A cautionary note: Upgrading to MacOS 26.4 broke my M1 Pro MacBook Pro. (Broke it real good!—a machine that was four years old, in nearly pristine condition, and in superb working order.
On the day that Tahoe 26.4 was released, I backed up my MBP, initiated the process, waited. It lumbered along, was a large update. I waited and waited.
Eventually, at the very end of the process, the machine froze.
Couldn’t awaken or reboot the Mac. Tried to Revive it via connection to a second MBP and with the help of DFU (Device Firmware Update).
Another long process. Wait, wait, wait. Watch the progress bar until… it freezes again.
Next, tried a Restore rather than a Revive. A Restore wipes the SSD, etc. But no luck. Just mounting stress.
Brought the MBP to an Apple Store (hours away) where they performed the very same steps I had taken. Again, my Mac failed to respond. They kept it overnight, fiddled with it. The machine remained absolutely, stubbornly, irreversibly dead.
Because my MBP was no longer covered by AppleCare (because I was a jerk and forgot to renew it) the only course of action is a $700 replacement of the logic board. Wow! Because a system update went sideways? I swear, it was a healthy machine.
From Apple’s perspective, this clearly isn’t a big deal. From my perspective, seeing my four year-old machine succumb to a heart attack during an OS update… well, it was shocking. Call me naive. (No, please don’t.)
Why am I sharing this with you? It’s a cautionary note.
Be sure to have a full backup of your system before embarking on an OS update. I’m also writing because of how upsetting it is that Apple didn’t seem to care that the update process caused such a messy failure.
“Something must have been wrong with your MBP,” said each of several reps with whom I discussed this. “We can’t attribute it to the update. Must have been a problem with the machine. We can’t tell if it won’t boot.” But, but…
Here I am, fresh out of AppleCare (my mistake for forgetting to re-up it) and fresh out of any “human consideration” from Apple. Nothing along the lines of: We’re so sorry this happened, how can we help resolve this? Just: $700.
I’m not going to spend that $700 on fixing this Mac. The question now is whether I buy a new one, or look for something else.
Take care and take precautions with your software updates.
PS - I’ve been pumping money into Apple for decades. This is the first time I’ve felt that they truly just don’t care. And yeah, I know… dream on.
On the day that Tahoe 26.4 was released, I backed up my MBP, initiated the process, waited. It lumbered along, was a large update. I waited and waited.
Eventually, at the very end of the process, the machine froze.
Couldn’t awaken or reboot the Mac. Tried to Revive it via connection to a second MBP and with the help of DFU (Device Firmware Update).
Another long process. Wait, wait, wait. Watch the progress bar until… it freezes again.
Next, tried a Restore rather than a Revive. A Restore wipes the SSD, etc. But no luck. Just mounting stress.
Brought the MBP to an Apple Store (hours away) where they performed the very same steps I had taken. Again, my Mac failed to respond. They kept it overnight, fiddled with it. The machine remained absolutely, stubbornly, irreversibly dead.
Because my MBP was no longer covered by AppleCare (because I was a jerk and forgot to renew it) the only course of action is a $700 replacement of the logic board. Wow! Because a system update went sideways? I swear, it was a healthy machine.
From Apple’s perspective, this clearly isn’t a big deal. From my perspective, seeing my four year-old machine succumb to a heart attack during an OS update… well, it was shocking. Call me naive. (No, please don’t.)
Why am I sharing this with you? It’s a cautionary note.
Be sure to have a full backup of your system before embarking on an OS update. I’m also writing because of how upsetting it is that Apple didn’t seem to care that the update process caused such a messy failure.
“Something must have been wrong with your MBP,” said each of several reps with whom I discussed this. “We can’t attribute it to the update. Must have been a problem with the machine. We can’t tell if it won’t boot.” But, but…
Here I am, fresh out of AppleCare (my mistake for forgetting to re-up it) and fresh out of any “human consideration” from Apple. Nothing along the lines of: We’re so sorry this happened, how can we help resolve this? Just: $700.
I’m not going to spend that $700 on fixing this Mac. The question now is whether I buy a new one, or look for something else.
Take care and take precautions with your software updates.
PS - I’ve been pumping money into Apple for decades. This is the first time I’ve felt that they truly just don’t care. And yeah, I know… dream on.
