OK - so I'm having a similar issue that appears others are having (link here) - but with a twist.
My wife is starting a new job, and the office ordered an M1 MBpro. Let's call the person who ordered it Bob. When Bob at the office received it, they booted it and set it up under their apple id. I don't know why they did this, maybe they just wanted to check it out. But that's beside the point. Bob then evidently erased it and boxed it back up and got it to my wife.
So now - here is the sequence we are experiencing.
1) setup proceeds mostly normally
2) we get to "add a user" screen and it stalls out with the user creation errors that others see
3) we go into recovery mode to erase & reinstall
4) we get to the first screen and it hits the activation lock, because Bob had set it up prior, and we see a truncated form of Bob's email as the appleid like b***gmail.com.
5) we call Bob, they remove this M1 from FindMy app on their other mac successfully, recovery mode on the M1 then says it's unlocked, and we get through to the next step
6) we successfully erase & reinstall
7) we get back into post-install setup, enter our apple id, and get past the apple id screen
8) we get to the user creation screen and it stalls and can't create the user
We then have tried going back to erase again, but when we hit step 4 above - Bob's apple ID is now back attached and the activation lock is active again!
I see other solutions out there for using configurator2 app/DFU mode, and creating USB installers and such. But those sound helpful only if I can get past this other person's activation lock - or alternatively if they are sitting right beside me while I troubleshoot. Are there any other things I could do?
My wife is starting a new job, and the office ordered an M1 MBpro. Let's call the person who ordered it Bob. When Bob at the office received it, they booted it and set it up under their apple id. I don't know why they did this, maybe they just wanted to check it out. But that's beside the point. Bob then evidently erased it and boxed it back up and got it to my wife.
So now - here is the sequence we are experiencing.
1) setup proceeds mostly normally
2) we get to "add a user" screen and it stalls out with the user creation errors that others see
3) we go into recovery mode to erase & reinstall
4) we get to the first screen and it hits the activation lock, because Bob had set it up prior, and we see a truncated form of Bob's email as the appleid like b***gmail.com.
5) we call Bob, they remove this M1 from FindMy app on their other mac successfully, recovery mode on the M1 then says it's unlocked, and we get through to the next step
6) we successfully erase & reinstall
7) we get back into post-install setup, enter our apple id, and get past the apple id screen
8) we get to the user creation screen and it stalls and can't create the user
We then have tried going back to erase again, but when we hit step 4 above - Bob's apple ID is now back attached and the activation lock is active again!
I see other solutions out there for using configurator2 app/DFU mode, and creating USB installers and such. But those sound helpful only if I can get past this other person's activation lock - or alternatively if they are sitting right beside me while I troubleshoot. Are there any other things I could do?