Nothing else worked. I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable — it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac.
- alsetmusic 3y ago
  > I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable — it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac. I would have expected a Thunderbolt cable to be required, if either was. This is quite surprising to me. Usually, the more capable (higher bandwidth) cable works if one isn’t supported. I’ll hope to remember this is I ever find myself reviving a bricked Mac in the future.
  - vbezhenar 3y ago
    I restored my Macbook just one hour ago with crappy USB-C USB-A cable, god bless the libimobiledevice creator.
  - spacedcowboy 3y ago
    I am currently restoring an MBP using Configurator and a thunderbolt cable. You definitely can use one, perhaps your TB cable is buggered ?
  - brigade 3y ago
    It's done over USB 2.0 largely because that's simpler than involving newer and faster specs, and partly because that's how the original iPhone did it. My understanding is that all complaint USB USB-C cables should work for USB 2.0, even USB4/TB4 cables, but active TB3 cables might not hook up the USB 2.0 pins.
  - phillco 3y ago
    I've used a Thunderbolt cable as well successfully, but one note is that they're very picky about which port you use. On my Mac mini, I had to use the exact port outlined here or it did not show up: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/revive-or-restore-a-mac-with-apple-silicon-apdd5f3c75ad/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/reviv...
    - microtherion 3y ago
racl101 3y ago
I am so terrified of this upgrade that I think I'll wait a whole year. That's not a good thing.
- hbn 3y ago
  I pretty much always wait 6 months or so for Mac upgrades on whatever machine is important to me. There seems to pretty consistently be regular bugfix updates for the few months following a release.
- cramjabsyn 3y ago
  Its realistically what you should be doing unless your machine is a test host itself.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  Unless you aren’t doing anything important on your Mac that’s always good advice.
- rangestransform 3y ago
  this happened to my work macbook while I was trying to upgrade to ventura, a 1 year old macos version
- shever73 3y ago
  That’s probably wise. I wish I had waited. Since upgrading to Sonoma, I have recurring issues with the system file dialog. Sometimes the dialog will open, but not allow me to save, other times it will just fail to open altogether. Any time I start a new video project now, I save it instantly because Command+S still works, but if it opens the Save As dialog then it frequently won’t.
krackers 3y ago
See also his twitter for some speculation as to how on earth simply changing refresh rate would cause boot corruption: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111329614147717090 https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111329614147717090 >Why? I can tell you why: because Apple hates display modeset flicker, and switching modes between ProMotion on/off causes a modeset flicker, so of course they made it so that is stored in nvram somewhere and applied when the screen is turned on during early boot, so when macOS boots it doesn't have to flicker again. >And they didn't test it with older OS bootloaders, so display handoff/init just fails catastrophically with those when this mode is enabled.
- NavinF 3y ago
  Interesting. I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. I've only encountered one app that doesn't work with variable refresh rate and that's Genshin on Windows. Even that's probably not an issue with newer monitors that can handle VRR down to 60Hz without my monitor's frame-doubling flicker as it keeps switching been 60Hz and 120Hz
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    > I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. The first reason that comes to mind is battery life. That's probably the most broadly applicable use case. But also, if I was still doing e.g. frontend web development, I would want to confirm that my css animations looked nice at 60 hz. Edit: My first use case is likely wrong, thank you to replies for reminding me Apple uses adaptive refresh down to 1 hz.
    - vvillena 3y ago
      Isn't battery life a reason to keep it on? The refresh rate will be down to 24hz most of the time.
    - jwells89 3y ago
      macOS is very good at adaptively reducing refresh rate when nothing is happening on screen, with the panel reportedly supporting the full range of 1-120hz so barring badly engineered apps that are permanently pinned at max refresh, the battery impact of keeping ProMotion on is minimal for most use cases.
wetpaws 3y ago
[dead]
mattchamb 3y ago
Not sure if related, but my 2020 M1 macbook air bricked a week or so after upgrading to Sonoma. I was suspicious if this was related to the update. Luckily the logic board was replaced for free under warranty laws here, though it put me off switching to iphone which I was a day away from doing.
- bscphil 3y ago
  Upgrades bricking hardware seems to be a common failure mode for macOS. For example Big Sur bricked a bunch of 2013 and 2014 MBPs: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-macbook-pros/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur-update-br... I was affected by this and like many users the problem was fixed after replacing the I/O board. In my case, I did it myself using a $10 part from Ebay since the machine was well out of warranty at that point.
  - miles 3y ago
    From comments #736 and #747 attached to the forum post you kindly shared, it sounds like simply disconnecting and reconnecting the I/O board may be sufficient (found those comments linked in #831): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-29398435 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-29403412 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-30087839 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br...
    - fifteen1506 3y ago
      And this is why there will never be a Year of the Linux Desktop -- no-one wants to have to depend on forum posts to fix these kind of issues. /troll
