[HN Gopher] macOS Sonoma Boot Failures ___________________________________________________________________ macOS Sonoma Boot Failures Author : ColoursofOSINT Score : 277 points Date : 2023-10-31 18:33 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (github.com) (TXT) w3m dump (github.com) | gcr wrote: | TL;DR: Recent macOS Sonoma and 13.6 Ventura have upgrade bugs | that brick some macs and make recoveryOS unusable, causing a | black screen that requires a DFU revive. | | Issues on Sonoma appear most often on dual-booting macs: | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891 | | Ventura upgrades can also bite you if your display refresh rate | is set to anything other than ProMotion, for unclear reasons. | | The doc is on the Asahi Linux wiki because their developers | discovered this issue, but it's not unique to Asahi. In fact, | _running the Asahi Linux installer_ can detect whether your mac | will be affected by this issue, even if you ultimately choose not | to install Asahi Linux. See the article for details. | neilalexander wrote: | Interestingly I ran into this exact problem with my work MacBook | Pro M1 upgrading to Ventura 13.6 and assumed it was a totally | isolated incident. I don't have a dual-boot setup either, just a | single macOS install. | | The computer was connected to a Thunderbolt Display during the | update which I assume had the same effect of changing the refresh | rate to something other-than-ProMotion that the linked article | mentions. I had to do a DFU restore from another Mac and then run | the macOS Sonoma installer from USB, which thankfully detected | the existing install and did an in-place upgrade, preserving all | of my data. Nothing else worked. | | I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to | work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable | -- it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the | Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac. | alsetmusic wrote: | > I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore | to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt | cable -- it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise | the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac. | | I would have expected a Thunderbolt cable to be required, if | either was. This is quite surprising to me. Usually, the more | capable (higher bandwidth) cable works if one isn't supported. | I'll hope to remember this is I ever find myself reviving a | bricked Mac in the future. | vbezhenar wrote: | I restored my Macbook just one hour ago with crappy USB-C | USB-A cable, god bless the libimobiledevice creator. | spacedcowboy wrote: | I am currently restoring an MBP using Configurator and a | thunderbolt cable. You definitely can use one, perhaps your | TB cable is buggered ? | brigade wrote: | It's done over USB 2.0 largely because that's simpler than | involving newer and faster specs, and partly because that's | how the original iPhone did it. | | My understanding is that all complaint _USB_ USB-C cables | should work for USB 2.0, even USB4 /TB4 cables, but active | TB3 cables might not hook up the USB 2.0 pins. | phillco wrote: | I've used a Thunderbolt cable as well successfully, but one | note is that they're very picky about which port you use. On | my Mac mini, I had to use the exact port outlined here or it | did not show up: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple- | configurator-mac/reviv... | JohnMakin wrote: | Exact same thing happened to me. | tpmx wrote: | What kind of HW? | tpmx wrote: | This is depressing. They clearly have they ability ($$$) to do | the required amount of manual QA, but don't. Or there was QA | and someone decided that your case still wasn't enough to hold | up the release. | | In my mind, when we pay that ridiculous Apple premium on RAM | and storage, we pay for excellent quality in SW/HW. They also | need to deliver that quality. | mort96 wrote: | Or they did QA but just happened to miss this issue. Most | companies would consider "the upgrade sometimes bricks the | device" to be a release-stopping bug, I'm betting Apple is | among them. | tpmx wrote: | That would be: not delivering while still charging a | premium. | krackers wrote: | Apple still hasn't put up any official page about the issue | though, nor does it appear they've pulled the update. Even | if it missed QA, why haven't they made any official | comment? | FirmwareBurner wrote: | You clearly don't know Apple as a company. Last most big | companies, they never EVER publicly admit any faults or | mistakes with their products (unless forced to by large | scale fiascos) because that would damage their perfect | brand image. It's why they have comments disabled on all | their social media accounts. