A leading number of Mac and Macbook owners report that their devices become unbootable after attempting to update to the latest version of macOS, codenamed ‘Monterey.’ Apple also released a Monterey last week and made it available to all the MacBook Pro and Macbook Air models that arrive from 2015 and for the iMac (2015 and later) and the Mac mini (2014 and later).
However, it comes that many of these older devices (between 2015 and 2019) fail to upgrade correctly to the latest OS version. As an outcome of this failure, some are no longer recoverable.
Few Claims Macs Bricked, Other Put in Lambo
The word “bricked” means that an electronic device has to go through a disastrous problem with no way to make it work again. It commonly happens when something flashes the firmware or other low-level system code or when the voltage on the device’s circuit goes beyond sage operational limits.
Since macOS Monterey has been released, social media is filling up with a growing number of complaints about their devices becoming “bricked” or unbootable after upgrading.
While some of the users are initiating with their systems are bricked, most have been able to recover their devices by utilizing the Apple Configuration utility. Moreover, this issue only affects Mac devices before 2019 and does not appear to affect advanced Mac with M1 chips.
Others found a way to revive their devices by booting into DFU, so clearly, not all of the devices that failed to upgrade got bricked. For those affected and attempting to restore your Mac or MacBook, check out this guide by Apple.
Permitting macOS Upgrades on older Hardware
There’s a long history of problems around older Apple Macs attempting to update to newer macOS versions, so what’s happening now isn’t unprecedented. That is not to say that older MacBooks are not officially supported, but newer software isn’t as thoroughly tested on older hardware.
As such, if you are using an older Mac, it may be wiser to hold off on upgrading to Monterey until it is determined what is causing these issues. With macOS 11 (Big Sur) and macOS 10.15 (Catalina) still supported with regular security updates, you are at no risk of using these older versions for the time being.
If you need or want to upgrade to Monterey, it would be smart to wait for a couple of weeks for the “bricking” bugs to be squashed.
