Monterey Beta Bricking 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro

Would love to get some insight from anybody else that may have experienced this.

I bought a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro in January. Installed the Monterey beta on it at the end of January. In February, I spilled a full cup of coffee next to it and brought it in for Apple Care repair.

They replaced nearly everything- from the logic board to the batteries to both cases and fans.

When I was restoring my time machine backup, migration assistant advised updating to the Monterey beta since that's what OS my backup used.

Accepting this prompt within migration assistant restarted the machine but did not complete the update. So I tried to update to the Monterey beta from within system preferences. This resulted in a boot loop and effectively bricked the computer.

I restored using Apple Configurator and DFU mode and have tried every possible permutation of updating to the Monterey beta only to receive the same result.

Does anybody know what could be causing this?

Up vote post of jjg08d Down vote post of jjg08d
6.4k views
Posted by
jjg08d
Reply

  • No answer. It's happened to me, too:

    I updated to Monterey 12.3 beta 3 and it bricked my laptop. My own attempts at revive/recover via Apple Configurator 2 failed. They also failed at my local service center and after conversation with Apple they replaced the logic board.

    I misread the release notes on Monterey 12.3 beta 4 and thought that the issue was fixed but... yep, bricked again and requires logic board replacement. Apple developer for 36 years and have NEVER had software require a logic board replacement. Be careful out there.

    Also, I sent messages about this via the developer's Feedback Assistant app but have heard nothing in return. Also, there has been no acknowledgement in the subsequent release notes.

    I hope against hope that this is not a harbinger of disaster and will wait several weeks after public release before trying to update that development machine again (and just keep daily working on my 2019 MacBook Pro). Y'all be careful out there, too!

    https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/701419

    —
    sfriedrich

  • Exact same problem on 14" M1 Pro.

    Feb 2022: (Everything except bottom panel replaced due to liquid damage)

    Today: (12.3 Upgrade attempt 1 fails to iBoot Panic) -> (12.3 Upgrade attempt 2 fails to recovery screen with exclamation mark) -> (DFU Revive works, only with 12.2.1 IPSW) -> (macOS Recovery Options (Full disk erase + 12.3 install from internet) leads to deeper bricked state with no recovery screen, but entering DFU is possible.) -> (Currently being looked at by Apple store)

    —
    ksaburao

  • This is being discussed in the user forums also https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253743699?login=true&page=2

    Macrumors and 9to5Mac have picked this up.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2022/03/17/macos-monterey-bricking-macs-logic-boards/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/17/repaired-m1-macs-being-bricked/

    I share those only to hopefully encourage Apple to address this issue. I spent several hours with a Genius at the Genius Bar yesterday to get back to a working 12.2.1. Hopefully we'll see a 12.3.1 with a fix shortly.

    —
    rpetty

Accepted Reply

Apple released 12.3.1 today which allegedly addresses this issue.

My MacBook Pro is still at the repair shop waiting for a second replacement logic board.

Does anybody who was experiencing this issue have theirs handy to test and verify this?

Posted by
jjg08d
Up vote reply of jjg08d Down vote reply of jjg08d
Post marked as solved

  • I can confirm that macOS 12.3.1 fixes this, my Mac won't install 12.3, even after the Genius Bar tried to repair it by replacing the motherboard, but I've successfully installed 12.3.1.

    —
    Extrawdw

  • Yeah I have a December 16-in MacBook Pro m1 Pro which was working perfectly fine up until last night when I noticed it there was a notification for an system upgrade... At which point I was scared to do the upgrade so I went into the preferences and turned off automatically download upgrades and automatically install upgrades... Turned off the computer went to bed got up this morning and pushed the power button and got a black screen with an exclamation point saying apple/com/Mac/restore... Nobody could figure anything out so I took it to the Apple store and the so-called geniuses there hooked up the machine and tried to revive it only to have it fail on its revival.. I stopped them from restoring the machine because I wanted to see if there was a chance to save the data because all my clients work was on that and I got a quote of anywhere from $1500 to $3,000 to restore the data And now I have to go have my machine wiped and from what I'm reading here I may have to have a logic board put in? This is completely asinine and I have lost tens of thousands of dollars of client data that unfortunately hadn't been backed up... I called Apple said hey I don't want my machine fixed cuz it could happen again can you send me a new machine and they just left understandably I guess... This is completely crazy I can't believe Apple is messing up people's lives this badly

    —
    Joe_Roman1

  • Confirm working also on ipsw restore

    —
    ksaburao

Replies

There is a firmware bug in Mac OS 12.3 that renders the update impossible to install on any 2021 14 or 16 inch MacBook Pro that has had it's logic board replaced.