      - coldtea 3y ago
bitigchi 3y ago
I am somewhat glad that there is a 3rd party that actively helps finding macOS issues.
mstep 3y ago
does anyone have info if this is fixed in ventura 13.6.1? https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT213985 https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT213985
- kppullin 3y ago
  I just installed 13.6.1 on an M1 MacBook Pro and am now facing the boot issue, so I'm guessing it's not fixed :). To make matters worse, the specific USB port required for the DFU revive fix is broken as well, which was never an issue as the other two worked... oof.
frankjr 3y ago
> Do not let them charge you any money for it. This is a problem Apple caused, and purely a software issue. If the technicians claim there is hardware damage, they are wrong. Good luck with that.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  The Apple Store is usually great with this stuff. If there's a documented problem that affects your hardware model and the given software versions, they're extremely unlikely to try to charge you for anything.
  - baz00 3y ago
    If it's not documented and you have a problem then you are usually shit out of luck. The early days of butterfly keyboards was hell for a lot of people. I managed to get mine back to them for a full refund 3 days after I got it thank fuck.
    - somehnguy 3y ago
      I got a full MacBook Pro replacement when my MBP had something wrong causing it to charge extremely slowly - completely on Apple's dime. They first sent me an overnight shipping box to send in my MBP, where they then replaced the top case assembly. After that didn't work they overnighted me a brand new in box MBP. I had to spend 6+ hours on the phone over multiple days with a senior tech support staff to make it happen, but at least it was eventually resolved and I didn't pay anything for it. Obviously it wasn't a documented problem because we troubleshooted everything possible before replacement.
      - solarkraft 3y ago
        > I didn't pay anything for it You paid 6+ presumably stressful hours of your time. That sounds like a crazy high price to me that you should be able to bill them for. I wonder whether they could've done it faster if they were required to reimburse you for the time and nerves you had to spend to get them to fulfill their (assuming you were within warranty) law-mandated responsibility of providing you with a product that works as described. How did you even get to the point of talking to them on the phone? When I last had a problem (extreme instability up to full crashes when RAM pressure is high, which is apparently a problem with every single ARM Mac out there) they wanted me to come into an authorized store as the first thing. I eventually caved in and just bought a machine with bigger RAM. My god, I can't imagine spending several hours over several days turning the device off and on, resetting NVRAM and re-installing the system ...
asylteltine 3y ago
I’m an apple fanboy and let me be the first to say their SDLC since the pandemic has been AWFUL. I have never had so many bugs with apple devices. And I’m not talking about giant catastrophic bugs you would expect with windows or Linux. I mean little things, like random phone reboots, overheating, my mac restarting when I wake up from sleep, internet issues, etc. They need a shake up and to stop focusing on all these features NO ONE uses. Can one person tell me they use the features they just announced? Nobody even knows you can edit an iMessage still.
- aetherspawn 3y ago
  I agree, I started buying some Macbooks for work and was horrified when the Launchpad just wouldn't open on a brand new Mac. Like, you press Launchpad, and it just ... doesn't open. sometimes. This kind of rancid stuff you would expect on Windows (i.e. after upgrade to Windows 11, half our laptops can't right click on the desktop sometimes) but it never used to happen on OS X.
- doubloon 3y ago
  " . . . The new version - it's not there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version. " - Bill Gates http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html
vbezhenar 3y ago
Today I had to DFU restore my macbook because I wanted to reinstall it, but built-in restore over the web did not work. My base system was 13.2, it downloads all the files for 13.6, it filled bar to 100% and then spewed error. It's obvious that it's some incompatibility between 13.2 base system and 13.6 install. Apple quality is atrocious these days. One would have thought they would test the most basic scenarios before releasing their x.6 software. And worse of all, there's no official (or even unofficial, at least I wasn't able to find one) way to create USB boot installer without another Mac or to DFU restore Mac without another Mac. Do they think I live in Apple Store? I don't have other Mac. I was able to DFU restore with libimobiledevice, god bless its creator, but it really should not happen. Windows or Linux are so much more transparent compared to macOS.
- baz00 3y ago
  Yeah the Apple bootloader and restore stuff scares the shit out of me. The network access requirement, firmware on SSD and hardware lock are always lurking waiting for the most inconvenient time to go wonky when I hose something. Conversely windows, just got a USB stick in the drawer I can boot off.
  - EstesPark 3y ago
    As a lifelong Mac user, it just now hit me how inconvenient locked down the restore process is.
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > Conversely windows, just got a USB stick in the drawer I can boot off. It goes further than that, on many motherboards even a failed firmware update can be fixed through a random USB stick from the drawer, you just need the right BIOS file to put in it.
    - Clamchop 3y ago
      And some motherboards even have a backup BIOS if one of them becomes deranged. Now that's luxury.
alberth 3y ago
Abstraction Layers. We've gotten to point with the huge number of abstraction layers (and now AI as well) that troubleshooting what causes system to do what it did, has become so unwieldily difficult to diagnosis.
- jahewson 3y ago
