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Cant shut down or restart MacBook Air M1

DavidQPR

DavidQPR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 25, 2017
224
109
Leighton Buzzard UK
The last couple of days I have been unable to restart or shut down my MacBook Air M1 from the usual menu. Nothing happens if I click on shut down or restart. I always have to hold down the power button.

Steps I have tried to rectify:
Uninstalled everything from the last week
Booted into safe mode and tried to restart
Reinstalled the os(Big Sur)
Run first aid

Any other ideas? Many thanks for any responses
 
Is there a process disallowing it? From the same menu, click Force Quit, is anything listed there that could prevent the shutdown?
 
Given that this is a brand new device, I'd encourage you to call Apple and have them troubleshoot it from their end. May help uncover a bug for engineering that can be fixed down the road.

Given that you cannot restart even in Safe Mode, it's a safe bet that this is not an app or issue on your end.

When you said you reinstalled Big Sur, could you confirm if you did a clean install? That would be the only additional step I would try on your own... A clean install would require you to format the drive and then install entirely fresh.
 
Before I wiped clean I decided to try restoring to a time machine before the problems started. Of course there is no option to do that so I deleted the last backup off my external and then more problems started. During restore I got an error that it "Failed to personalise the software update". Tried again with same result. Feeling that I might just destroy the Mac with a sledgehammer I did a live chat with Apple who told me that several silicon Macs are getting this problem and reinstalling Big Sur is becoming a headache for many.

She sent me instructions that did eventually allow me to reinstall Big Sur and my 10 day old backup is now on. Just got the job of trying to get it up to date. Luckily I made scrupulous notes first of what needs updating.

Obviously this inability to reinstall the os on M1 Macs is something that Apple will need to correct pretty quick.
 
DavidQPR said:
Before I wiped clean I decided to try restoring to a time machine before the problems started. Of course there is no option to do that so I deleted the last backup off my external and then more problems started. During restore I got an error that it "Failed to personalise the software update". Tried again with same result. Feeling that I might just destroy the Mac with a sledgehammer I did a live chat with Apple who told me that several silicon Macs are getting this problem and reinstalling Big Sur is becoming a headache for many.

She sent me instructions that did eventually allow me to reinstall Big Sur and my 10 day old backup is now on. Just got the job of trying to get it up to date. Luckily I made scrupulous notes first of what needs updating.

Obviously this inability to reinstall the os on M1 Macs is something that Apple will need to correct pretty quick.
Click to expand...
Restore back to a very base install has been discovered by a user here.

Looking to reformat or erase your M1 Mac?

I've seen a number of posts where people have had challenges on their M1 Mac when reinstalling the OS from scratch or reformatting and reinstalling the OS or erasing their M1 Mac to return it. As of Big Sur 11.0.1 - doing this the traditional way, using the Recovery Tools causes issues (Using...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
FilmIndustryGuy said:
my M1 air won't even power on anymore. Skipping this beta testing and sticking with my intel
Click to expand...
Well that's what the 1 Year Warranty and 14-day return policy are good for!

My original 2018 Mac mini was DOA out of the box, so I feel for you... Luckily it's a rare occurrence and Apple is fantastic and swapping them out and looking into what went wrong.
 
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