macOS Big Sur Update Bricking Some Older MacBook Pro Models

[Bmju]

I believe I have a genuine fix for this (apologies if I have missed the same instructions somewhere above, from a quick search for "battery" in the thread I couldn't see anything).

TL/DR: Make sure the machine is powered down (see below for how to tell); then disassemble the machine enough to disconnect the battery; after disconnecting the battery, hold down the power button for five seconds, then reconnect the battery, reassemble and restart.

Longer version: I have been on this thread, installing Big Sur on an Late 2012 13" Retina Display MBP. This machine is just before the official support cut-off for Big Sur, and the only difference between this and supported MBPs from 2013 is that its Wi-Fi card is slightly older, and not supported by Big Sur. Using this method, after updating the Wi-Fi card, I have successfully installed a completely unpatched version of Big Sur on it.

After doing an OTA update from one beta version of Big Sur to another, I got exactly the same symptoms as described in this thread for supported 2013-2014 13" MBPs. In particular from the lit-up Apple logo on the case, and also from any plugged in USB accessories such as external hard drives, you can see that the machine is powering up and powering down, but it just hangs at a black screen.

Well I wanted my Mac back, of course, and since all the keyboard combinations failed, I tried applying the instructions for 'Notebook computers with a battery that can be removed' from https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295 .

I can confirm that this fixed my machine immediately. And by the way, I have now 'bricked' my machine and then fixed it using this method twice (doh!), so I believe there is genuinely some hope that this would also be a fix for officially supported machines - as long as you are prepared to take your machine apart far enough to remove the battery, or know someone who is.

So, find some good web instructions for how to remove the battery for your MBP (you do not have to remove it, just disconnect it); disconnect it; then hold down the power button for 5 seconds (I actually held it down for 5, then 10, then 15 seconds, but I imagine five would work! I am not sure what this stage is doing, I would guess just discharging capacitors to ensure complete removal of power); then reconnect, re-assemble and carry on with the interrupted install of Big Sur.

From discussions on the Unsupported Macs thread (which I can also confirm from my own experience), it seems that the problem only happens if you run the update entirely as an in-place software update. If you follow Apple's createinstallmedia instructions and install it that way instead (even as an update) then the problem doesn't happen.

 

[oldmacs]

WOW the majority? Where's your proof on any of this? I've been a dedicated Mac user for 25 years starting with Windows and I have a degree in electronics. Most Mac users were Windows users first and you have to be pretty technically inclined to deal with anything past reading emails on Windows so your view on this is a view of ignorance, unless you have facts to back any of what you said up.

Where is your proof that most Mac users are technically inclined?

There are huge numbers of Windows users who aren’t technically inclined and can do a lot more than just read emails.

 

[maneta]

i hate that some of the icons are still round on dock, and others not...It looks trashy

 

[mknell]

I believe I have a genuine fix for this (apologies if I have missed the same instructions somewhere above, from a quick search for "battery" in the thread I couldn't see anything).

TL/DR: Disassemble the machine, disconnect the battery, hold down the power button for five seconds, re-assemble.

Longer version: I have been on this thread, installing Big Sur on an Late 2012 13" Retina Display MBP. This machine is just before the official support cut-off for Big Sur, and the only difference between this and supported MBPs from 2013 is that its Wi-Fi card is slightly older, and not supported by Big Sur. Using this method, after updating the Wi-Fi card, I have successfully installed a completely unpatched version of Big Sur on it.

After doing an OTA update, I got exactly the same symptoms as described in this thread for supported 2013-2014 13" MBPs. In particular from the lit-up Apple logo on the case, and also from any plugged in USB accessories such as external hard drives, you can see that the machine is powering up and powering down, but it just hangs at a black screen.

Well I wanted my Mac back, of course, and since all the keyboard combinations failed, I tried applying the instructions for 'Notebook computers with a battery that can be removed' from https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295 .

I can confirm that this fixed my machine immediately. And by the way, I have now 'bricked' my machine and fixed it using this method twice (doh!), so I believe there is genuinely some hope that this would also be a fix for supported machines - as long as you are prepared to take your machine apart far enough to remove the battery, or know someone who is.

So, find some good web instructions for how to remove the battery for your MBP (you do not have to remove it, just disconnect it); disconnect it; then hold down the power button for 5 seconds (I actually held it down for 5, then 10, then 15 seconds, but I imagine five would work! I am not sure what this stage is doing, I would guess just discharging capacitors to ensure complete removal of power); then reconnect, re-assemble and carry on with the interrupted install of Big Sur.