  This doesn’t seem to be the problem here? It’s an issue of having a combinatorial number of versions to test when upgrading software and firmware.
cramjabsyn 3y ago
This is exactly why I lag one major version behind the latest.
- als0 3y ago
  Well, this also affects the previous major version, macOS Ventura 13.6
  - supportengineer 3y ago
    This is exactly why I lag two or three versions behind the latest.
    - formerly_proven 3y ago
      This is why I'm still using RHEL 7.
  - silverwind 3y ago
    Just don't upgrade to any version ending in 0.
    - lynguist 3y ago
      13.6.1 is also affected.
      - cromka 3y ago
        Need to wait for 13.6.1.1
  - cirrus3 3y ago
    If that is the case, why does the OP label it as a Sonoma issue?
- theodric 3y ago
  This is why I'm still on Big Sur-- it mostly works!
nusaru 3y ago
> macOS Ventura 13.6 Well dang, I just upgraded yesterday, too. Fingers crossed that nothing breaks...
cleansingfire 3y ago
Only affects Apple silicon chips (intel unaffected) with ProMotion display. Just a quick Exit clause for people with older machines.
- meithecatte 3y ago
  Only one of the two bugs listed requires a ProMotion display. The other one can occur on all Apple silicon machines.
JohnMakin 3y ago
Lost a workstation to this last week. infuriating.
KingLancelot 3y ago
I think my 2014 MacBook on MacOS 12.5 was affected by this too. I had Ubuntu installed in a second partition and it refuses to boot ever since I installed 12.5.1 on it.
tempodox 3y ago
Holy fuck, thanks for the warning! I'm just glad I didn't upgrade to 13.6 yet. And installing Sonoma on a second volume to try it out is also out of the picture for the foreseeable future. Apple's OSs seem to get worse with every turn. Maybe I shouldn't touch Sonoma at all. What's the point on an Intel Mac anyway?
SpaceManNabs 3y ago
This seems like a very unusual bug by Apple standards. Makes me consider upgrading to new macbooks...
- dgellow 3y ago
  At this point it’s kind of common knowledge to wait a while before upgrading macOS to latest major version. I don’t remember a major update that didn’t come with its own set of problems.
- cromka 3y ago
  I don’t know, it’s pretty high there on the list of their complete fuckups, like allowing anyone to log in as root from the login dialog…
da768 3y ago
Can something be done using VoiceOver boot mode? I've already recovered macs stuck on 0 brightness after an upgrade with that... Can't find the documentation now, but it definitely exists.
jug 3y ago
I wonder if this is behind a failed Sonoma upgrade I saw on eBay today; Mac Mini M2 Pro sold as-is for a very decent price, about $300-$400 off despite from this year. :) Seller didn't know what was wrong with the Mac, only that it happened during Sonoma upgrade and this sounds mighty suspicious for such a new machine if it's widespread.
dharma1 3y ago
Had another weird refresh rate bug with 14.1 - external display doesn’t have a HDR option in settings at 120hz anymore - only works with HDR if I change the refresh rate 100hz or lower. Was fine in earlier MacOS
doubloon 3y ago
in 30 years we have gone from the idea that your computer could accidentally brick your monitor, to the idea that your monitor could accidentally brick your computer. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2006/02/02/computing-myth-1-software-cannot-damage-hardware/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2006/02/02/computing-myth-1-sof...
iudqnolq 3y ago
On a much more minor note the .0 version of the upgrade also has a big that pops up a contacts window every few minutes and steals keyboard focus.
sameg14 3y ago
I had this exact thing happen to me when I tried to reset a Mac and wipe it clean. Would not start up and went into this doom loop when booting with the apple logo and a black screen. No amount of key combinations worked. I had to drop into DFU, which is a huge pain to get into to begin with and then use another Mac to recover.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cirrus3 3y ago
First I've heard of any issues.. I have done a couple upgrades already with no issue. I'm sure there are some scenarios where it fails, but Sonoma has been out a while with millions of users being prompted constantly to upgrade. Feels like less than a "you're holding it wrong" problem. HN is obv going to bring out the edge cases, but it doesn't seem like the world is on fire with "Sonoma Bricks" by any means.
- markmark 3y ago
  Do you dual boot? I've got two bootable OSX partitions on my mac and this hit me when I updated.
- bigDinosaur 3y ago
  I use a lot of Apple products but this attitude you're expressing has always annoyed me (because I see it most frequently when it comes to Apple's software and hardware quality). These bugs affect people all the time and are indicative of poor QA. 5 users at a company we provide some software support for (note: we don't control their machines) decided to upgrade their machines and somehow became unbootable just yesterday. Please don't be in denial about Apple's increasingly worse QA. An intern with a checklist could have uncovered these issues.
- codingpanic 3y ago
  We have a fleet of several hundred Macs, most are M1/2 at this point. I heard reports of several Macs coming in for support that booted to a black screen after Sonoma's .0 landed. So many that the JAMF team blocked Sonoma until the .1 landed. Definitely shoddy QA on Apple's part. Also, your sample size is too small. Everyone works differently and it takes a certain set of settings/workflows to trigger this compatibility issue.
keepamovin 3y ago
When I saw the upgrade to Sonoma appear in my Settings I had a feeling the first version of this new OS would be buggy so I held off on it. Now extra glad I did! Gonna stick with Ventura for a while! Haha ! :)
- ch13_ 3y ago
  Agreed
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
The Sonoma update bricked my M1 MBP and Apple had to wipe the whole thing. Something stinks in this thing.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Man, I had a rough week last week. Shipped two regressions. Seeing this story, as awful as it must be for the responsible eng, has really made me feel much better. Not schadenfreude. Just commiseration.