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _they never EVER publicly admit any faults or mistakes | with their products_ | | Of course they do. They're just secretive in general, and | keep communications edited. Compared to the word salad of | modern companies on social media, I find it refreshing. | Just fix the problem, issue replacements for those | affected and move on quietly. | FirmwareBurner wrote: | _> Of course they do. _ | | Where? Do you have any examples? | codr7 wrote: | Used to be, while Jobs was still around. | | These days it's just a bunch of wannabes trying too hard to | be him. | pb7 wrote: | It's a bug... | tpmx wrote: | It's a _device bricking_ bug. For a $2.5-10k device. | user9163 wrote: | ya - I cant update my m1 macbook air without going into DFU | mode and using configurator to "revive" my macbook. Otherwise | it just tells me "Failed to personalize the software update". | Made the mistake of going to the Apple Store where they | promptly restored my machine deleting all my data - only to | encounter the exact same issue when the next update is shipped. | This way you cant even show them that their fix did not | actually fixed it permanently. | atregir wrote: | Also what's with the magic trick of entering DFU mode by | pressing the buttons at a very specific time for a very | specific number of seconds? Felt like singing a song to some | fictional Mac OS gods and hoping for the stars to align for the | laptop to show up in the second Mac. Ah, also the port you use | for the USB-C cable matters!! Has to be the first from the | left? But why? | | Anw, I followed a video by Mr. Macintosh and managed to get | mine up and running, whew. | racl101 wrote: | I am so terrified of this upgrade that I think I'll wait a whole | year. That's not a good thing. | hbn wrote: | I pretty much always wait 6 months or so for Mac upgrades on | whatever machine is important to me. There seems to pretty | consistently be regular bugfix updates for the few months | following a release. | cramjabsyn wrote: | Its realistically what you should be doing unless your machine | is a test host itself. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | Unless you aren't doing anything important on your Mac that's | always good advice. | rangestransform wrote: | this happened to my work macbook while I was trying to upgrade | to ventura, a 1 year old macos version | shever73 wrote: | That's probably wise. I wish I had waited. Since upgrading to | Sonoma, I have recurring issues with the system file dialog. | Sometimes the dialog will open, but not allow me to save, other | times it will just fail to open altogether. | | Any time I start a new video project now, I save it instantly | because Command+S still works, but if it opens the Save As | dialog then it frequently won't. | krackers wrote: | See also his twitter for some speculation as to how on earth | simply changing refresh rate would cause boot corruption: | https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/111329614147717090 | | >Why? I can tell you why: because Apple _hates_ display modeset | flicker, and switching modes between ProMotion on /off causes a | modeset flicker, so of _course_ they made it so that is stored in | nvram somewhere and applied when the screen is turned on during | early boot, so when macOS boots it doesn 't have to flicker | again. | | >And they didn't test it with older OS bootloaders, so display | handoff/init just fails catastrophically with those when this | mode is enabled. | NavinF wrote: | Interesting. I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off | considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. I've | only encountered one app that doesn't work with variable | refresh rate and that's Genshin on Windows. Even that's | probably not an issue with newer monitors that can handle VRR | down to 60Hz without my monitor's frame-doubling flicker as it | keeps switching been 60Hz and 120Hz | Wowfunhappy wrote: | > I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering | that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. | | The first reason that comes to mind is battery life. That's | probably the most broadly applicable use case. | | But also, if I was still doing e.g. frontend web development, | I would want to confirm that my css animations looked nice at | 60 hz. | | Edit: My first use case is likely wrong, thank you to replies | for reminding me Apple uses adaptive refresh down to 1 hz. | vvillena wrote: | Isn't battery life a reason to keep it on? The refresh rate | will be down to 24hz most of the time. | jwells89 wrote: | macOS is very good at adaptively reducing refresh rate when | nothing is happening on screen, with the panel reportedly | supporting the full range of 1-120hz so barring badly | engineered apps that are permanently pinned at max refresh, | the battery impact of keeping ProMotion on is minimal for | most use cases. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | Oops, thank you, I completely forgot they were doing the | adaptive refresh thing! | londons_explore wrote: | Which raises the question even more why the refresh rate | matters during early bootup - surely you could just start | with an apple logo and a 1 Hz refresh rate, and then up | the rate later during boot when it's time to do some | animation... | beebeepka wrote: | Why would 60 FPS CSS animations look bad on high refresh | displays? | Wowfunhappy wrote: | Well the CSS transition wouldn't run at 60 fps, it would | run at 120 fps, no? | | An animation that looks slick at 120 fps might look too | fast/slow/complex/whatever on a common 60 hz screen. So | if I was still doing this sort of development, I'd prefer | to be working on a 60 hz monitor. | beebeepka wrote: | Aren't CSS animations capped at 60, same as | requestAnimationFrame? | | I've been advocating (and using) high refresh displays | for over two decades and I find your reasoning | preposterous. Downgrading to crappy 60 Hz monitor for | nothing. