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MacOS recovery

A

Alive76

macrumors member
Original poster
May 27, 2016
31
16
Hi all,

I have a bit of a strange situation going on. I need to boot in recovery mode to do something in the terminal. On the new Mac Mini M1 that seems quite easy, just hold the power button. That works. My Logitech wireless keyboard however doesn't work. That is not a problem as I also have a magic keyboard.

As it boots I get the Macintosh HD icon as well as the Options icon. I cannot use my Logitech mouse, be it wired or wireless, it simply doesn't work. I can however use my Magic Keyboard's arrow keys.
Once I select options and press enter I'm asked to log in to my admin account. And this is where it gets weird. The Magic Keyboard doesn't do anything there anymore, whatever key I press, nothing happens. Does anyone have any idea how to solve this?
 
I think I’ve seen that too. Use a Lightning cable to make the keyboard wired.
 
I did, however same result. I can select Options but once entering it the keyboard stops working and there is no way to enter the password.
 
Interestingly enough if I boot wired, after I press Options I get prompted to turn my keyboard on. Turning it on and off, removing the wire. Nothing helps 😂



807D5846-1D69-4313-B222-3B3934C89DE6.jpeg
 
Have you tried typing your admin password when prompted, followed by return? Maybe it’s a just a UI glitch.
 
Yep, unfortunately to no avail. I'll give Apple support a call tomorrow and see what they say.
 
Alive76 said:
Once I select options and press enter I'm asked to log in to my admin account.
Click to expand...
Good luck with Apple. To clarify this statement, you aren’t logging into your admin account. You are entering the admin password to unlock FileVault on the drive.
 
FileVault is disabled. Does this have anything to do with the T2 encryption?
 
Macs with Apple silicon don’t have T2 chips. The functions of T2 are incorporated into the M1. If FileVault is off, I don’t think you should be asked for an admin password. That, and the fact that your wireless keyboards don’t work, make me think you might be best served by a complete restore--wipe it and install a fresh OS.

Before that, though, you might try booting to fallback recovery. Press the Power button twice in rapid succession, and on the second press, instead of releasing the button, hold it pressed until recovery options are reported as loading. This provides all the features of regular Recovery Mode, with the exception of Startup Security Utility, which isn’t available.
 
Yes I meant the T2 functionality. I did run the fallback recovery. The prompt for an admin account has disappeared so that did something. I can also run diagnostics which completes without fault. But there also, after it is finished checking the system the keyboard fails to work. The combination Ctrl-option-cmd-shift-period changes the background color from black to grey. This is the only response I get from the keyboard. Issue has been escalated from Apple support to senior support and now onto engineers. It’ll be interest to see what they come up with. All I needed to do was disable debug in csrutil 😂
 
I did. The magic keyboard works both wired and wireless, up until I select options, then it stops working. No mouse works, tried several, not even in the first screen. Neither wireless nor wired.
 
Update: I have created a bootable install USB to see what happens. It's possible to select it in recovery and even choose to install. When it is time to press accept on the terms and conditions it is unresponsive.
 
At this point, I would try a Restore. This is the most extreme action you can take to put your computer back in factory fresh condition. The downside–you'll need a second Mac to do it. If you are able to perform the restore and it fails, then you've almost certainly got a hardware problem that would require a warranty replacement.

Make sure your data is backed up first!

Revive or restore a Mac with Apple silicon using Apple Configurator 2

In rare circumstances, Apple computers become unresponsive and the chip’s firmware must be revived or restored.
support.apple.com
 
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I think in the end it will come down to that. I did try hooking up keyboards with an adapter to the USB-C port to see if that would make a difference, but it doesn't. After that tried an in-place "upgrade" to Big Sur from the command-line, which didn't do anything either. I found 2 key combinations which trigger some response. Shift-command gives me a beachball and after a while a finder Window opens. After that I can only press Enter and a System Diagnostics file is saved. I can't find that file when logged in normally and am assuming it is saved on the Recovery partition.

I don't have a second Mac available unfortunately and obviously, I cannot do a clean install for lack of usability of RecoveryOS. Hoping Apple comes up with a solution and will update this thread if they do.
 
Update: Managed to use the Revive option with Configurator. Booting in RecoveryOS led me to password screen as you would when FileVault was on. Except it is not. Booting first in fallback recovery and then again in normal RecoveryOS removed this. Still the keyboard doesn't work. Updated to beta 7 to update firmware to 6723.101.4. The story continues 😂

Edit: an extremely cheap keyboard and mouse now work in RecoveryOS after the update to beta7. Magic Keyboard and Logitech devices still don't.
 
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