wizzard0 3y ago
FYI the Asahi Linux installer says “please upgrade that should help” but bumping 13.6 -> Sonoma 14.1 did not help, the SystemRecovery still shows up as 13.5 Or does that mean wait for 14.2?
Alifatisk 3y ago
This is why I am not so quick with upgrading to next major version anymore.
benreesman 3y ago
I don’t know what’s going on with Apple lately. They’ve built one of the world’s best brands after a near-death experience via a ruthless focus on and fanatical commitment to providing a holistically premium experience (for the people who want their version of that) to justify their premium pricing and huge margins. If you like what they do, it Just Works from purchase on. Or did until recently. Just today I had an experience that was so Kafkaesque it felt like a mean spirited prank, and because they never fuck up this badly, I had no contingency plan for one of the times it matters a lot. Any advice on how to get the “we fix things for loyal customers by doing what’s required” people on the phone would be appreciated, but based on the runaround, infinite hold Ferris wheel the primary support line apparently is now, I’m not getting my hopes up.
- SamuelAdams 3y ago
  The Apple today is very different from the Apple of 20 years ago. The brand is the same, yes, but the people are all largely different. You see this all the time in the video game industry, ie Blizzard, Bungie, 343 industries. Maybe the newest group of programmers and engineers are dealing with a very complicated code base? Maybe no one fully understands everything involved until something breaks?
  - benreesman 3y ago
    Just my N=1 anectdote, but I’ve been having almost universally great experiences until maybe 2 or 3 months ago. On the software side, I tend to tolerate more security risk (within reason) to delay updates until a consensus emerges that they’re robust, because I’m not a high value target to anyone north of “script kiddy” and run a tight ship on the easy stuff, so the EV of an abruptly unusable work machine vs. getting pwned weighs heavily relative to winding up in the crosshairs of anyone sophisticated enough to exploit a recent CVE. My online banking is properly 2-fac’d, if anyone wants to read my browser history or email and cares enough to go ti that trouble, I’ll want them that I’m not important enough for it to be worth the trouble. This would clearly change if my work went back to having demanding security requirements, but it doesn’t just now. It’s really the customer service, fulfillment, Apple Store experience (it used to feel like stepping into the least stressful room in the mall and now it’s a zoo).
user3939382 3y ago
Tangentially related, ever since upgrading to Sonoma my computer reboots when I put it to sleep. I’ve heard the same from other users.
ehutch79 3y ago
Reading many of the comments here… I wonder if a lot of hacker news commenters have actually met real, everyday users of technology. Not other nerds and grognards, but like, the lady sitting over in a cubical, who only knows enough about computers to do their job. Do you really think users want graphic mode selection on boot? What percent of Mac users have alternate bootloaders or even know what that means. A lot of commenters need to do some time in the proverbial trenches and support a fleet of devices at a large company. See if users really care about the things you think they do.
- OJFord 3y ago
  From the submission: > Once System Firmware is updated to the macOS Sonoma version, if the display is configured to a refresh rate other than ProMotion, that system will no longer be able to boot into older macOS installs nor Asahi Linux correctly. This includes recovery mode when those systems are set as the default boot OS, and also System Recovery at least until the next subsequent OS upgrade. That can and will absolutely affect regular users, even if they don't 'care' about it or 'know what it means'.
  - eddieroger 3y ago
    > that system will no longer be able to boot into older macOS installs No, that seems pretty super-user to me. The average user goes forward in versions, not back, and rarely has two at the same time.
    - OJFord 3y ago
      On the contrary all normal users have two at the same time, that's the system recovery one mentioned. Normal people don't care about it, talk about it, or think about it, but may come to rely on it - or have it used by a 'Genius' when something stops working. It affects them.
    - cstrahan 3y ago
      > No, that seems pretty super-user to me. Here's a play-by-play scenario. 1) Grandma is prompted to update to Sonoma, and so she does. 2) But note that the installer does not update the recovery partition. 3) Laptop reboots, and grandma sees an Apple logo for exactly 2 seconds, and then the screen goes black. Manually rebooting results in the same thing, every time. 4) Grandma now tries to roll up her sleeves and see if she can fix it. She googles around, and discovers that the she should be able to get into the Recovery OS and maybe fix things there... but when she tries to do that, same thing: apple logo for 2 seconds and then black screen. How did I come up with this play-by-play? Well, because today I was said grandma. Where does this involve the average user going back in versions of their on volition? That's the whole point of why this bug is horrible: you get no say in the matter. You upgrade to Sonoma, and depending on your refresh rate, you can't boot into your OS. Wanna use the Recovery OS? Too bad: that's too old to know to use a functioning refresh rate settings (because the installer left the old Recovery OS version in place), and instead it uses whatever was set in NVRAM (or similar) from when you last configured the refresh rate. Wasted today using another MacBook to update the Recovery OS via DFU (using Apple Configurator), and now I'm reinstalling Sonoma from that recovery, and praying that this will unbrick my laptop for work tomorrow.
jcul 3y ago
I'm not a Mac or Asahi user (though I think it is an amazing project). However, this is such a great write up, very thorough with root cause, mitigations etc. Keep up the good work!