From discussions on the Unsupported Macs thread (which I can also confirm from my own experience), it seems that the problem only comes if you run the update entirely as an in-place software update. If you follow Apple's createinstallmedia instructions and install it that way instead (even as an update) then the problem doesn't happen.

Thanks for sharing and good to hear "simulating draining the battery" worked for you and is also doing the trick for others.
My MBP 13 Mid 2014 with an obviously now damaged i/o card though does not benefit of the described procedure. I tried it twice now. Just for others with a proposedly damaged i/o card to know. You can of course give it a try, just saying it does not work for me.

If during installation before the damage happens your machine rebooted and you got a black screen,
then unplugging the battery and/or i/o card to continue installation may still help though, as I can read from others.
If your i/o card has already been damaged, the only working procedure I could read and personally experienced is that you can use the MBP with external keyboard and mouse on the left hand side usb + firewire LAN connect and unplugged i/o board again. I was able to re-install Catalina and install Big sur successfully. No data has been lost by the way. SSD is working fine.
If I now re-plug i/o though I get a black screen. Even if I replug i/o after booting it does not work, so i/o card seems to be permanently damaged.

 

[JFV_noB]

Hmm, so because it worked for you and sw and hw are constants, it is the user.
You are oversimplifying.

I am a convinced Apple user since the Mac Mini came on the market.
I still like Apple's products.
I am not a professional negative reporter.

My MBP 13 Mid 2014 has no a not working i/o board.
I had applied the 10.15.7 update the evening before
and just started the 11.0.1 update taking all the care
it needs after checking time machine backup was fresh
and Apple supporting my machine.

Most users in the same situation report as I can confirm
for myself that the extraordinary thing is that I had an
SD card(Transcend Jetdrive) in a Card reader; in my case external
as part of a USB hub.
Others also report to have all kinds of SD cards in the internal
Card reader.
Result of running the update for some was that the
installation processes stopped. They report that for them removing the
i/o card connection and rebooting, continuing the installation successfully
and after that replugging the i/o card connection in worked
for them without a damage.
Others like me were more unlucky and the i/o board is broken now
by the sw. The installation process was not finished (were still on Catalina).
No I also needed to unplug the i/o connection, I was able with an external
keyboard and an external mouse to get Catalina recovered.
I am now in the process of installing Big Sur.
After this hopefully has been finished successfully I will need to wait for
my i/o card replacement and thermal paste to arrive to be able
to exchange the toasted/ damaged i/o card by a new one
to have a fully functional Macbook again. All this will be on my own expense.
I have ordered an Apple M1 MBP anyway.
I will also continue to use the Apple ecosystem.
I am also using Windows 10 at work and have Linux VMs running.

But what I think is really not ok from Apple is to delete the findings and
facts of their customers exchanging experiences, evidence, workarounds
and solution on the apple support community.
I also do think it is extraordinary for a OS update to damage Hardware.
I think it is not ok to tell customers to pay whatever amount to exchange
a full logic board if an i/o board has been damaged during a sw installation.

Now people can argue that the customers affected by the bricking were
installing the OS update to early or were not taking the necessary attention.
I think this is silly in the first place.
Secondly it does neither help Apple nor their customers.
Customers that receive an OS update have the right to expect their
hardware not to be damaged while installing it.

I also understand that if Apple did not know of the circumstances
under which the OS could damage the HW, as it has not been reported
during the beta test phase that such an error occurred to be responsible alone
for all these hw defects of customers installing this os.

BUT you know, I saw the hints on how to fix this situation from a user
that was reporting the issue he experienced during installing one of the
recent beta releases and I also so another user mentioning strange
behaviour of the installer during a beta release incl. the use of an SD card
even mentioning that he needed to consult a genius bar to fix the situation
for him during beta installations twice.
Both of these comments can be found on forums in reddit.
I cannot proof that these comments are fully correct or my interpretation
of the full circumstances.
But if any of these forum posts are correct then Apple could have prevented
all this hw damage of hundreds of their customers by either excluding these
older Macs from Big sur updates or by patching the faulty sw before shipping it.
In other words Apple could have done something to avoid all this hw damage.

Of course it is convinient to avoid liability claims and also helpful for hw sales
to tell customers it is their fault or their liability if their notebooks are now
damaged. But in the light of the above potential findings I think it is not
really customer friendly or ok.

