Big Sur = Dead MacBook Pro Battery

[incline design group]

Hey everyone—it seems that last week after upgrading my 2018 13" Touchbar MacBook Pro my battery failed. I wasn't even able to start the computer for 2 days because I would only get the red battery drained icon despite it being plugged in. It was so soon after the OS update that I was suspicious. Couldn't get an appointment at a Genius Bar (Apple Stores here in Utah are closed) but they sent me to a local certified Mac reseller/service location. They kept it overnight and said the battery has failed and needs to be replaced. This battery has reasonably few cycles on it (don't have it in front of me to check), and has been performing flawlessly—until this update. [sidenote—I am very familiar with maintenance and life of these batteries and I have had zero issues or even any reduced performance to suggest this was coming. The last time I looked at my battery life a few months ago it was at 98%].

Doing some research I found this thread: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/655506
This is a Developers thread, but in the past week they have gone from several of the same issue to multiple pages of owners of 13" and 15" MacBook Pro owners having their batteries suddenly fail.

Opening this up to see how many people are having this same issue. I believe this is a battery or SMC firmware issue that came with the OS update and so downgrading the OS isn't fixing the issue.

I would love to find, or for Apple to acknowledge and release, a patch/fix for this issue as my computer is out of AppleCare range and I am not excited about the $700 price tag for a new top cover with the glued on battery to remedy the situation (and am not confident this will fix the issue either).

 

[tommiy]

Thanks for the insight. Another reason why to stay where I was with a working mbp now running 10.14.5 after downgrade from Catalina. Seems that an update to BS can wait.

 

[Sucrum]

Another vote from me, my MacBook literally force shut itself DURING the update to Big Sur [it was fully charged] afterwards battery was dead, laptop is only usable on AC.

 

[/V\acpower]

Hey everyone—it seems that last week after upgrading my 2018 13" Touchbar MacBook Pro my battery failed. I wasn't even able to start the computer for 2 days because I would only get the red battery drained icon despite it being plugged in. It was so soon after the OS update that I was suspicious. Couldn't get an appointment at a Genius Bar (Apple Stores here in Utah are closed) but they sent me to a local certified Mac reseller/service location. They kept it overnight and said the battery has failed and needs to be replaced. This battery has reasonably few cycles on it (don't have it in front of me to check), and has been performing flawlessly—until this update. [sidenote—I am very familiar with maintenance and life of these batteries and I have had zero issues or even any reduced performance to suggest this was coming. The last time I looked at my battery life a few months ago it was at 98%].

Doing some research I found this thread: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/655506
This is a Developers thread, but in the past week they have gone from several of the same issue to multiple pages of owners of 13" and 15" MacBook Pro owners having their batteries suddenly fail.

Opening this up to see how many people are having this same issue. I believe this is a battery or SMC firmware issue that came with the OS update and so downgrading the OS isn't fixing the issue.

I would love to find, or for Apple to acknowledge and release, a patch/fix for this issue as my computer is out of AppleCare range and I am not excited about the $700 price tag for a new top cover with the glued on battery to remedy the situation (and am not confident this will fix the issue either).

Yesterday, I was preparing my Mac to sell (MBP 2016, base model no touchbar)

I was on Big Sur since launch and the 11.1 update also. Everything perfectly fine.

Clean install Big Sur ...

Battery at 1%, OS tell me it's not charging. Battery condition : "Need service" MacBook run solely on the charger, if I unplug it, instantly dies. When shutdown, unable to boot the computer with the power button. Only way that made the MacBook boot is literaly unplugging the usb c cable and replugging it. For some reason after like 10 seconds it start. But still, computer completely unusable when not plugged it.

I spent all night yesterday (2 am to 9 am) downloading multiple copies of multiple version of macOS, create multiple install media, clean install so many times. Reboot NVRAM, SMC. Ran Apple Diagnostic tool (result : normal). Nothing.

...

