Hi all,
Title of the thread might be over simplified.
I’ve got quite a puzzler with my MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar (15” / i7 2,9 / 16GB / Radeon Pro 460 4GB / 2TB).
I sent it to Apple end of July so they can replace the battery.
Machine came back a few days later, and I couldn’t reinstall MacOS on it!
The Macbook always ended up with the question mark in the blinking folder after while.
Worth mentioning that as soon as I received the Macbook, I went to recovery mode and just deleted everything (formatted the disk) to do a clean install and get back to work as quickly as possible.
So I went through all the forums in the world and performed all kind of procedures:
Thinking that it was the SSD that had failed, I installed Monterey on an external SSD 2TB (quite costly). It worked and it was stable (more on that in a moment).
Then I finally got to talk to an Apple technical supervisor. And after a few unsuccessful tries with Monterey, Big Sur, we successfully installed MacOS High Sierra on the machine from an installer on a USB key. Given that each try takes quite some time, the supervisor gave me the instructions and called me back a few days later each time to know how it went. Unfortunately despite having an email and text message capability to contact him he never got back to me after this ‘success’.
Success in quotes because the OS is installed, the computer boots…and after 3 minutes shuts down, shows the Apple logo and gets back to the blinking folder with the question mark (sigh).
Moreover, it now behaves exactly the same when booting on the SSD with Monterey.
But when booting in Safe Mode, the computer stays on. There are no app that launches at startup that could cause the issue, the install is as clean as possible.
I’ve contacted Apple several times, to complain about the fact that the machine was working when I sent it, and it wasn’t when I got it back. But the MacBook Pro 2016 has been qualified as ‘vintage’ while they were changing the battery, so they are telling me they can’t help me anymore, despite that the issue may have been caused by them (!) and despite having escalated the issue 2 times.
I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know if this is software related, or hardware related. Seems to me it could be hardware related, although it did run ok with Monterey on the SSD at some point.
If anyone wants to throw their 2 cents at this issue, or even better had the same issue and can tell me how it went and/or the cause, I’d be very grateful.
Side note: I’m quite annoyed with Apple that they don’t follow up on their repair because the computer is ‘vintage’. Information that they had when they took the computer to replace the battery. If they can’t guaranty it, they just shouldn’t accept the job and shouldn't crack it open. Any service provider have a guaranty period after a repair, how come Apple doesn’t follow that standard. I’m a loyal customer and I love their products, I was waiting for the next MacBook Pro model to renew my hardware, but after this I’m afraid to spend that much money again with them.
Title of the thread might be over simplified.
I’ve got quite a puzzler with my MacBook Pro 2016 with Touch Bar (15” / i7 2,9 / 16GB / Radeon Pro 460 4GB / 2TB).
I sent it to Apple end of July so they can replace the battery.
Machine came back a few days later, and I couldn’t reinstall MacOS on it!
The Macbook always ended up with the question mark in the blinking folder after while.
Worth mentioning that as soon as I received the Macbook, I went to recovery mode and just deleted everything (formatted the disk) to do a clean install and get back to work as quickly as possible.
So I went through all the forums in the world and performed all kind of procedures:
- Reset SMC / PRAM / NVRAM
- Install from Recovery mode in all different methods (CMD+R / CMD+OPT+R / SHIFT+CMD+OPT+R)
- Reinstall from Time Machine backup
- Install Monterey from a USB key
- Re-downloaded MacOS, tried again…
- Took it to a certified Apple Repair center, who told me they were unsuccessful and it 'seemed' to be an hardware issue and to contact Apple
- Contacted Apple Support, they made me redo the procedures a 2nd and 3rd time…
Thinking that it was the SSD that had failed, I installed Monterey on an external SSD 2TB (quite costly). It worked and it was stable (more on that in a moment).
Then I finally got to talk to an Apple technical supervisor. And after a few unsuccessful tries with Monterey, Big Sur, we successfully installed MacOS High Sierra on the machine from an installer on a USB key. Given that each try takes quite some time, the supervisor gave me the instructions and called me back a few days later each time to know how it went. Unfortunately despite having an email and text message capability to contact him he never got back to me after this ‘success’.
Success in quotes because the OS is installed, the computer boots…and after 3 minutes shuts down, shows the Apple logo and gets back to the blinking folder with the question mark (sigh).
Moreover, it now behaves exactly the same when booting on the SSD with Monterey.
But when booting in Safe Mode, the computer stays on. There are no app that launches at startup that could cause the issue, the install is as clean as possible.
I’ve contacted Apple several times, to complain about the fact that the machine was working when I sent it, and it wasn’t when I got it back. But the MacBook Pro 2016 has been qualified as ‘vintage’ while they were changing the battery, so they are telling me they can’t help me anymore, despite that the issue may have been caused by them (!) and despite having escalated the issue 2 times.
I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know if this is software related, or hardware related. Seems to me it could be hardware related, although it did run ok with Monterey on the SSD at some point.
If anyone wants to throw their 2 cents at this issue, or even better had the same issue and can tell me how it went and/or the cause, I’d be very grateful.
Side note: I’m quite annoyed with Apple that they don’t follow up on their repair because the computer is ‘vintage’. Information that they had when they took the computer to replace the battery. If they can’t guaranty it, they just shouldn’t accept the job and shouldn't crack it open. Any service provider have a guaranty period after a repair, how come Apple doesn’t follow that standard. I’m a loyal customer and I love their products, I was waiting for the next MacBook Pro model to renew my hardware, but after this I’m afraid to spend that much money again with them.