Sorry for the long text, but I thought I would like to be a little more
balanced so that I do not hurt anybody's feelings or just blame the poor
guys currently dealing with their not working machines, or the people
at Apple too easily.
I just want this all not to happen again in any of the next release
as we all value Apples HW & SW products incl. the reliability of the
eco system.
Cheers Markus

Hi Markus!

Thanks so much on sharing to us the workaround to fix the issue by disconnecting and reconnecting the I/O board. But this workaround will remain a band-aid solution in my case, since I believe that my I/O board was damaged during the install process.

I want to share some observations and views on this issue as well:

I also have an SD card mounted as an expandable storage. But I removed it prior to clean installation; along with other devices such as my MIDI controllers and external DisplayPort monitor.
The only device connected was a USB bootable flash drive I created so I can do a clean install. One thing that I note though is that it was mounted at I/O board's USB port which is at right side of my MacBook Pro.

As much as I'm tempting to get the latest MacBook Pro with M1 inside, its like giving in to Apple's sneaky attempt to get their customers to buy their new ones. So I, on the other hand, cannot wait for Apple's response. Maybe a Service Program at least?

Unless Apple is now actively working on solution, deleting posts in Apple Support Community that share discoveries about damaged I/O boards while installation was a selfish and cruel move.

I hope that Apple would have a slightest bit of conscience and be liable on this issue. Their customers don't deserve this.

Kindness,

JFV_noB

 

[mknell]

Hi Markus!

Thanks so much on sharing to us the workaround to fix the issue by disconnecting and reconnecting the I/O board. But this workaround will remain a band-aid solution in my case, since I believe that my I/O board was damaged during the install process.

I want to share some observations and views on this issue as well:

I also have an SD card mounted as an expandable storage. But I removed it prior to clean installation; along with other devices such as my MIDI controllers and external DisplayPort monitor.
The only device connected was a USB bootable flash drive I created so I can do a clean install. One thing that I note though is that it was mounted at I/O board's USB port which is at right side of my MacBook Pro.

As much as I'm tempting to get the latest MacBook Pro with M1 inside, its like giving in to Apple's sneaky attempt to get their customers to buy their new ones. So I, on the other hand, cannot wait for Apple's response. Maybe a Service Program at least?

Unless Apple is now actively working on solution, deleting posts in Apple Support Community that share discoveries about damaged I/O boards while installation was a selfish and cruel move.

I hope that Apple would have a slightest bit of conscience and be liable on this issue. Their customers don't deserve this.

Kindness,

JFV_noB

Sure if your i/o board like mine has already been damaged, it will need to get replaced.
I ordered a replacement and thermal paste to do the replacement.
I will not wait for Apple to tell me at which price they would repair the damage.
I just want to get this one fixed to sell the notebook in good and working condition with
Big Sur on it once I have my new MBP up and running.

I agree Apple should do their research (which has been reported to be in progress and it would take at least until the end of this week).

I quote a post from user JCRH99 from the apple discussion forum
"GENIUS BAR UPDATE.

I handed my mid-2014 MBP to the apple store yesterday and they have just called to update, some key points.

• Device was unresponsive to their diagnostic tools.
• Engineers are aware of the issue, issue has been escalated to higher ups.
• They are awaiting information on how to repair the affected devices so that issues do not re-occur.
• If around 2% of devices sold have this issue, the cost to repair may be covered by apple however not confirmed as of now.
• Around 3 days for another update.

• I believe at the time I was on 11.0.1 Public Beta, it was the first public beta made available, sorry I cannot remember the exact version.
• I did have an SD Card inserted, I also had an ethernet to USB device plugged in on the left hand IO.
• There was no firmware password set and filevault had been turned off as it had caused issues with installing big sur developer betas prior to this.
• I had been using 11.0.0 developer betas for a while with no issues whatsoever.
• I first saw these symptoms when updating to 11.0.1 Developer Release, it failed to update and showed the black screen, however recovery could still work and the OS could be restored with a bootable USB.
• I then successfully updated to the 11.0.1 public release, but after a power cycle, the device showed the black screen issue with recovery completely corrupt."

 

[kkaul]

What is Apple going to do about this?? Either it fixes the problem or it owes everyone whose computer it bricked a new one. Btw this happened on my 2012 Macbook Pro 15", so it appears to brick everything earlier than 2014.

 

[JFV_noB]

Sure if your i/o board like mine has already been damaged, it will need to get replaced.
I ordered a replacement and thermal paste to do the replacement.
I will not wait for Apple to tell me at which price they would repair the damage.
I just want to get this one fixed to sell the notebook in good and working condition with
Big Sur on it once I have my new MBP up and running.