667 points by _susn 3y ago

there's something fundamentally wrong at apple theses days, macos just doesn't work like it used to

gcr 3y ago

TL;DR: Recent macOS Sonoma and 13.6 Ventura have upgrade bugs that brick some macs and make recoveryOS unusable, causing a black screen that requires a DFU revive. Issues on Sonoma appear most often on dual-booting macs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 Ventura upgrades can also bite you if your display refresh rate is set to anything other than ProMotion, for unclear reasons. The doc is on the Asahi Linux wiki because their developers discovered this issue, but it's not unique to Asahi. In fact, running the Asahi Linux installer can detect whether your mac will be affected by this issue, even if you ultimately choose not to install Asahi Linux. See the article for details.

markmark 3y ago
Erg, I ran into this on my mac twice when I upgraded. I have two bootable OSX partitions and it hit on both upgrades. I'm not really a mac guy and it took a _lot_ of messing around (and learning that DFU exists and what it does) to sort out. Just lucky that my daughter has a mac so that I could even use DFU without having to take the thing into an apple store.

neilalexander 3y ago

Interestingly I ran into this exact problem with my work MacBook Pro M1 upgrading to Ventura 13.6 and assumed it was a totally isolated incident. I don't have a dual-boot setup either, just a single macOS install. The computer was connected to a Thunderbolt Display during the update which I assume had the same effect of changing the refresh rate to something other-than-ProMotion that the linked article mentions. I had to do a DFU restore from another Mac and then run the macOS Sonoma installer from USB, which thankfully detected the existing install and did an in-place upgrade, preserving all of my data. Nothing else worked. I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable — it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac.

alsetmusic 3y ago
> I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable — it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac. I would have expected a Thunderbolt cable to be required, if either was. This is quite surprising to me. Usually, the more capable (higher bandwidth) cable works if one isn’t supported. I’ll hope to remember this is I ever find myself reviving a bricked Mac in the future.
- vbezhenar 3y ago
  I restored my Macbook just one hour ago with crappy USB-C USB-A cable, god bless the libimobiledevice creator.
- spacedcowboy 3y ago
  I am currently restoring an MBP using Configurator and a thunderbolt cable. You definitely can use one, perhaps your TB cable is buggered ?
- brigade 3y ago
  It's done over USB 2.0 largely because that's simpler than involving newer and faster specs, and partly because that's how the original iPhone did it. My understanding is that all complaint USB USB-C cables should work for USB 2.0, even USB4/TB4 cables, but active TB3 cables might not hook up the USB 2.0 pins.
- phillco 3y ago
  I've used a Thunderbolt cable as well successfully, but one note is that they're very picky about which port you use. On my Mac mini, I had to use the exact port outlined here or it did not show up: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/revive-or-restore-a-mac-with-apple-silicon-apdd5f3c75ad/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/reviv...
  - microtherion 3y ago

racl101 3y ago

I am so terrified of this upgrade that I think I'll wait a whole year. That's not a good thing.

hbn 3y ago
I pretty much always wait 6 months or so for Mac upgrades on whatever machine is important to me. There seems to pretty consistently be regular bugfix updates for the few months following a release.
cramjabsyn 3y ago
Its realistically what you should be doing unless your machine is a test host itself.
teaearlgraycold 3y ago
Unless you aren’t doing anything important on your Mac that’s always good advice.
rangestransform 3y ago
this happened to my work macbook while I was trying to upgrade to ventura, a 1 year old macos version
shever73 3y ago
That’s probably wise. I wish I had waited. Since upgrading to Sonoma, I have recurring issues with the system file dialog. Sometimes the dialog will open, but not allow me to save, other times it will just fail to open altogether. Any time I start a new video project now, I save it instantly because Command+S still works, but if it opens the Save As dialog then it frequently won’t.

krackers 3y ago

See also his twitter for some speculation as to how on earth simply changing refresh rate would cause boot corruption: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111329614147717090 https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111329614147717090 >Why? I can tell you why: because Apple hates display modeset flicker, and switching modes between ProMotion on/off causes a modeset flicker, so of course they made it so that is stored in nvram somewhere and applied when the screen is turned on during early boot, so when macOS boots it doesn't have to flicker again. >And they didn't test it with older OS bootloaders, so display handoff/init just fails catastrophically with those when this mode is enabled.

NavinF 3y ago
Interesting. I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. I've only encountered one app that doesn't work with variable refresh rate and that's Genshin on Windows. Even that's probably not an issue with newer monitors that can handle VRR down to 60Hz without my monitor's frame-doubling flicker as it keeps switching been 60Hz and 120Hz
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. The first reason that comes to mind is battery life. That's probably the most broadly applicable use case. But also, if I was still doing e.g. frontend web development, I would want to confirm that my css animations looked nice at 60 hz. Edit: My first use case is likely wrong, thank you to replies for reminding me Apple uses adaptive refresh down to 1 hz.
  - vvillena 3y ago
    Isn't battery life a reason to keep it on? The refresh rate will be down to 24hz most of the time.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    macOS is very good at adaptively reducing refresh rate when nothing is happening on screen, with the panel reportedly supporting the full range of 1-120hz so barring badly engineered apps that are permanently pinned at max refresh, the battery impact of keeping ProMotion on is minimal for most use cases.

wetpaws 3y ago

[dead]

mattchamb 3y ago

Not sure if related, but my 2020 M1 macbook air bricked a week or so after upgrading to Sonoma. I was suspicious if this was related to the update. Luckily the logic board was replaced for free under warranty laws here, though it put me off switching to iphone which I was a day away from doing.

bscphil 3y ago
Upgrades bricking hardware seems to be a common failure mode for macOS. For example Big Sur bricked a bunch of 2013 and 2014 MBPs: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-macbook-pros/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur-update-br... I was affected by this and like many users the problem was fixed after replacing the I/O board. In my case, I did it myself using a $10 part from Ebay since the machine was well out of warranty at that point.
- miles 3y ago
  From comments #736 and #747 attached to the forum post you kindly shared, it sounds like simply disconnecting and reconnecting the I/O board may be sufficient (found those comments linked in #831): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-29398435 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-29403412 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-bricking-some-older-macbook-pro-models.2268438/post-30087839 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update-br...
  - fifteen1506 3y ago
    And this is why there will never be a Year of the Linux Desktop -- no-one wants to have to depend on forum posts to fix these kind of issues. /troll
    - coldtea 3y ago

bitigchi 3y ago

I am somewhat glad that there is a 3rd party that actively helps finding macOS issues.