The cycle is:

  • You try to upgrade, the upgrade will fail but recovery to handle it correctly, you'll reboot still on 12.2.1 but with a report a problem dialogue informing you of an iBoot Panic
  • You'll try to upgrade again. This time, the iBoot FW will corrupt. You'll see the apple icon flash on boot 5-6 times before seeing the exclamation mark symbol telling you recovery is needed.
  • You can try and revive using a second Mac with Apple Configurator 2. This will fail, because it tries to load the 12.3 firmware from the IPSW, in either DFU or Recovery mode.
  • The only way to get things running again is to manually download the 12.2.1 IPSW and use Apple Configurator 2, with the Mac in DFU mode, to load the revive image. This will update the firmware of iBoot, and the recovery image to a working build. The Mac will then restore 12.2.1's OS, keeping your data upon finishing.

I've submitted as many logs of all this to AppleSeed via Feedback Assistant, but I suspect this will take days to actually get to someone to can acknowledge the issue. In the meantime, there's going to be many bricked MBPs as most people won't have a second Mac to preform a revive, and even if they do, won't understand why that fails as it tries to load 12.3.

There's seemingly no point going to the Apple Store Genius Bar based on @sfriedrich's comments. They'll just do a logic board replacement again which will fail on upgrade.

Posted by
lgladdy
Post not yet marked as solved Up vote reply of lgladdy Down vote reply of lgladdy

  • Same here on my MacBook 14" M1 Pro with replaced logic board. Workaround with Apple Configurator 2 in DFU mode und revive with macOS 12.2.1 IPSW works smooth, thank you. Any idea why this happens with MacBooks wit replaced board?

    Regards, Falk

    —
    HeinzMueller

  • My device had its logic board and touch ID replaced TWICE because of this issue (for free). On the first time, they tried updating and found that it made the board unusable so they immediately ordered a new set. On the second time the technician didn’t update the OS from factory, and I have to manually flash 12.2.1 through DFU.

    —
    ksaburao

  • My MacBook Pro 14 became a brick after I tried to download the 12.3 update. The board was replaced here at the Bondi Junction store. I tried downloading the update today and my machine is still working although it won't load the update. I am staying away from this update until Apple announces a fix for those of us who are having this problem.

    —
    ozjude

Mine also bricked (16in 2021 MBP). I sent it in in January for water damage repair. Genius bar sent it out and was "repaired" in a day and sent back. All working now, except it's stuck not updating, and instead when I go to update and restart, it doesn't do anything, despite it looking like it installed the update... super weird! Tried Apple Config 2 at home and in-store, and was bugging out or erroring out every time. Hopefully, there's a fix for this soon. Tried Universal Control on my MBA, and it's AMAZING!

Posted by
zacdelane
Post not yet marked as solved Up vote reply of zacdelane Down vote reply of zacdelane
Add a Comment

This MacOS update also bricked my MacBook Pro's MagSafe 3 charger logic board. So the Genius Bar just replaced it and everything works again.

Posted by
xXWillXx
Post not yet marked as solved Up vote reply of xXWillXx Down vote reply of xXWillXx
Add a Comment

...is there any update on this? Has anyone successfully updated? 16" M1 MacBook Pro with a replaced logic board here; luckily I searched before I tried to update.

Posted by
jcm_
Up vote reply of jcm_ Down vote reply of jcm_
Add a Comment

Same story and I have got the first update failed. Now I'm trying everything to prevent my MacBook Pro 16" to restart and update himself to 12.3 at night.

Posted by
cidre
Up vote reply of cidre Down vote reply of cidre
Add a Comment

Same here, but (based on my experience alone) I think it may have been an issue prior to 12.3. In late Dec 2021 my 16" M1 MacBook Pro failed to update from 12.0.1 to 12.1 with the symptoms above. Apple replaced the logic board. In March 2022, same issue occurred when attempting to upgrade to 12.3, Apple again replaced logic board. Because my user backups were still on 12.0.1, as was the freshly reformatted drive, when I attempted to upgrade to 12.3. again today it failed to install. Very glad I found this thread while 12.3. was re-downloading for the 3rd time, before I bricked it for the 3rd time!

Switching off automatic updates for now...

Posted by
TobyStokes
Up vote reply of TobyStokes Down vote reply of TobyStokes
Add a Comment

I am having exactly the same problems as TobyStokes but I did not replace the logic board. I hope Apple fixes this issue soon. I never had an MBP that has so many problems with updates.

