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During Install, stuck on Black Screen

When I guess I have been lucky - touch wood. Took the plunge and upgrade my mid-2014 Retina MBP on Friday, all seemed well. I think when it rebooted it somehow got stuck on the Apple Logo with the progress bar about halfway and appeared to have stopped. I turned off power and re-powered in up, and my MBP came back OK with the screen and Big Sur's login screen was shown.

However, I spent the next day or so trying to make sure any apps that I have gets updated to support Big Sur - there are still apps that just wouldn't run, some will outright crash and reboot the Mac (i.e. get a black crash screen). And I too had issues with my windows 10 VM under Parallels. So, in a way Big Sur has given me some initial headaches, it is beginning to be useable again, hopefully things just get better as times goes by.

I'll definitely be holding off updating my 2015 Mac Mini though...
 
I had no issues with my MacBook Pro 13 late 2013. But just to be sure I used the discutility before updating. I then found some warnings in connection with 32bit applications remnants than I then deleted before updating.

My update started just before I went to sleep. So I have no idea how long it took. Just to be on the safe side I suggest to let your macbook run for a while before you abort the update.

But it could also be that I was just lucky........
 
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bradbomb said:
Anyone else have the MacBook Pro stuck on a black screen. I have tried force restarting and then also holding Option. The only choice on the boot screen is MacOS Installer and it goes back to the black screen.
Click to expand...
Yes this happened to me too 2014 MacBook Pro 13 inch. Forcing it to shut down by holding the power button and doing SMC resets and restarting till the apple logo comes back and then the install will continue. I tried to reinstall Catalina with internet recovery but it messed up my FileVault password and was forced to wipe the drive with internet recovery, install Catalina and had to do the force shut down, and smc reset every time it restarted to a black screen which was everytime it restarted. After if finally installed Catalina I then installed Big Sur from the Mac App Store.
I had to do the same thing to fix it every time it got stuck on the black screen.
After successfully installing Big Sur and saw the desktop, I then restarted the mac and it went to the black screen again every restart. I shut it down and left it off the charger and the next day around 2 pm it restarted normally without the black screen and now works great. Restarts everytime no more black screen fingers crossed 🤞🏻
i did have Carbon Copy Cloner backup clone and a Time Machine backup too.
 
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I had the same issue with my macbook pro 2013. Black screen, no way to continue, combination of any keeys would not do anything. Drained my mackbook battery to zero, still mothing, but after few hours option - r did work, run disk check and finaly after two days of black screen got my mackbook back. **** it was scary as i did not want to loose my mackbook as of yet.
 
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Same issue. MacBook 13" Pro mid 2014, Catalina. Black screen (it's the apple logo on the back that lits up the screen), power button is the only responsive button. The install just stopped at this screen after a process that seemed normal up until then . Machine has been powered up for 24 hours straight, no fans, just got usual warm. Been on the phone with Apple support and went through several startup sequences with no luck.

EDIT: Apple support filed a case up the system for the engineers to have look at the problem. I should be hearing from them by friday again(!)
 
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Had a similar black screen show up with the mouse cursor after completing the update on my iMac 5K (late 2015). Waited for a while, nothing happened. Force-restarted it, works fine.
 
lemonkid said:
I had no issues with my MacBook Pro 13 late 2013. But just to be sure I used the discutility before updating. I then found some warnings in connection with 32bit applications remnants than I then deleted before updating.

My update started just before I went to sleep. So I have no idea how long it took. Just to be on the safe side I suggest to let your macbook run for a while before you abort the update.

But it could also be that I was just lucky........
Click to expand...
Me too, it did took a while for the upgrade...at times I though about rebooting it but didnt until it completed the upgrade fully.
 
I am wondering if these issues have something to do with the diversity of NVMEs we are all using...I am on Sabrent Rocker 1TB and working flawlessly so far on Big Sur.
 