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | > Aren't CSS animations capped at 60, same as | requestAnimationFrame? | | Did some quick Googling to make sure I wasn't just out of | the loop on this, as far as I can tell they are not the | same: https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/5025 | beebeepka wrote: | Can you point me to the part confirming your claim? If | anything, it's confirming mine that they both are stuck | at 60 Hz. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | The link says: | | > As such, on their 120hz devices, requestAnimationFrame | is throttled to 60hz, whereas CSS animations run at | 120hz. | | Please let me know if I am misunderstanding, it has been | a few years since I've done this type of work. | c-hendricks wrote: | I'm not even sure CSS animations can go above 60fps, and | am unsure why you'd think it would be faster / slower on | a different refresh rate screen: CSS transitions are | defined by time, not frames. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | Sorry, I meant the animation might _look_ too fast, | psychologically. The frame rate changes how we perceive | movement. | MagerValp wrote: | To run x64sc at a buttery smooth 50 fps. | | Admittedly rather niche use case. | zippergz wrote: | I turn it off because I can't tell the difference and if it | doesn't improve anything for me, I might as well not have the | system wasting battery and other resources on it. | pb7 wrote: | It does the opposite: it goes well below 60Hz when there is | no motion on screen. | userbinator wrote: | _I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering | that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness._ | | ...and I bet that 's exactly the attitude Apple had when | implementing things, which lead to this mess. | jwells89 wrote: | The messiness of resolutions during boot always annoyed me on | PCs. It was understandable back in the days of BIOS, but ith | the advent of UEFI it seems like it should be possible to run | EFI config screens and the like at monitor native rez (or at | minimum, native aspect ratio) but I've never seen this... it's | always 1024x768 or somesuch stretched to fit a 16:9 monitor | which looks awful. | wmf wrote: | Good UEFI like Surface devices is native resolution so you | can have flicker-free boot. My Gigabyte motherboard recently | got native resolution with a UEFI update. | jwells89 wrote: | Nice to hear that good implementations exist somewhere out | in the wild. I hope my AM4 and LGA1700 boards by Asus get | similar updates at some point. | ddalex wrote: | I don't understand why modeset causes flicker - fade to | black, turn off screen, change resolution, turn on screen, | fade to image. | beebeepka wrote: | Fancy fade in/out effects this early? | mjg59 wrote: | "Fade to black, turn off screen, turn on screen, fade to | image" is just slower flicker. | WesolyKubeczek wrote: | This summer I went into an apple store, and there was | this 2019 Intel Mac Pro tower hooked up to the shiny 6k | XDR display. I brought up the System Settings, and set | the resolution one notch towards "More Space". It faded | to black and never came back. | wannacboatmovie wrote: | EFI config screens should be text mode only, full-stop. So | they can easily be used over serial console redirection. | | Ran into one recently that was high-rez graphical. It needed | a USB mouse to change critical settings because the tab order | for the onscreen widgets didn't work. | | Anyone responsible for creating graphical EFI config screens | should stop writing software for the good of humanity. | jwells89 wrote: | Even for text-only I'd prefer native rez if possible to | reduce scrolling, label truncation, etc. | | That said yes, there's no reason why there shouldn't be a | low rez textual fallback. | secondcoming wrote: | Then you'd need scaling and all that. Seems a bit | overkill for something people rarely use. | userbinator wrote: | Text-only BIOS setup was the norm for a long time before | the stupidly bloated EFI graphical stuff became common. | Even then, there were the better full-featured TUIs: | | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Award_B | I... | | https://liveusb.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/awardbios- | firstb... | | And the simplified crap with tabs that often came with | prebuilt PCs but later seems to have spread to others too: | | https://cdn.staticneo.com/a/Intel_Sandy_Bridge_Z68_P67/S%20 | B... | tripdout wrote: | My old AM3+ motherboard has an option for full screen boot | logo, and it starts in full HD, continuing with systemd boot, | all in 1080p. | | I thought this wasn't really a problem anymore. | JasonSage wrote: | This is fine if you have a 1080p monitor. I was impressed | when this first happened to me, now on an ultrawide monitor | it's back to being not great. | | I do recall my last motherboard had an option for a splash | which was centered in a black screen, so you could | basically display it at native resolution with no | stretching and it would look great and seamless. I wish | every motherboard had that splash option now. | vondur wrote: | Ha, back in the day when I was a student assistant in a | campus computer lab, we flashed the BIOS boot screen with a | full screen image of Darth Maul. The staff person who | oversaw us