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WARNING: Activation Lock after Big Sur Install

rdejaegher

rdejaegher

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2019
13
10
Hey everybody, wanted to provide a word of caution to those considering installing the beta. I woke up this morning to my Mac in Activation Lock and saying that my Mac is linked to another Apple ID. I tried everything (booting into recovery mode, safe mode, erasing and removing from iCloud) and it still boots into Activation Lock.

After an hour on the phone with Apple Support and reaching a senior advisor, the proposed solution is to submit as much info as possible to Apple to determine proof of purchase. He said the timeframe could be 4 days.

So proceed with serious caution if you're considering jumping on the beta train.
 
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I have the 15” 2018 and it works fine for me.
I did do a update from Catalina 10.15.5 to Big Sur.

only thing for me was that in AppStore some apps did report uninstall but they were installed. Fix was to push the cloud icon and “install” the app again.
 
To be clear, the update downloads, the computer restarts, and before it does the upgrade (or very soon after it begins), it gets locked and never continues. That's how it went for me, anyway.
 
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Same thing happened to 2019 MBP 16 Refurb as well. Called Apple and had to speak with a senior advisor. They walked me through the usual troubleshooting steps (erasing it, removing it from my iCloud account) and it remained locked. I’m in the same position as OP now and have to wait 4 days for the iCloud activation lock team to respond after submitting proof of purchase for my own laptop. I fully expect data loss/bugs in an upgrade to a developer beta, but rendering the machine bricked with a ridiculous 4 day ETA is pretty unacceptable.
 
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Very strange. I installed it on an external SSD with my 2018 15" and had no problems except when trying to boot the thumb drive at first, since the T2 requires an internet connection. I had never had to boot my machine from an external drive.
 
neodude237 said:
Same thing happened to 2019 MBP 16 Refurb as well. Called Apple and had to speak with a senior advisor. They walked me through the usual troubleshooting steps (erasing it, removing it from my iCloud account) and it remained locked. I’m in the same position as OP now and have to wait 4 days for the iCloud activation lock team to respond after submitting proof of purchase for my own laptop. I fully expect data loss/bugs in an upgrade to a developer beta, but rendering the machine bricked with a ridiculous 4 day ETA is pretty unacceptable.
Click to expand...

The only sigh of relief is that other people are having the exact same issue, which seems to indicate some sort of bug/glitch.

I had to through the same steps so keep me posted when you hear back regarding the activation lock. At this point I'm hoping a fix is possible without resorting to sending it in.
 
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I don't know what you guys did to get to this unfortunate state, or it could totally be a very bad bug in macOS Big Sur, but thankfully, for me, it was ok. I did a clean install on a separate volume on my own 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and it is running macOS Big Sur ok.

I do have a different bug though - I see 2 identical volumes of my macOS Big Sur installation. I can't get rid of one of them, so I am stuck looking at 2 identical volumes in Disk Utility and on my desktop. No actual usage issues, but a rather cosmetic one. It's really weird.
 
Thank god I just found this forum. Just had the SAME thing happen to me and I’m so pissed now I have a bricked 16” refurbished MacBook Pro?? I’ll have to call them and let them know I’m in the same boat....
 
I had the same issue. However for me I decided to try a few things:
Erase mac
Remove from iCloud
Remove from find my Mac
And nothing worked.....

I then tried to type on random letters as the email and password to unlock it:

emails: nnn
Password: nnn

it then said APPLE ID LOCKED an gave me options to unlock it... an then said it sent an email to a totally DIFFERENT email address that is not mine.
In frustration I tried this a few times an in all it said it said an email to 4 DIFFERENT emails.

finally Apple said they would require proof of purchase for remote activation.... HOWEVER on the phone they said they just remove it from my iCloud BUT iv already done that??? So what exactly will they do?

I have a MacBook Air 2019 referb
 
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Mine doesn’t even give me the option to input any credentials. I simply get a colour wheel and then straight to it saying “the operation couldn’t be completed. Activation lock status could not be determined because the activation lock server could not be reached”
 
It seems to be different for everyone that’s the most confusing part. A glitch that is different for each person... I don’t get it. Anyway il wait for Apple to remove the lock but I got a feeling it will be just removing it from my iCloud that won’t actually help
 
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