Macs Refuse to Reboot After macOS Monterey Update

Last week’s arrival of macOS Monterey brought eight exciting updates for Mac users, including new shortcut creations, cool Safari features, and Focus modes. It’d come as no surprise if you were quick to upgrade your Mac to get your hands on the new features. But unfortunately, you may be amongst the significant number of users who are unable to turn their computers back on following the update. 

Many people have taken to social media and Apple Support communities to report that macOS Monterey has ultimately “killed” their MacBooks. That said, if you have yet to update to the latest version of macOS, it’d be wise to hold off until the issue is sorted out.

Which Mac Models Are Being Affected Most?

While the new macOS is available on all MacBook Pro, Macbook Air, and iMac models that came out after 2015 (2014 and later for the Mac mini), the issue appears to mostly affect older models.

As first reported by MacRumors, newer Apple silicon-based Macs seem to be safe from the issue based on user reports so far.

Can They Be Fixed?

As a result of the update failure, some Macs are being deemed “bricked,” which is a term implying the computer is unusable and no longer recoverable. On the other hand, some are just in limbo and are actually able to recover after multiple tries or by using the Apple Configurator utility.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Mac computers have bricked due to software updates. It happened at an even larger scale last year with macOS Big Sur. It’s essentially inevitable since newer software isn’t tested as thoroughly on older hardware.

Not to say older MacBooks don’t support the new software, they still do. You just might want to wait to update until Apple has worked through the bugs that cause the issues, or else you could end up with a completely dead computer.