My best guess is that somehow in the installation process, under certain condition, the installer can corrupt the battery firmware (or the whole computer firmware). It's literally like the computer has no way to access the battery.

Read a bit. I saw that Apple doesn't do firmware updates anymore and that they are now included in OS updates.

So, I thought of a strategy : Go back to the macOS version my MBP shipped with : Sierra.

Then just use the updater links here : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683, to simply update the OS, one "version" at a time : Sierra -> High Sierra -> Mojave -> Catalina -> Big Sur.

The idea : maybe somehow in these update process there will be a moment where it will "update firmware" and reset it to a functionning state.

Result

Clean install Sierra : Exact same battery symptoms, can't run on battery, can't charge, battery need service. BUT one major difference, now the battery show 100% instead of 1% and in System Report it give me a number of mAh instead of simply 0 like before. A small victory but still little hope.

Update to High Sierra : ... EVERYTHING BACK TO NORMAL ! Battery is charging, can run on battery, battery condition : normal. Can shutdown and boot on battery without any issue. Like new !

Now, just not to mess with things, I'm updating one by one. Back to Catalina soon. So far, absolutely no issue.

-

I think it's worth a try for anyone having this issue : go back the earliest macOS version possible, then update OS one at a time.

Also, if it doesn't work, at least it show that this is a Software issue and not Hardware.

 

[Javier_gl]

For me the problem is different: if my late 2018 MBP 15" has less than 90-100%, it enters sleep mode after or during boot time. Interestingly, if I plug it and let the vents calm down, I can unplug it and work fine until battery totally drains (after 2-6 hours, in depends on the type of work doing). I "forbid" Adobe Creative Cloud and Dropbox to start when system boots (I have to manually start them when needed) to keep my Mac working normally without too much battery drain apps (Dropbox is a battery killer for me, as I have a Business account with thousands of files).

When it enters into sleep mode, it shows the red empty battery icon when clicking the power button, but just plugin the charger, in shows remaining battery correctly (40 to 60% remaining) and it let me use the laptop normally.

I did a PMU/SMU reset, and NVRAM reset and nothing worked. Still same problems.

It seems to me it's related to a firmware upgrade, so I hope Big Sur 11.2 will have a working patch for it.

 

[BetaZehn]

For me the problem is different: if my late 2018 MBP 15" has less than 90-100%, it enters sleep mode after or during boot time. Interestingly, if I plug it and let the vents calm down, I can unplug it and work fine until battery totally drains (after 2-6 hours, in depends on the type of work doing). I "forbid" Adobe Creative Cloud and Dropbox to start when system boots (I have to manually start them when needed) to keep my Mac working normally without too much battery drain apps (Dropbox is a battery killer for me, as I have a Business account with thousands of files).

When it enters into sleep mode, it shows the red empty battery icon when clicking the power button, but just plugin the charger, in shows remaining battery correctly (40 to 60% remaining) and it let me use the laptop normally.

I did a PMU/SMU reset, and NVRAM reset and nothing worked. Still same problems.

It seems to me it's related to a firmware upgrade, so I hope Big Sur 11.2 will have a working patch for it.

I had exact same problem on my MacBook Pro 2018 running 11.0.1 but with 11.1 it went away 😏

 

[Javier_gl]

Well, I've just downgraded to Catalina and see if the problems goes away. I updated to 11.1 but the problem was still present, and there are so many dead battery reports that I prefer to wait until 11.3 or 11.4.

 

[Cristim74]

I'm having the same issue with my 2017 MacBook Pro 15" TB. Running on macOS BigSur 11.1.
Battery shows "Service Recommended" and it won't run too long on battery.
Coconut Battery shows 60% battery health with 345 battery cycles.
Was considering a battery replacement (650 euros + VAT - ouch!) until I found these threads.