was not amused. (This was in the Pentium 3 era | IIRC) | AshamedCaptain wrote: | By the time my Dell monitor finally wakes from sleep, | finishes negotiating whatever crap DisplayPort has to | negotiate these days, and starts actually displaying frames, | the computer has long since finished booting and is already | idling at the desktop. | dm319 wrote: | My Amiga in the 1990s seemed to do a pretty good job at boot. | tomxor wrote: | At least it works. I find low-res bios screens reassuring... | something I can depend on. | mattchamb wrote: | Not sure if related, but my 2020 M1 macbook air bricked a week or | so after upgrading to Sonoma. I was suspicious if this was | related to the update. Luckily the logic board was replaced for | free under warranty laws here, though it put me off switching to | iphone which I was a day away from doing. | bscphil wrote: | Upgrades bricking hardware seems to be a common failure mode | for macOS. For example Big Sur bricked a bunch of 2013 and 2014 | MBPs: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/15/macos-big-sur- | update-br... | | I was affected by this and like many users the problem was | fixed after replacing the I/O board. In my case, I did it | myself using a $10 part from Ebay since the machine was well | out of warranty at that point. | miles wrote: | From comments #736 and #747 attached to the forum post you | kindly shared, it sounds like simply disconnecting and | reconnecting the I/O board may be sufficient (found those | comments linked in #831): | | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update- | br... | | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update- | br... | | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-big-sur-update- | br... | fifteen1506 wrote: | And this is why there will never be a Year of the Linux | Desktop -- no-one wants to have to depend on forum posts to | fix these kind of issues. | | /troll | coldtea wrote: | Why the "/troll"? You're 100% right non-ironically: the | problem being that on Linux the need to consult forum | posts to fix these kind of issues is way more frequent | than in macOS. | fsflover wrote: | On Linux it's as rare as on MacOS, _if you buy | preinstalled_. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | This issue in GP is unrelated to Linux, it happens on | single-boot macOS. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | Seems like a weird rationale. Any manufacturer is going to have | its share of software and hardware issues. | windowsrookie wrote: | The logic Board failed in my 2020 M1 Air as well. Opened the | lid one day, and it wouldn't power on. I have AppleCare on it, | otherwise it would have been a $500 repair. | | About two weeks ago I'm sitting in a hotel room with the air on | bed with the lid open. I grab it by the screen to slide it | closer to me and the screen shatters from the light pressure of | my finger. | | There are instances of both these things happening to the Air | all over the internet. At first I really liked the M1 Air, but | it has now proven too unreliable for me. | theodric wrote: | My 2020 M1 Air generally requires a hard reboot if left | closed and on a charger overnight, but that's been the worst | of it until now (besides the rapidly degrading battery that | seems calibrated to hit 79% a month after my AppleCare+ | expires, while my 2015 Air's is still going strong). | | Premium(tm) | aetherspawn wrote: | FWIW I have been using iPhones for 10+ years and not once has | an update ever failed or had any issues. | | But my Google Pixel phone used to brick itself all the time, I | think twice in the two years I had it. | bitigchi wrote: | I am somewhat glad that there is a 3rd party that actively helps | finding macOS issues. | jiripospisil wrote: | > Do not let them charge you any money for it. This is a problem | Apple caused, and purely a software issue. If the technicians | claim there is hardware damage, they are wrong. | | Good luck with that. | crazygringo wrote: | The Apple Store is usually great with this stuff. | | If there's a documented problem that affects your hardware | model and the given software versions, they're extremely | unlikely to try to charge you for anything. | baz00 wrote: | If it's not documented and you have a problem then you are | usually shit out of luck. The early days of butterfly | keyboards was hell for a lot of people. I managed to get mine | back to them for a full refund 3 days after I got it thank | fuck. | saagarjha wrote: | Documented by whom? Are you going to show a marcan post to | then and claim it's an Apple issue? | SpaceManNabs wrote: | I didn't have much trouble. When MacbooksAir 2011 version had | those SSD hardware failures, I told multiple classmates of mine | about the hardware failure page and they got the repairs for | free instead of spending $800. | asylteltine wrote: | I'm an apple fanboy and let me be the first to say their SDLC | since the pandemic has been AWFUL. I have never had so many bugs | with apple devices. And I'm not talking about giant catastrophic | bugs you would expect with windows or Linux. I mean little | things, like random phone reboots, overheating, my mac restarting | when I wake up from sleep, internet issues, etc. They need a | shake up and to stop focusing on all these features NO ONE uses. | Can one person tell me they use the features they just