Not trying to downgrade from Catalina to Mojave, I actually like Catalina. I just want to do a fresh reinstall of Catalina through Internet Recovery.
I've already done all of the disabling secure boot nonsense, everything has been working fine for months. Upgrade from Mojave to Catalina was flawless. EGPU has been flawless. A++ all around. Until now.
I don't use the internal SSD (256GB), I only external SSD storage through USB C or TB3 enclosures (~10TB). Unplugged all the enclosures so I'm not losing any data. It doesn't matter in this scenario, but I also have Time Machine backups. Everything is fine there.
I've discovered Command/Option/Shift/R no longer works. Gives a -1008f error message (which doesn't exist in Apple Support). No, this is not an iCloud-account-locked error as some google makes you think (I already removed the Mini before I attempted any of this). No, this is not a wifi or ethernet issue, again, no thanks google/reddit (I went straight ethernet into the router just in case, same error). I don't know what the error is, but it means you will no longer ever get to load Internet Recovery again if you did an upgrade to Catalina. I asked a friend with an iMac Pro also on Catalina to see if they could get into Internet Recovery, same error for them.
I only have a sample size of 2, but try it yourself, if you're on Catalina on a T2 Mac that started life on Mojave, you can no longer get into Internet Recovery to reinstall your system should/when something eventually borks. Not regular on the hard disk recovery, the downloaded on the fly Internet Recovery. CMD OPT SHFT R, not CMD R.
Essentially, if your drive ever dies or gets corrupt enough you need to reformat/reinstall, you're SOL.
Fortunately I spent the $$$ on AppleCare, so if I can't brute force my way out of this mess I'm taking that route, but seriously, WTF Apple? This doesn't feel like planned obsolescence, this feels like a pretty major sloppy oversight not taken into consideration.
Getting a little nervous now too. The original 10.15 USB stick I made (just for paranoia sake, I used to work in IT (and was a Boy Scout) so Be Prepared is second nature) doesn't work. USB led light accesses, but just sits on the Apple logo for 10+minutes. Currently downloading and making a new 10.15.2/current USB stick, not sure what else I can do if that doesn't work.
Very frustrated atm. Had a completely unrelated hard freeze on my iPhone when pulled off the charger this morning, had to go into DFU and reset everything. I've spent way too much time today trying to troubleshoot Apple product issues instead of actual work.
I've already done all of the disabling secure boot nonsense, everything has been working fine for months. Upgrade from Mojave to Catalina was flawless. EGPU has been flawless. A++ all around. Until now.
I don't use the internal SSD (256GB), I only external SSD storage through USB C or TB3 enclosures (~10TB). Unplugged all the enclosures so I'm not losing any data. It doesn't matter in this scenario, but I also have Time Machine backups. Everything is fine there.
I've discovered Command/Option/Shift/R no longer works. Gives a -1008f error message (which doesn't exist in Apple Support). No, this is not an iCloud-account-locked error as some google makes you think (I already removed the Mini before I attempted any of this). No, this is not a wifi or ethernet issue, again, no thanks google/reddit (I went straight ethernet into the router just in case, same error). I don't know what the error is, but it means you will no longer ever get to load Internet Recovery again if you did an upgrade to Catalina. I asked a friend with an iMac Pro also on Catalina to see if they could get into Internet Recovery, same error for them.
I only have a sample size of 2, but try it yourself, if you're on Catalina on a T2 Mac that started life on Mojave, you can no longer get into Internet Recovery to reinstall your system should/when something eventually borks. Not regular on the hard disk recovery, the downloaded on the fly Internet Recovery. CMD OPT SHFT R, not CMD R.
Essentially, if your drive ever dies or gets corrupt enough you need to reformat/reinstall, you're SOL.
Fortunately I spent the $$$ on AppleCare, so if I can't brute force my way out of this mess I'm taking that route, but seriously, WTF Apple? This doesn't feel like planned obsolescence, this feels like a pretty major sloppy oversight not taken into consideration.
Getting a little nervous now too. The original 10.15 USB stick I made (just for paranoia sake, I used to work in IT (and was a Boy Scout) so Be Prepared is second nature) doesn't work. USB led light accesses, but just sits on the Apple logo for 10+minutes. Currently downloading and making a new 10.15.2/current USB stick, not sure what else I can do if that doesn't work.
Very frustrated atm. Had a completely unrelated hard freeze on my iPhone when pulled off the charger this morning, had to go into DFU and reset everything. I've spent way too much time today trying to troubleshoot Apple product issues instead of actual work.
