Some Older Macs Reportedly Bricked After Installing macOS Monterey

macOS Monterey, released last week as the latest version of macOS, is bricking older Mac computers, rendering them unusable and unable to even turn on, according to a number of reports from users across social media and online forums.

macos monterey
If this sounds oddly familiar, it may be because last year, with the launch of macOS Big Sur, similar reports surfaced about that update bricking older MacBook Pro models. Less than a year later, similar issues are now seemingly taking place once again.

At least ten separate posts (1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) on Apple Support Communities contain users complaining that as they were attempting to update their Mac to macOS Monterey, the Mac went completely black and they're unable to turn it on. One post in specific includes several comments from users also reporting similar issues. Reports on Twitter are also plentiful.



A comment on a post on Reddit includes a user chronicling their experience, saying that the macOS Monterey update bricked their 2017 iMac, declaring that "it's just dead."

Same thing happened to my 2017 iMac. Said it needed to restart. Never restarted. Waited a couple hours and tried to power cycle it. Reset pram ect. Nothing seems to be working it's just dead. Took a couple tries to get it installed on my 2015 Mac Air. That seems to be running but I'm at a loss as to what to do with the imac. I unplugged it and headed to work. Hoping to find some solutions tonight to get this resolved in the am.

One possible solution floated on Apple Support Communities is that users may need to revive or restore their Mac's firmware. "In very rare circumstances, such as a power failure during a macOS update or upgrade, a Mac may become unresponsive and so the firmware must be revived or restored," Apple says in a support document.

All user reports suggest the issue is impacting older ‌MacBook Pro‌, Mac mini, and ‌iMac‌ models. More recent computers such as Apple silicon-based Macs are not seemingly having problems, at least according to the lack of user reports suggesting so.

While the issue with macOS Monterey bricking Mac computers is not as widespread as last year with macOS Big Sur, enough users are reporting that the update is causing problems to warrant some concern. It's possible that following this article, even more users will come forward and share their experience with macOS Monterey causing issues on their Macs.

Apple is currently testing macOS 12.1, but that isn't expected to be released for at least several more weeks. macOS Monterey is still in its first version, and it's typically a safe bet to wait until several updates are released before updating to the latest version from a previous generation. It's possible a smaller dot-update could be released to address bugs and security fixes.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

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Top Rated Comments

heystu Avatar
50 months ago
This should never be allowed to happen, and saying “it’s typically a safe bet to wait until several updates have been released” doesn’t offer any comfort or assurance - Apple should be stress testing releases to the extreme before letting them out into the wild. I’d be really screwed if my MBP got bricked being self-employed and relying on it for my sole source of income.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DNichter Avatar
50 months ago
Well yea, you’re supposed to buy a new MacBook Pro with Monterey pre-installed.
Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
goodcow Avatar
50 months ago
Embarrassing, given the limited amount of hardware Apple has to support.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nerdo Avatar
50 months ago
iBrick Pro? I guess this is one way to speed up the move to Apple Silicon.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sydnxt Avatar
50 months ago
I work at an AASP and the most amount of MacOS reinstalls we ever did in a month was MacOS Big Sur (11.1-11.3) Probably did over 100 in a single month.

I have not seen a single Monterey boot loop yet. Probably just unlucky or very rare.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MJaP Avatar
50 months ago

Embarrassing, given the limited amount of hardware Apple has to support.
Indeed. Microsoft has to write an operating system that is stable on literally millions of different hardware combinations from hundreds of different vendors, whereas Apple only has a small device portfolio all of which is under their tight control and yet they still manage to mess things up. OK they're not going to catch everything, and nobody's perfect (Microsoft have caused the odd bricking event as well), but I think the order of the day is more beta testing, Apple's biggest problem is that heir new OSes are often tied to a new hardware release which means upgrades are forced to release before they are properly tested and stable.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)