announced? | Nobody even knows you can edit an iMessage still. | aetherspawn wrote: | I agree, I started buying some Macbooks for work and was | horrified when the Launchpad just wouldn't open on a brand new | Mac. | | Like, you press Launchpad, and it just ... doesn't open. | sometimes. This kind of rancid stuff you would expect on | Windows but it never used to happen on OS X. | vbezhenar wrote: | Today I had to DFU restore my macbook because I wanted to | reinstall it, but built-in restore over the web did not work. My | base system was 13.2, it downloads all the files for 13.6, it | filled bar to 100% and then spewed error. | | It's obvious that it's some incompatibility between 13.2 base | system and 13.6 install. Apple quality is atrocious these days. | One would have thought they would test the most basic scenarios | before releasing their x.6 software. | | And worse of all, there's no official (or even unofficial, at | least I wasn't able to find one) way to create USB boot installer | without another Mac or to DFU restore Mac without another Mac. Do | they think I live in Apple Store? I don't have other Mac. I was | able to DFU restore with libimobiledevice, god bless its creator, | but it really should not happen. Windows or Linux are so much | more transparent compared to macOS. | baz00 wrote: | Yeah the Apple bootloader and restore stuff scares the shit out | of me. The network access requirement, firmware on SSD and | hardware lock are always lurking waiting for the most | inconvenient time to go wonky when I hose something. | | Conversely windows, just got a USB stick in the drawer I can | boot off. | jamesfmilne wrote: | Yes same here. I did install then uninstall Avahi Linux a year | or so ago, but now I can't upgrade past 12.6. | | I'll need to get an external drive, back everything up, then do | a DFU restore on my M1 Max MBP to get it upgraded to Sonoma. | alberth wrote: | Abstraction Layers. | | We've gotten to point with the huge number of abstraction layers | (and now AI as well) that troubleshooting what causes system to | do what it did, has become so unwieldily difficult to diagnosis. | jahewson wrote: | This doesn't seem to be the problem here? It's an issue of | having a combinatorial number of versions to test when | upgrading software and firmware. | mstep wrote: | does anyone have info if this is fixed in ventura 13.6.1? | https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT213985 | cramjabsyn wrote: | This is exactly why I lag one major version behind the latest. | als0 wrote: | Well, this also affects the previous major version, macOS | Ventura 13.6 | supportengineer wrote: | This is exactly why I lag two or three versions behind the | latest. | formerly_proven wrote: | This is why I'm still using RHEL 7. | silverwind wrote: | Just don't upgrade to any version ending in 0. | theodric wrote: | This is why I'm still on Big Sur-- it mostly works! | Apocryphon wrote: | One of my machines is still on Mojave- my 32-bit games still | work! | nusaru wrote: | > macOS Ventura 13.6 | | Well dang, I just upgraded yesterday, too. Fingers crossed that | nothing breaks... | cleansingfire wrote: | Only affects Apple silicon chips (intel unaffected) with | ProMotion display. Just a quick Exit clause for people with older | machines. | JohnMakin wrote: | Lost a workstation to this last week. infuriating. | KingLancelot wrote: | I think my 2014 MacBook on MacOS 12.5 was affected by this too. | | I had Ubuntu installed in a second partition and it refuses to | boot ever since I installed 12.5.1 on it. | tempodox wrote: | Holy fuck, thanks for the warning! I'm just glad I didn't upgrade | to 13.6 yet. And installing Sonoma on a second volume to try it | out is also out of the picture for the foreseeable future. | Apple's OSs seem to get worse with every turn. Maybe I shouldn't | touch Sonoma at all. What's the point on an Intel Mac anyway? | SpaceManNabs wrote: | This seems like a very unusual bug by Apple standards. Makes me | consider upgrading to new macbooks... | dgellow wrote: | At this point it's kind of common knowledge to wait a while | before upgrading macOS to latest major version. I don't | remember a major update that didn't come with its own set of | problems. | da768 wrote: | Can something be done using VoiceOver boot mode? I've already | recovered macs stuck on 0 brightness after an upgrade with | that... Can't find the documentation now, but it definitely | exists. | jug wrote: | I wonder if this is behind a failed Sonoma upgrade I saw on eBay | today; Mac Mini M2 Pro sold as-is for a very decent price, about | $300-$400 off despite from this year. :) Seller didn't know what | was wrong with the Mac, only that it happened during Sonoma | upgrade and this sounds mighty suspicious for such a new machine | if it's widespread. | dharma1 wrote: | Had another weird refresh rate bug with 14.1 - external display | doesn't have a HDR option in settings at 120hz anymore - only | works with HDR if I change the refresh rate 100hz or lower. Was | fine in earlier MacOS | doubloon wrote: | in 30 years we have gone from the idea that your computer could | accidentally brick your monitor, to the idea that your monitor | could accidentally brick your computer. | | https://trixter.oldskool.org/2006/02/02/computing-myth-1-sof... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-31 23:00 UTC)