 

[/V\acpower]

I'm having the same issue with my 2017 MacBook Pro 15" TB. Running on macOS BigSur 11.1.
Battery shows "Service Recommended" and it won't run too long on battery.
Coconut Battery shows 60% battery health with 345 battery cycles.
Was considering a battery replacement (650 euros + VAT - ouch!) until I found these threads.

To be fair, these are not the same symptoms the guy in the OP me and multiple others (on Apple Dev. Forums, and also on Twitter) had.

Mine was clearly like the Computer didn't have any battery anymore, totally unable to access it in any way. My MacBook Pro shutdown the moment you unplugged the cord, exactly like an iMac would. It was unable to read any charge on the battery, charge and even less use it.

Your seems like a totally different situation. The computer is reading and using the battery fine. I don't think it's the same issue you are having.

 

[Cristim74]

I still see some similarities. Out of nowhere I can only run my computer on battery for a few minutes. Actually I haven't checked recently, as I run it mostly docked to a CalDigit TS3+. Also I haven't seen "Service Battery" message before and it's quite strange after only 345 charge cycles. By comparison my wife's MacBook 12 has ~450 charge cycles and the battery runs perfectly fine. And finally it's the battery manufacturing date. It used to read it correctly in the past; now it reads 1979 as the manufacturing year. So I'm pretty sure it's not reading the battery correctly.

 

[incline design group]

Yesterday, I was preparing my Mac to sell (MBP 2016, base model no touchbar)

I was on Big Sur since launch and the 11.1 update also. Everything perfectly fine.

Clean install Big Sur ...

Battery at 1%, OS tell me it's not charging. Battery condition : "Need service" MacBook run solely on the charger, if I unplug it, instantly dies. When shutdown, unable to boot the computer with the power button. Only way that made the MacBook boot is literaly unplugging the usb c cable and replugging it. For some reason after like 10 seconds it start. But still, computer completely unusable when not plugged it.

I spent all night yesterday (2 am to 9 am) downloading multiple copies of multiple version of macOS, create multiple install media, clean install so many times. Reboot NVRAM, SMC. Ran Apple Diagnostic tool (result : normal). Nothing.

...

My best guess is that somehow in the installation process, under certain condition, the installer can corrupt the battery firmware (or the whole computer firmware). It's literally like the computer has no way to access the battery.

Read a bit. I saw that Apple doesn't do firmware updates anymore and that they are now included in OS updates.

So, I thought of a strategy : Go back to the macOS version my MBP shipped with : Sierra.

Then just use the updater links here : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683, to simply update the OS, one "version" at a time : Sierra -> High Sierra -> Mojave -> Catalina -> Big Sur.

The idea : maybe somehow in these update process there will be a moment where it will "update firmware" and reset it to a functionning state.

Result

Clean install Sierra : Exact same battery symptoms, can't run on battery, can't charge, battery need service. BUT one major difference, now the battery show 100% instead of 1% and in System Report it give me a number of mAh instead of simply 0 like before. A small victory but still little hope.

Update to High Sierra : ... EVERYTHING BACK TO NORMAL ! Battery is charging, can run on battery, battery condition : normal. Can shutdown and boot on battery without any issue. Like new !

Now, just not to mess with things, I'm updating one by one. Back to Catalina soon. So far, absolutely no issue.

-

I think it's worth a try for anyone having this issue : go back the earliest macOS version possible, then update OS one at a time.

Also, if it doesn't work, at least it show that this is a Software issue and not Hardware.

This last week I attempted this... did a lot of reinstalls and clean installs and erased disks trying all the variations I could wrap my head around... alas none of these worked for me. My gut tells me this was a firmware update to the battery but I have been unable to trigger installing an older firmware that allows the computer to charge and read the battery's software. I'm going to get on the phone with Apple this week again and see if they have any resolution or support for me... but in the meantime I am debating whether it's worth it to pay the $700 for the battery replacement (out of AppleCare and battery glued to the case now, so it is a full top-case replacement), or if I should just pony up the extra $600–700 for the M1 MacBook Pro (even though it pains me that it only has 2 ports on it <eye-roll>...