mstep 3y ago

does anyone have info if this is fixed in ventura 13.6.1? https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT213985 https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT213985

kppullin 3y ago
I just installed 13.6.1 on an M1 MacBook Pro and am now facing the boot issue, so I'm guessing it's not fixed :). To make matters worse, the specific USB port required for the DFU revive fix is broken as well, which was never an issue as the other two worked... oof.

frankjr 3y ago

> Do not let them charge you any money for it. This is a problem Apple caused, and purely a software issue. If the technicians claim there is hardware damage, they are wrong. Good luck with that.

crazygringo 3y ago
The Apple Store is usually great with this stuff. If there's a documented problem that affects your hardware model and the given software versions, they're extremely unlikely to try to charge you for anything.
- baz00 3y ago
  If it's not documented and you have a problem then you are usually shit out of luck. The early days of butterfly keyboards was hell for a lot of people. I managed to get mine back to them for a full refund 3 days after I got it thank fuck.
  - somehnguy 3y ago
    I got a full MacBook Pro replacement when my MBP had something wrong causing it to charge extremely slowly - completely on Apple's dime. They first sent me an overnight shipping box to send in my MBP, where they then replaced the top case assembly. After that didn't work they overnighted me a brand new in box MBP. I had to spend 6+ hours on the phone over multiple days with a senior tech support staff to make it happen, but at least it was eventually resolved and I didn't pay anything for it. Obviously it wasn't a documented problem because we troubleshooted everything possible before replacement.
    - solarkraft 3y ago
      > I didn't pay anything for it You paid 6+ presumably stressful hours of your time. That sounds like a crazy high price to me that you should be able to bill them for. I wonder whether they could've done it faster if they were required to reimburse you for the time and nerves you had to spend to get them to fulfill their (assuming you were within warranty) law-mandated responsibility of providing you with a product that works as described. How did you even get to the point of talking to them on the phone? When I last had a problem (extreme instability up to full crashes when RAM pressure is high, which is apparently a problem with every single ARM Mac out there) they wanted me to come into an authorized store as the first thing. I eventually caved in and just bought a machine with bigger RAM. My god, I can't imagine spending several hours over several days turning the device off and on, resetting NVRAM and re-installing the system ...

asylteltine 3y ago

I’m an apple fanboy and let me be the first to say their SDLC since the pandemic has been AWFUL. I have never had so many bugs with apple devices. And I’m not talking about giant catastrophic bugs you would expect with windows or Linux. I mean little things, like random phone reboots, overheating, my mac restarting when I wake up from sleep, internet issues, etc. They need a shake up and to stop focusing on all these features NO ONE uses. Can one person tell me they use the features they just announced? Nobody even knows you can edit an iMessage still.

aetherspawn 3y ago
I agree, I started buying some Macbooks for work and was horrified when the Launchpad just wouldn't open on a brand new Mac. Like, you press Launchpad, and it just ... doesn't open. sometimes. This kind of rancid stuff you would expect on Windows (i.e. after upgrade to Windows 11, half our laptops can't right click on the desktop sometimes) but it never used to happen on OS X.
doubloon 3y ago
" . . . The new version - it's not there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version. " - Bill Gates http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html

vbezhenar 3y ago

Today I had to DFU restore my macbook because I wanted to reinstall it, but built-in restore over the web did not work. My base system was 13.2, it downloads all the files for 13.6, it filled bar to 100% and then spewed error. It's obvious that it's some incompatibility between 13.2 base system and 13.6 install. Apple quality is atrocious these days. One would have thought they would test the most basic scenarios before releasing their x.6 software. And worse of all, there's no official (or even unofficial, at least I wasn't able to find one) way to create USB boot installer without another Mac or to DFU restore Mac without another Mac. Do they think I live in Apple Store? I don't have other Mac. I was able to DFU restore with libimobiledevice, god bless its creator, but it really should not happen. Windows or Linux are so much more transparent compared to macOS.

baz00 3y ago
Yeah the Apple bootloader and restore stuff scares the shit out of me. The network access requirement, firmware on SSD and hardware lock are always lurking waiting for the most inconvenient time to go wonky when I hose something. Conversely windows, just got a USB stick in the drawer I can boot off.
- EstesPark 3y ago
  As a lifelong Mac user, it just now hit me how inconvenient locked down the restore process is.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > Conversely windows, just got a USB stick in the drawer I can boot off. It goes further than that, on many motherboards even a failed firmware update can be fixed through a random USB stick from the drawer, you just need the right BIOS file to put in it.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    And some motherboards even have a backup BIOS if one of them becomes deranged. Now that's luxury.

alberth 3y ago

Abstraction Layers. We've gotten to point with the huge number of abstraction layers (and now AI as well) that troubleshooting what causes system to do what it did, has become so unwieldily difficult to diagnosis.

jahewson 3y ago
This doesn’t seem to be the problem here? It’s an issue of having a combinatorial number of versions to test when upgrading software and firmware.