I agree Apple should do their research (which has been reported to be in progress and it would take at least until the end of this week).

I quote a post from user JCRH99 from the apple discussion forum
"GENIUS BAR UPDATE.

I handed my mid-2014 MBP to the apple store yesterday and they have just called to update, some key points.

• Device was unresponsive to their diagnostic tools.
• Engineers are aware of the issue, issue has been escalated to higher ups.
• They are awaiting information on how to repair the affected devices so that issues do not re-occur.
• If around 2% of devices sold have this issue, the cost to repair may be covered by apple however not confirmed as of now.
• Around 3 days for another update.

• I believe at the time I was on 11.0.1 Public Beta, it was the first public beta made available, sorry I cannot remember the exact version.
• I did have an SD Card inserted, I also had an ethernet to USB device plugged in on the left hand IO.
• There was no firmware password set and filevault had been turned off as it had caused issues with installing big sur developer betas prior to this.
• I had been using 11.0.0 developer betas for a while with no issues whatsoever.
• I first saw these symptoms when updating to 11.0.1 Developer Release, it failed to update and showed the black screen, however recovery could still work and the OS could be restored with a bootable USB.
• I then successfully updated to the 11.0.1 public release, but after a power cycle, the device showed the black screen issue with recovery completely corrupt."

That's good to hear. I agree that Apple should cover the repair cost. Somehow, I see justice to all this. (I can't believe I'm saying this).

What is Apple going to do about this?? Either it fixes the problem or it owes everyone whose computer it bricked a new one. Btw this happened on my 2012 Macbook Pro 15", so it appears to brick everything earlier than 2014.

I doubt that Apple would giveaway new ones even if it's the same model. Plus, you have a 2012 model; while Big Sur only supports 2013 and later. So Apple won't likely cover that.

 

[LillDrutten]

Some people complains that people should be happy to get new OS. Well, there is no choice apple does not provide security updates for last years OS. I would very much more prefer that they had maintenance on their products.

 

[Bmju]

Thanks for sharing and good to hear "simulating draining the battery" worked for you and is also doing the trick for others.
My MBP 13 Mid 2014 with an obviously now damaged i/o card though does not benefit of the described procedure. I tried it twice now. Just for others with a proposedly damaged i/o card to know. You can of course give it a try, just saying it does not work for me.

...

@mknell Do you have a link for the "simulating draining the battery" technique? I came up with this independently.

It did occur to me that draining the battery might achieve the same result, but of course you'd have to drain every last drop of power, so that the large battery isn't powering up even a puny NVRAM chip! Physically disconnecting the battery is more certain to achieve that - though obviously more invasive of your Mac. I was just wondering, have you actually tried physically disconnecting the battery? (I'm not saying it definitely would work, just interested to be able to 100% rule it out.)

It's also great to hear about your own fixes, regarding accessing the drive of a 'bricked' Mac by connecting it to another machine.

EDIT: Following your hint, I found this post about successfully draining the battery - thanks! I still want to ask my other questions as above, because IMHO physically disconnecting the battery is much more certain to power down the NVRAM/PRAM - and if it stays powered up, that could be enough to explain all this.

 

[Bmju]

What is Apple going to do about this?? Either it fixes the problem or it owes everyone whose computer it bricked a new one. Btw this happened on my 2012 Macbook Pro 15", so it appears to brick everything earlier than 2014.

I'd definitely suggest trying my physically disconnecting the battery technique.

It has worked for me twice, after 'bricking' (though of course not really bricking after all) my own 2012 13" retina MBP twice, while playing around with various Big Sur beta updates and reinstalls.

I suspect it could only happen twice on the same machine because at one point during this process I did an internet recovery to Catalina, which I believe reset the boot ROM back again, meaning that a later Big Sur update could cause the same problem once again.

As well as hoping that this does indeed fix your machine, I'd also be very keen to have someone else confirm whether or not physically disconnecting the battery, and then holding down the power button for 5 seconds before reconnecting and reassembling, helps with this.

 

[mknell]

@mknell Do you have a link for the "simulating draining the battery" technique? I came up with this independently.

It did occur to me that draining the battery might achieve the same result, but of course you'd have to drain every last drop of power, so that the large battery isn't powering up even a puny NVRAM chip! Physically disconnecting the battery is more certain to achieve that - though obviously more invasive of your Mac. I was just wondering, have you actually tried physically disconnecting the battery? (I'm not saying it definitely would work, just interested to be able to 100% rule it out.)