 

[/V\acpower]

This last week I attempted this... did a lot of reinstalls and clean installs and erased disks trying all the variations I could wrap my head around... alas none of these worked for me. My gut tells me this was a firmware update to the battery but I have been unable to trigger installing an older firmware that allows the computer to charge and read the battery's software. I'm going to get on the phone with Apple this week again and see if they have any resolution or support for me... but in the meantime I am debating whether it's worth it to pay the $700 for the battery replacement (out of AppleCare and battery glued to the case now, so it is a full top-case replacement), or if I should just pony up the extra $600–700 for the M1 MacBook Pro (even though it pains me that it only has 2 ports on it <eye-roll>...

They are not supposed to charge you anymore than the price of a Battery replacement (130 to 200 USD, depending on your model).

Yes if you need to replace the top case replacement it's 700$, and it's the same exact part, but Apple will sell it at different price depending of why the repair is being made. Battery replacement is 130 to 200 USD. Whatever they say to you that you need to pay 700$, complain, because they are not supposed to charge you that much.

(I can imagine that a new employee checking the price of the part, and wanting to charge you 700$, but he is not supposed to.)

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

EDIT : I see from your OP you went to a third party. Don't, go directly to Apple, Online if you need to. It's not 700$.

 

[Javier_gl]

This last week I attempted this... did a lot of reinstalls and clean installs and erased disks trying all the variations I could wrap my head around... alas none of these worked for me. My gut tells me this was a firmware update to the battery but I have been unable to trigger installing an older firmware that allows the computer to charge and read the battery's software. I'm going to get on the phone with Apple this week again and see if they have any resolution or support for me... but in the meantime I am debating whether it's worth it to pay the $700 for the battery replacement (out of AppleCare and battery glued to the case now, so it is a full top-case replacement), or if I should just pony up the extra $600–700 for the M1 MacBook Pro (even though it pains me that it only has 2 ports on it <eye-roll>...

A firmware update can NEVER be downgraded. BUT you can have potential crashes if using an old kernel with a newer Firmware. I also tried the above method, and the firmaware never downgraded. So, if the battery problem is due to a faulty firmware upgrade done by Big Sur, our only solution will be a firmware upgrade in latest release. Now using again Big Sur near my charger...

 

[incline design group]

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

EDIT : I see from your OP you went to a third party. Don't, go directly to Apple, Online if you need to. It's not 700$.

Thanks for the info on this. When I originally contacted Apple they sent me to this local 3rd party as the Apple Stores here in Utah are all closed (Covid), and this was my only option. I'll be reaching out to Apple again this week to see if they are acknowledging this issue yet...

 

[johnalan]

Check your energy usage in Activity Monitor, I bet notes.app is using like 65% of your CPU.

 

[kat.hayes]

Interesting. Right after upgrading to Big Sur my 2015 MBP can barely hold a charge. Was wondering if it was just a coincidence...

 

[Javier_gl]

Check your energy usage in Activity Monitor, I bet notes.app is using like 65% of your CPU.

In my case is helpd process that's eating the battery (its a bug when you use Spanish (Spain) as your main system language, that is not corrected in the latest RC.

 

[johnalan]

In my case is helpd process that's eating the battery (its a bug when you use Spanish (Spain) as your main system language, that is not corrected in the latest RC.

What a mess. That's annoying @Javier

 

[dotck]

I had (at least a related issue) mentioned in this thread. The battery of my MBP suddenly died after a few hours on Big Sur and I had to get it replaced. Fun fact: My 2012 MBA still works just fine with its first battery even if it doesn't last that long anymore but it will remain running Catalina for the rest of its life.

