MacBook Pro M1 Pro is death after 26.4

[nmt1900]

I was actually in a very similar situation. I also took my MacBook to a service center, and they told me they couldn’t even get it into DFU mode, even though I had done it myself before without any issues. They then told me that the chip would need to be soldered/reworked, which sounded like a hardware issue diagnosis.

I refused that repair and took my MacBook back. I was pretty confident that the real problem was caused by the update rather than hardware failure. After some more research, I found a way to roll it back by manually using an IPSW file and reviving the device to macOS 26.3.1.

After rolling back, everything started working properly again, and the Mac fully came back to life. So in my case, it clearly turned out to be a software/firmware issue, not a chip-level hardware failure.

If your MacBook was working fine before the 26.4 / 26.4.1 update and then suddenly became a brick right after, I would really question a logic board replacement diagnosis. If possible, I would push them to try a proper DFU revive with a known working IPSW for 26.3.1 before replacing the board.

Now I think I know why this might be insurmountable task for "Genius bar" people. Sonoma introduced Finder-based DFU workflow which does not have an option to select anything - you only have selection of Revive or Restore to latest image which is downloaded online.

You have to use Apple Configurator to be able to select local ipsw file... and not have DoNotShowDeviceWindowAtStartup setting in Apple Configurator settings set to Yes - like I had because in over 99,9999999% of cases I do not need that device connection prompt as I use Apple Configurator for generating configuration profiles... except for this case. It took less time to redownload firmware with Finder based DFU restoration than to find out why Apple Configurator refused to show the device while Finder was seeing it just fine.

If Genius Bar people are not able to download files separately or do not have appropriate knowledge then they can obviously tell that it is impossible to use any other firmware than latest one straight from Apple servers.

 

[nmt1900]

Apple lists a fix for this in the macOS 26.5 enterprise release notes: “Resolved an issue where some Mac computers may start up to a black screen after a software update”

What's new for enterprise in macOS Tahoe 26 - Apple Support

Learn about the enterprise content that Apple has released for macOS Tahoe 26.

support.apple.com

It is interesting how Apple actually releases the information in this obscure way by burying it into "enterprise" release notes - as this problem affects only "enterprise" users and everyone else can just be greeted with "this is hardware issue" as there's nothing about this in "normal" release notes.