Just found this discussion on Facebook. It happened to me (MacBook Pro 2014). During the update the screen went black and nothing worked. I was able to restart the installation and bring the MacBook back to life by disconnecting the I/O Board from the logic board. If I connect the I/O Board back again, the Mac won't boot. I thought my I/O Board just broke and ordered a replacement, I wasn't aware this problem was so widespread :/

[This "worked" for me, but it may not work for you. I do not suggest you to rip apart your MacBook :D :D :D]
 
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BTW. I am reinstalling Catalina now, using USB keyboard and mouse having the I/O board unplugged.
My Summary posts in this forum have been removed by Apple mods
Same procedure as in the past
 
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mknell said:
BTW. I am reinstalling Catalina now, using USB keyboard and mouse having the I/O board unplugged.
My Summary posts in this forum have been removed by Apple mods
Same procedure as in the past
Click to expand...
Hi Mknell,
I was just responding to your summary post in the Apple Forum, when it disappeared. I've experienced the exact same you've described there. Have you tried to replace the I/O board? I'm waiting my replacement to arrive.
 
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Same problem here, Macbook late 2013, 13 inch and i5. During attempting to upgrade my external SSD to Mac OS BIg Surit stuck on black screen after rebooting and is now unresponsive. Bonus: My country is since 20minutes in total lockdown. In contact with applesupport right now.
 
Dk82 said:
Hi Mknell,
I was just responding to your summary post in the Apple Forum, when it disappeared. I've experienced the exact same you've described there. Have you tried to replace the I/O board? I'm waiting my replacement to arrive.
Click to expand...
I am also waiting for my board to arrive later this week and will keep you posted.

The censorship on Apples support forum is bad.

No official statement from Apple though.

I have received a last warning not to post anything anymore on their forum
 
Well, I just recover my MBP Mid 2014, I bought a second hand i/o board from a MBP 2015, and it work without problems, let see if apple confirm the issue and repair it.
And I will stay away from Bug Sur as long as possible.
 
mknell said:
I am also waiting for my board to arrive later this week and will keep you posted.

The censorship on Apples support forum is bad.

No official statement from Apple though.

I have received a last warning not to post anything anymore on their forum
Click to expand...
Incredibile. You wrote nothing wrong on their forum :/ It was just a summary :/
 
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gonzalovalenzuela said:
Well, I just recover my MBP Mid 2014, I bought a second hand i/o board from a MBP 2015, and it work without problems, let see if apple confirm the issue and repair it.
And I will stay away from Bug Sur as long as possible.
Click to expand...
So it works with replacement I/O boards, good! I'm already on Big Sur, I don't know if I should go back on Catalina as soon as my board arrives. It's seems that the problem manifest itself only during the first installation, but I'm not that sure.
 
Dk82 said:
So it works with replacement I/O boards, good! I'm already on Big Sur, I don't know if I should go back on Catalina as soon as my board arrives. It's seems that the problem manifest itself only during the first installation, but I'm not that sure.
Click to expand...
Yes, I go back to Catalina just in case, and the spare was a 2015 one, fits but its seems to be a little different (metal cover in the HDMI connector)
 
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lemonkid said:
I had no issues with my MacBook Pro 13 late 2013. But just to be sure I used the discutility before updating. I then found some warnings in connection with 32bit applications remnants than I then deleted before updating.

My update started just before I went to sleep. So I have no idea how long it took. Just to be on the safe side I suggest to let your macbook run for a while before you abort the update.

But it could also be that I was just lucky........
Click to expand...
Most people having the issue report that they had an SD card in a card reader.
I first thought this was not the case for me, but then I noticed my Transcend Jetdrive was in a USB hub I attached to one of the USB ports :-(, so I can count myself in.
So if one wants to install Big Sure on a MBP 13 late 2013/mid 2014 (or to be sure any other model) I recommend to remove all SD cards.
 
mknell said:
Most people having the issue report that they had an SD card in a card reader.
I first thought this was not the case for me, but then I noticed my Transcend Jetdrive was in a USB hub I attached to one of the USB ports :-(, so I can count myself in.
So if one wants to install Big Sure on a MBP 13 late 2013/mid 2014 (or to be sure any other model) I recommend to remove all SD cards.
Click to expand...
I did indeed had a SD card in the reader :O I have a small 128 high-speed SD drive, designed to fit perfectly with the macbook border, that I use as an archive. It's always there :/
 
Last week, on release day, I was able to install Big Sur on a late 2013 13" MacBook Pro (2.6ghz i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) without any issues (after the download started working). Previous OS was latest Catalina build. The process was no different (except for being a little longer by 10 minutes) than when I upgraded my 15" 2018 MacBook Pro work computer.
 
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