 

[incline design group]

UPDATE: I let the computer sit on the desk for the past couple months while I tried different options and waited to see if the 11.2 update would fix this... on the Developer forum thread linked in my original post someone said they had their battery fixed this week... so I called Apple Support again. They escalated it, made me an appointment on Monday, and I picked up my out-of-AppleCare MBPro with a new battery this afternoon. Apple covered the cost and the dude who helped me said there is no official word but they are covering battery replacements right now.

Also interesting... when dropping off my computer on Monday, the dude next to me was bringing his in for the same reason, and I was told I wasn't the first battery replacement drop-off of the day...

Good luck!

 

[thomas92]

Same here. 13" MBP 2015, 250 battery cycles and working perfectly fine until Big Sur update suddenly bricked the battery. Now shows 'X' through battery icon with a 'Service Recommended' warning. Battery won't charge, health is now 0%, and magsafe indicator remains green. As soon as power supply unplugged MBP immediately turns off.

Spoke to several Apple advisors, and although they knew of issue they sidestepped my questions and said my MBP isn't part of 'eligible 2016/2017 models' there's nothing they can do (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT212163). Instead they said I could pay for an out of warranty battery repair. I declined.

My MBP battery was inspected and found in very good condition with no signs of damage. I believe this is a firmware issue showing all the same symptoms as the 'eligible' models that are part of Apples battery replacement scheme. Since it is a firmware issue reverting to an older OS won't fix the problem as others have said.

My MBP one day was working perfectly, now it is a 'desktop' thanks to Apple and they will take no liability...

 

[Ideanj]

2018 15” MacBook Pro here, experiencing the same issue. If I booted the laptop without being plugged in, I can get as far as my desktop then the computer would immediately go to sleep and claim dead battery.

If I plugged the laptop back in, the laptop would start back up like normal and show ~50-60% battery. After this I could unplug it and use it as normal on battery

I was talking to Apple support who walked me through a bunch of troubleshooting steps. The only thing that temporarily fixed the issue was booting into safe mode, but it returned after a few cold boots.

I went ahead and re-installed Big Sur a week ago and so far I have not had the issue happen again. Hoping it’s fixed itself somehow, but not betting on it. I have AppleCare until August so just hoping it either happens again or never happens again prior to August so I know what I need to do.

FWIW, my battery shows normal and diagnostics reported no hardware issues.

Update: Occurred again this morning. Seems to only happen when my battery is around or less than 60%. Battery still shows normal which is strange.

 

[oximusic76]

hi everyone.i have the same issue,macbook pro 2018 battery 1% exactly after I install Big Sur.I opened a case in apple support and they told me is a hardware problem .my battery was 68% before decided to upgrade to Big Sur and now I ended up that I have to pay for the battery exchange .tomorrow I have the final date for a solution ,they tell me the model is not going in the battery exchange program but I have taken pictures of all the conversation ,and if they not come with a reasonable solution I will go public just people to see what ar they dealing with when they choose apple products.its annoying to know that is not your fault but they can manipulate you as they want.

 

[kodabear]

Interesting to note if I'm reading this right that this appears to be only an issue with older computers (2018 models or earlier) with OS installed prior to Big Sur. Not seeing any complaints from owners of new computers with Big Sur already installed, at least not yet. Other previous posts have been about Bluetooth issues and external monitor problems to name a few even thou it seems Apple has addressed those problems. I have refrained from upgrading to Big Sur because of these posts and will stay with Catalina. If it's not broken, don't fix it!

 

[darngooddesign]

Interesting to note if I'm reading this right that this appears to be only an issue with older computers (2018 models or earlier) with OS installed prior to Big Sur. Not seeing any complaints from owners of new computers with Big Sur already installed, at least not yet. Other previous posts have been about Bluetooth issues and external monitor problems to name a few even thou it seems Apple has addressed those problems. I have refrained from upgrading to Big Sur because of these posts and will stay with Catalina. If it's not broken, don't fix it!

FYI I updated my 2014 13” MBP from Catalina and have no battery or BT issues (with my Logitech mouse and UE Boom speaker).