It's also great to hear about your own fixes, regarding accessing the drive of a 'bricked' Mac by connecting it to another machine.

EDIT: Following your hint, I found this post about successfully draining the battery - thanks! I still want to ask my other questions as above, because IMHO physically disconnecting the battery is much more certain to power down the NVRAM/PRAM - and if it stays powered up, that could be enough to explain all this.

With my term "simulating draining the battery" I tried to summarize your disconnecting the battery pack connection and pressing the power button for 5 seconds, as actually the Mac "thinks" the battery is empty and shows an empty battery symbol after you pressed the power button.
I earlier also really drained the battery to empty but letting it run without power and you see the same result for my MBP.

I did not connect my MBP to another Mac, but I used my MBP after disconnecting the i/o board.

My i/o board is damaged so disconnecting the battery pack or really draining it does not fix it
for me, but might fix it for others.

 

[Bmju]

With my term "simulating draining the battery" I tried to summarize your disconnecting the battery pack connection and pressing the power button for 5 seconds ...

Ahh - understood!

... as actually the Mac "thinks" the battery is empty and shows an empty battery symbol after you pressed the power button. ...

I'm confused by this though, because my MBP certainly doesn't think or do anything at all when its battery is physically disconnected! (An empty battery symbol after you press the power button would be a sure sign that it is a) connected and b) definitely does have enough power to still power the NVRAM chips, in fact!)

My i/o board is damaged so disconnecting the battery pack or really draining it does not fix it
for me, but might fix it for others.

I'm very sorry that this seems to be the case for you, and yes I'm definitely hoping that this will help other people - it seems to be consistent, at least, with @JY98 fixing their machine by thoroughly draining the battery, rather than disconnecting it.

 

[BradMacPro]

I got news for you buddy. The "Big Bucks" you paid for your 2013/2014 Macs has served it's purpose. You're not entitled to a free OS year after year, especially for these Macs that are near 7 & 8 years old. Years ago Apple charged $129 for an OS upgrade and people happily paid it, and Macs weren't any cheaper back then they are now.

You cannot suppress the upgrade notice so some people have mistakenly upgraded to Big Sur. This isn’t fair to those people. So yes they should have been more careful, but Apple makes it too easy to upgrade to Big Sur instead of just a security update. Their user interface puts the Big Sur upgrade on top and the minor supplemental update lower under “more” which is bad in general and surely bad for these people with problems.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I wonder that Apple hasn't pulled the release yet. I assume there are still people bricking their Macs....Not everyone is reading Macrumors.

 

[MacinMan]

I just saw this thread this morning. A late 2013 13 inch MBP is the exact machine I used to beta test Big Sur.

For the most part it ran fine, but I haven't tried to put it on the final. I put the public build on my late 2015 27 inch iMac though. currently using it right now without problems. It's been running on Big Sur since release day once the Apple Server problems were resolved. I have to say In my case it's a much nicer release than Catalina was. No crashes. Catalina crashed randomly, for the first few releases. It was mainly due to certain software that hadn't been updated though, plus some of Apple's own bugs.

 

[Bmju]

I just saw this thread this morning. A late 2013 13 inch MBP is the exact machine I used to beta test Big Sur.

For the most part it ran fine, but I haven't tried to put it on the final. I put the public build on my late 2015 27 inch iMac though. currently using it right now without problems. It's been running on Big Sur since release day once the Apple Server problems were resolved. I have to say In my case it's a much nicer release than Catalina was. No crashes. Catalina crashed randomly, for the first few releases. It was mainly due to certain software that hadn't been updated though, plus some of Apple's own bugs.

Did you do an in place upgrade (fully within the About This Mac/Software Update)?

I'm just asking because doing it that way is the one that seems to be most at risk of the broken firmware update and black screen, whereas downloading the full installer, and especially using `createinstallmedia`, seems to be safe.

 

[MacinMan]

Did you do an in place upgrade (fully within the About This Mac/Software Update)?

I'm just asking because doing it that way is the one that seems to be most at risk of the broken firmware update and black screen, whereas downloading the full installer, and especially using `createinstallmedia`, seems to be safe.

When I upgraded the iMac, I simply went to system preferences to Software Update, downloaded and installed without problems. What I did do in advance though, is run disk utility repair in recovery mode just to verify no problems. In addition, I updated as much software as possible prior to the update, so the only updates I did after were Garage Band which reuired macos 11 to update and updates to apps that came after the Big Sur release.