cramjabsyn 3y ago

This is exactly why I lag one major version behind the latest.

als0 3y ago
Well, this also affects the previous major version, macOS Ventura 13.6
- supportengineer 3y ago
  This is exactly why I lag two or three versions behind the latest.
  - formerly_proven 3y ago
    This is why I'm still using RHEL 7.
- silverwind 3y ago
  Just don't upgrade to any version ending in 0.
  - lynguist 3y ago
    13.6.1 is also affected.
    - cromka 3y ago
      Need to wait for 13.6.1.1
- cirrus3 3y ago
  If that is the case, why does the OP label it as a Sonoma issue?
theodric 3y ago
This is why I'm still on Big Sur-- it mostly works!

nusaru 3y ago

> macOS Ventura 13.6 Well dang, I just upgraded yesterday, too. Fingers crossed that nothing breaks...

cleansingfire 3y ago

Only affects Apple silicon chips (intel unaffected) with ProMotion display. Just a quick Exit clause for people with older machines.

meithecatte 3y ago
Only one of the two bugs listed requires a ProMotion display. The other one can occur on all Apple silicon machines.

JohnMakin 3y ago

Lost a workstation to this last week. infuriating.

KingLancelot 3y ago

I think my 2014 MacBook on MacOS 12.5 was affected by this too. I had Ubuntu installed in a second partition and it refuses to boot ever since I installed 12.5.1 on it.

tempodox 3y ago

Holy fuck, thanks for the warning! I'm just glad I didn't upgrade to 13.6 yet. And installing Sonoma on a second volume to try it out is also out of the picture for the foreseeable future. Apple's OSs seem to get worse with every turn. Maybe I shouldn't touch Sonoma at all. What's the point on an Intel Mac anyway?

SpaceManNabs 3y ago

This seems like a very unusual bug by Apple standards. Makes me consider upgrading to new macbooks...

dgellow 3y ago
At this point it’s kind of common knowledge to wait a while before upgrading macOS to latest major version. I don’t remember a major update that didn’t come with its own set of problems.
cromka 3y ago
I don’t know, it’s pretty high there on the list of their complete fuckups, like allowing anyone to log in as root from the login dialog…

da768 3y ago

Can something be done using VoiceOver boot mode? I've already recovered macs stuck on 0 brightness after an upgrade with that... Can't find the documentation now, but it definitely exists.

jug 3y ago

I wonder if this is behind a failed Sonoma upgrade I saw on eBay today; Mac Mini M2 Pro sold as-is for a very decent price, about $300-$400 off despite from this year. :) Seller didn't know what was wrong with the Mac, only that it happened during Sonoma upgrade and this sounds mighty suspicious for such a new machine if it's widespread.

dharma1 3y ago

Had another weird refresh rate bug with 14.1 - external display doesn’t have a HDR option in settings at 120hz anymore - only works with HDR if I change the refresh rate 100hz or lower. Was fine in earlier MacOS

doubloon 3y ago

in 30 years we have gone from the idea that your computer could accidentally brick your monitor, to the idea that your monitor could accidentally brick your computer. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2006/02/02/computing-myth-1-software-cannot-damage-hardware/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2006/02/02/computing-myth-1-sof...

iudqnolq 3y ago

On a much more minor note the .0 version of the upgrade also has a big that pops up a contacts window every few minutes and steals keyboard focus.

sameg14 3y ago

I had this exact thing happen to me when I tried to reset a Mac and wipe it clean. Would not start up and went into this doom loop when booting with the apple logo and a black screen. No amount of key combinations worked. I had to drop into DFU, which is a huge pain to get into to begin with and then use another Mac to recover.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cirrus3 3y ago

First I've heard of any issues.. I have done a couple upgrades already with no issue. I'm sure there are some scenarios where it fails, but Sonoma has been out a while with millions of users being prompted constantly to upgrade. Feels like less than a "you're holding it wrong" problem. HN is obv going to bring out the edge cases, but it doesn't seem like the world is on fire with "Sonoma Bricks" by any means.

markmark 3y ago
Do you dual boot? I've got two bootable OSX partitions on my mac and this hit me when I updated.
bigDinosaur 3y ago
I use a lot of Apple products but this attitude you're expressing has always annoyed me (because I see it most frequently when it comes to Apple's software and hardware quality). These bugs affect people all the time and are indicative of poor QA. 5 users at a company we provide some software support for (note: we don't control their machines) decided to upgrade their machines and somehow became unbootable just yesterday. Please don't be in denial about Apple's increasingly worse QA. An intern with a checklist could have uncovered these issues.
codingpanic 3y ago
We have a fleet of several hundred Macs, most are M1/2 at this point. I heard reports of several Macs coming in for support that booted to a black screen after Sonoma's .0 landed. So many that the JAMF team blocked Sonoma until the .1 landed. Definitely shoddy QA on Apple's part. Also, your sample size is too small. Everyone works differently and it takes a certain set of settings/workflows to trigger this compatibility issue.

keepamovin 3y ago

When I saw the upgrade to Sonoma appear in my Settings I had a feeling the first version of this new OS would be buggy so I held off on it. Now extra glad I did! Gonna stick with Ventura for a while! Haha ! :)

ch13_ 3y ago
Agreed

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

The Sonoma update bricked my M1 MBP and Apple had to wipe the whole thing. Something stinks in this thing.

dclowd9901 3y ago

Man, I had a rough week last week. Shipped two regressions. Seeing this story, as awful as it must be for the responsible eng, has really made me feel much better. Not schadenfreude. Just commiseration.

wizzard0 3y ago

FYI the Asahi Linux installer says “please upgrade that should help” but bumping 13.6 -> Sonoma 14.1 did not help, the SystemRecovery still shows up as 13.5 Or does that mean wait for 14.2?