Posted by
deepseadweller
Up vote reply of deepseadweller Down vote reply of deepseadweller

  • Same here, mine was brand new, no logic board replacement. 12.3 was not a beta, It was downloaded automatically by apple and I just accepted the installation, during the installation it showed an error "iBoot panic" installation failed, so I tried again and that bricked my laptop, I tried revive with apple configurator 2 and DFU mode several times and it failed, went to the store and they replaced the logic board with a new one that came with 12.1, I tried to upgrade again and after seeing the same iBoot Panic error I freaked!! so I restored the system and obviously I didn't try again it would brick the laptop again, now and I am waiting for a solution, this is stupid...

    —
    chrstation
Add a Comment

Same here. 14-inch 2021 MBP, Logic Board replaced due to accidental damage, bricked trying to update 12.3 after trying the software update reboot fail repeat iBoot Panic.

Just got it back from AppleCare yet again (twice in one year for a brand new machine - FML) and it's on 12.2! It's like Apple knew and wouldn't update to the latest version, despite what the receipt says about "fresh install."

Now, i've got this notification that won't go away on software update and i don't dare try it again (i did it once when i got it back today - iBoot Panic again)

Posted by
skittle
Up vote reply of skittle Down vote reply of skittle
Add a Comment

Same here, mine was brand new, no logic board replacement. 12.3 was not a beta, It was downloaded automatically by apple and I just accepted the installation, during the installation it showed an error "iBoot panic" installation failed, so I tried again and that bricked my laptop, I tried revive with apple configurator 2 and DFU mode several times and it failed, went to the store and they replaced the logic board with a new one that came with 12.1, I tried to upgrade again and after seeing the same iBoot Panic error I freaked!! so I restored the system and obviously I didn't try again it would brick the laptop again, now and I am waiting for a solution, this is stupid...

Posted by
chrstation
Up vote reply of chrstation Down vote reply of chrstation
Add a Comment

Apple released 12.3.1 today which allegedly addresses this issue.

My MacBook Pro is still at the repair shop waiting for a second replacement logic board.

Does anybody who was experiencing this issue have theirs handy to test and verify this?

Posted by
jjg08d
Up vote reply of jjg08d Down vote reply of jjg08d
Post marked as solved

  • I can confirm that macOS 12.3.1 fixes this, my Mac won't install 12.3, even after the Genius Bar tried to repair it by replacing the motherboard, but I've successfully installed 12.3.1.

    —
    Extrawdw

  • Yeah I have a December 16-in MacBook Pro m1 Pro which was working perfectly fine up until last night when I noticed it there was a notification for an system upgrade... At which point I was scared to do the upgrade so I went into the preferences and turned off automatically download upgrades and automatically install upgrades... Turned off the computer went to bed got up this morning and pushed the power button and got a black screen with an exclamation point saying apple/com/Mac/restore... Nobody could figure anything out so I took it to the Apple store and the so-called geniuses there hooked up the machine and tried to revive it only to have it fail on its revival.. I stopped them from restoring the machine because I wanted to see if there was a chance to save the data because all my clients work was on that and I got a quote of anywhere from $1500 to $3,000 to restore the data And now I have to go have my machine wiped and from what I'm reading here I may have to have a logic board put in? This is completely asinine and I have lost tens of thousands of dollars of client data that unfortunately hadn't been backed up... I called Apple said hey I don't want my machine fixed cuz it could happen again can you send me a new machine and they just left understandably I guess... This is completely crazy I can't believe Apple is messing up people's lives this badly

    —
    Joe_Roman1

  • Confirm working also on ipsw restore

    —
    ksaburao

Did any of you above check to see under about this Mac if under serial number was showing unavailable? If so then the Apple Store could have failed to flash the replacement logic board with existing serial number which likely caused issues installing software update?

Posted by
bigtroop963
Up vote reply of bigtroop963 Down vote reply of bigtroop963
Add a Comment

I am also assuming that's why Apple has not released any new betas due to complaints of logic board replacments causing bricked MacBooks?

Posted by
bigtroop963
Up vote reply of bigtroop963 Down vote reply of bigtroop963
Add a Comment

I just updated to 12.3.1 A-OK, so it seems that they've patched the bug!

Posted by
zacdelane
Up vote reply of zacdelane Down vote reply of zacdelane

  • 12.3.1 still does not work for my MBP 16inch 2021 through the normal updates. I have not tried safe mode since I am afraid it may brick it.

    —
    deepseadweller
Add a Comment

Should I wait? 12.3.1 update still fails for my M1 Max MBP 16 inch 2021. I am afraid to try safe mode again.

Posted by
deepseadweller
Up vote reply of deepseadweller Down vote reply of deepseadweller
Add a Comment