by krackers on 10/31/23, 7:15 PM
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.
by neilalexander on 10/31/23, 7:06 PM
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.
by vbezhenar on 10/31/23, 7:30 PM
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.
by frankjr on 10/31/23, 7:26 PM
> 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.
by benreesman on 11/1/23, 11:33 AM
I don’t know what’s going on with Apple lately. They’ve built one of the world’s best brands after a near-death experience via a ruthless focus on and fanatical commitment to providing a holistically premium experience (for the people who want their version of that) to justify their premium pricing and huge margins. If you like what they do, it Just Works from purchase on. Or did until recently.
Just today I had an experience that was so Kafkaesque it felt like a mean spirited prank, and because they never fuck up this badly, I had no contingency plan for one of the times it matters a lot.
Any advice on how to get the “we fix things for loyal customers by doing what’s required” people on the phone would be appreciated, but based on the runaround, infinite hold Ferris wheel the primary support line apparently is now, I’m not getting my hopes up.
by cleansingfire on 10/31/23, 7:51 PM
Only affects Apple silicon chips (intel unaffected) with ProMotion display. Just a quick Exit clause for people with older machines.
by mattchamb on 10/31/23, 7:16 PM
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.
by ehutch79 on 11/1/23, 1:20 PM
Reading many of the comments here… I wonder if a lot of hacker news commenters have actually met real, everyday users of technology. Not other nerds and grognards, but like, the lady sitting over in a cubical, who only knows enough about computers to do their job.
Do you really think users want graphic mode selection on boot? What percent of Mac users have alternate bootloaders or even know what that means.
A lot of commenters need to do some time in the proverbial trenches and support a fleet of devices at a large company. See if users really care about the things you think they do.
by gcr on 10/31/23, 7:05 PM
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.
by bitigchi on 10/31/23, 7:21 PM
I am somewhat glad that there is a 3rd party that actively helps finding macOS issues.
by racl101 on 10/31/23, 7:12 PM
I am so terrified of this upgrade that I think I'll wait a whole year. That's not a good thing.
by jug on 10/31/23, 10:02 PM
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.
by doubloon on 10/31/23, 10:39 PM
by keepamovin on 11/1/23, 3:45 AM
When I saw the upgrade to Sonoma appear in my Settings I had a feeling the first version of this new OS would be buggy so I held off on it. Now extra glad I did! Gonna stick with Ventura for a while! Haha ! :)
by SpaceManNabs on 10/31/23, 8:49 PM
This seems like a very unusual bug by Apple standards. Makes me consider upgrading to new macbooks...
by nusaru on 10/31/23, 7:42 PM
> macOS Ventura 13.6
Well dang, I just upgraded yesterday, too. Fingers crossed that nothing breaks...
by dharma1 on 10/31/23, 10:22 PM
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
by dclowd9901 on 11/1/23, 6:41 AM
Man, I had a rough week last week. Shipped two regressions. Seeing this story, as awful as it must be for the responsible eng, has really made me feel much better. Not schadenfreude. Just commiseration.
by da768 on 10/31/23, 9:39 PM
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.
by cramjabsyn on 10/31/23, 7:39 PM
This is exactly why I lag one major version behind the latest.
by ShadowBanThis01 on 11/1/23, 4:13 AM
The Sonoma update bricked my M1 MBP and Apple had to wipe the whole thing.
Something stinks in this thing.
by sameg14 on 10/31/23, 11:15 PM
I had this exact thing happen to me when I tried to reset a Mac and wipe it clean. Would not start up and went into this doom loop when booting with the apple logo and a black screen. No amount of key combinations worked. I had to drop into DFU, which is a huge pain to get into to begin with and then use another Mac to recover.
by mstep on 10/31/23, 7:36 PM
by wizzard0 on 11/1/23, 8:46 AM
FYI the Asahi Linux installer says “please upgrade that should help” but bumping 13.6 -> Sonoma 14.1 did not help, the SystemRecovery still shows up as 13.5
Or does that mean wait for 14.2?
by cirrus3 on 11/1/23, 1:19 AM
First I've heard of any issues.. I have done a couple upgrades already with no issue. I'm sure there are some scenarios where it fails, but Sonoma has been out a while with millions of users being prompted constantly to upgrade. Feels like less than a "you're holding it wrong" problem. HN is obv going to bring out the edge cases, but it doesn't seem like the world is on fire with "Sonoma Bricks" by any means.
by iudqnolq on 10/31/23, 11:07 PM
On a much more minor note the .0 version of the upgrade also has a big that pops up a contacts window every few minutes and steals keyboard focus.
by RadixDLT on 11/1/23, 7:17 AM
there's something fundamentally wrong at apple theses days, macos just doesn't work like it used to
by Alifatisk on 11/1/23, 10:22 AM
This is why I am not so quick with upgrading to next major version anymore.
by jcul on 11/1/23, 2:27 PM
I'm not a Mac or Asahi user (though I think it is an amazing project).
However, this is such a great write up, very thorough with root cause, mitigations etc.
Keep up the good work!
by user3939382 on 11/1/23, 11:45 AM
Tangentially related, ever since upgrading to Sonoma my computer reboots when I put it to sleep. I’ve heard the same from other users.
by tempodox on 10/31/23, 8:39 PM
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?
by asylteltine on 10/31/23, 7:30 PM
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.
by alberth on 10/31/23, 7:30 PM
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.
by JohnMakin on 10/31/23, 7:56 PM
Lost a workstation to this last week. infuriating.
by KingLancelot on 10/31/23, 8:23 PM
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.