I also deleted the command Line tools that had carried over from Catalina, and ran Xcode-select --install to place a new copy on the system with Big Sur support, for HomeBrew., etc.

I'll try going from the beta to the final release today on the MBP. I had actually planned to do a clean install at some point to get rid of all the beta crud and start clean. That might be a better way to do it Just to see what happens.

 

[Bmju]

... I don't have a hard heart towards those who have had problems, some of whom have much newer machines than mine, I simply remain confused as to why the same system software can give people such differing experiences.

It's actually fairly normal that a new OS has problems on a few machines, unfortunately. (This one is particularly bad, and extremely frustrating if you have one of the affected machines.) But to understand how it can be different, well I would say that's just because it's not running on the same hardware for everybody, and also because there are several different reasonable and supported ways to install &/or upgrade the OS (from incremental OTA to full download and createinstallmedia, with several stops in between). If that adds anything that you didn't already know!

 

[Bmju]

...

I'll try going from the beta to the final release today on the MBP. I had actually planned to do a clean install at some point to get rid of all the beta crud and start clean. That might be a better way to do it Just to see what happens.

If you want to see what happens, and don't mind 'interesting' surprises, then I'd try the upgrade route! I'm pretty sure that physically disconnecting your battery will fix it, if you do get problems... : )

 

[MacinMan]

If you want to see what happens, and don't mind 'interesting' surprises, then I'd try the upgrade route! I'm pretty sure that physically disconnecting your battery will fix it, if you do get problems... : )

What I'm going to do is this:
I booted into recovery mode on the MBP, wiped the SSD clean to JHFS+, going to install a clean copy of the latest Catalina., will configure the Mac, and then do the upgrade to Big Sur from Software Update. This will be the typical route people will use. In my case, I'll be doing an upgrade from a clean install, so I shouldn't experience any problems. Will post back when I'm done.

By the way, I always start with JHFS+ for a clean volume and let the installer convert to APFS. I have non T2 Macs so the rules may be a bit different.

 

[MauiPa]

Big Sur is sure looking like a huge headache more and more by the day. First the Apple servers crashed on launch day, and now this debacle... I usually am the first the jump ship to the latest OS, but gonna wait a bit for this one

I know, right, those darned Windows servers crashed again. For the record, I have had no problems with Big Sur (Well after Google go around to re-compiling backup and sync - took them a long time, go figure). I am using a MBP 2014 (15). While the issue is concerning, what is more concerning as the usual folks running around just making up crap (I guess that is getting normal in 2020). Obviously, this is an issue, and it was not discovered during testing, but no one has yet identified the issue. One guy claimed it was ruining I/o boards (never heard of software ruining hardware that was not malicious), but another guy just used his "ruined" I/o board, plugged it back in and it worked fine (oops - to guy 1).

I'm wondering if this isn't like the HomePod issue (I unplugged it during the update and it bricked), a hardware issue (the affected computers are getting old). In any event, it will be interesting to see what the resolution is. History as a guide, Apple will fix the impacted machines.

 

[Maconplasma]

You should be ashamed of yourself for this kind of gatekeeping

I never claimed to take anyone's side, but it sure seems like you are taking apple's side on this one. Of course people could "alter" their computers that would cause issues, but would be interesting to see how many did, but don't let the apple is bad narrative get your panties in a wad...

And don’t gets your panties in a wad either. 😂

 

[MacinMan]

I'm applying the Big Sur update to my late 2013 13 inch MBP right now, over a clean install of Catalina, so I could do it through software update the way the average person would. So far no problems. The fan is running, but beyond that everything seems good.

 

[Maconplasma]

You cannot suppress the upgrade notice so some people have mistakenly upgraded to Big Sur. This isn’t fair to those people. So yes they should have been more careful, but Apple makes it too easy to upgrade to Big Sur instead of just a security update. Their user interface puts the Big Sur upgrade on top and the minor supplemental update lower under “more” which is bad in general and surely bad for these people with problems.

Gimme a break. You can’t mistakenly upgrade to Big Sur. The download and install is a process. If a person doesn’t know they are upgrading to a new OS by the time they get to the install screen they are the stupid ones. It’s funny how people say Apple holds their hand too much because they say they know what they are doing. But then you blame Apple if they give the user the freedom to do what they want without blocking them with constant messages like Vista did saying “Are you sure you want to do this?” 🙄