Alifatisk 3y ago

This is why I am not so quick with upgrading to next major version anymore.

benreesman 3y ago

I don’t know what’s going on with Apple lately. They’ve built one of the world’s best brands after a near-death experience via a ruthless focus on and fanatical commitment to providing a holistically premium experience (for the people who want their version of that) to justify their premium pricing and huge margins. If you like what they do, it Just Works from purchase on. Or did until recently. Just today I had an experience that was so Kafkaesque it felt like a mean spirited prank, and because they never fuck up this badly, I had no contingency plan for one of the times it matters a lot. Any advice on how to get the “we fix things for loyal customers by doing what’s required” people on the phone would be appreciated, but based on the runaround, infinite hold Ferris wheel the primary support line apparently is now, I’m not getting my hopes up.

SamuelAdams 3y ago
The Apple today is very different from the Apple of 20 years ago. The brand is the same, yes, but the people are all largely different. You see this all the time in the video game industry, ie Blizzard, Bungie, 343 industries. Maybe the newest group of programmers and engineers are dealing with a very complicated code base? Maybe no one fully understands everything involved until something breaks?
- benreesman 3y ago
  Just my N=1 anectdote, but I’ve been having almost universally great experiences until maybe 2 or 3 months ago. On the software side, I tend to tolerate more security risk (within reason) to delay updates until a consensus emerges that they’re robust, because I’m not a high value target to anyone north of “script kiddy” and run a tight ship on the easy stuff, so the EV of an abruptly unusable work machine vs. getting pwned weighs heavily relative to winding up in the crosshairs of anyone sophisticated enough to exploit a recent CVE. My online banking is properly 2-fac’d, if anyone wants to read my browser history or email and cares enough to go ti that trouble, I’ll want them that I’m not important enough for it to be worth the trouble. This would clearly change if my work went back to having demanding security requirements, but it doesn’t just now. It’s really the customer service, fulfillment, Apple Store experience (it used to feel like stepping into the least stressful room in the mall and now it’s a zoo).

user3939382 3y ago

Tangentially related, ever since upgrading to Sonoma my computer reboots when I put it to sleep. I’ve heard the same from other users.

ehutch79 3y ago

Reading many of the comments here… I wonder if a lot of hacker news commenters have actually met real, everyday users of technology. Not other nerds and grognards, but like, the lady sitting over in a cubical, who only knows enough about computers to do their job. Do you really think users want graphic mode selection on boot? What percent of Mac users have alternate bootloaders or even know what that means. A lot of commenters need to do some time in the proverbial trenches and support a fleet of devices at a large company. See if users really care about the things you think they do.

OJFord 3y ago
From the submission: > Once System Firmware is updated to the macOS Sonoma version, if the display is configured to a refresh rate other than ProMotion, that system will no longer be able to boot into older macOS installs nor Asahi Linux correctly. This includes recovery mode when those systems are set as the default boot OS, and also System Recovery at least until the next subsequent OS upgrade. That can and will absolutely affect regular users, even if they don't 'care' about it or 'know what it means'.
- eddieroger 3y ago
  > that system will no longer be able to boot into older macOS installs No, that seems pretty super-user to me. The average user goes forward in versions, not back, and rarely has two at the same time.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    On the contrary all normal users have two at the same time, that's the system recovery one mentioned. Normal people don't care about it, talk about it, or think about it, but may come to rely on it - or have it used by a 'Genius' when something stops working. It affects them.
  - cstrahan 3y ago
    > No, that seems pretty super-user to me. Here's a play-by-play scenario. 1) Grandma is prompted to update to Sonoma, and so she does. 2) But note that the installer does not update the recovery partition. 3) Laptop reboots, and grandma sees an Apple logo for exactly 2 seconds, and then the screen goes black. Manually rebooting results in the same thing, every time. 4) Grandma now tries to roll up her sleeves and see if she can fix it. She googles around, and discovers that the she should be able to get into the Recovery OS and maybe fix things there... but when she tries to do that, same thing: apple logo for 2 seconds and then black screen. How did I come up with this play-by-play? Well, because today I was said grandma. Where does this involve the average user going back in versions of their on volition? That's the whole point of why this bug is horrible: you get no say in the matter. You upgrade to Sonoma, and depending on your refresh rate, you can't boot into your OS. Wanna use the Recovery OS? Too bad: that's too old to know to use a functioning refresh rate settings (because the installer left the old Recovery OS version in place), and instead it uses whatever was set in NVRAM (or similar) from when you last configured the refresh rate. Wasted today using another MacBook to update the Recovery OS via DFU (using Apple Configurator), and now I'm reinstalling Sonoma from that recovery, and praying that this will unbrick my laptop for work tomorrow.

jcul 3y ago

I'm not a Mac or Asahi user (though I think it is an amazing project). However, this is such a great write up, very thorough with root cause, mitigations etc. Keep up the good work!