Installed Mojave, and worked fine at first. Did a restart and now I can't get past the following message.
It boots,. WiFi setting screen appears, then when I try proceed it says:
A critical software update is required for your Mac, but an error was encountered while installing this update.
Your Mac can't be used until this update is installed
[Shut down] [try again]
But it never passes that point.
Any thoughts?
I can't reinstall high Sierra either.
I had the exact same problem. It appeared after updating macOS Big Sur 11.6 to Monterey 12.2 I have a MacBook Pro 13" 2017 (4 usb) I was sure from the beginning that it was a software error. And I wasn't going to pay Apple for their mistakes. None of the advice on this and other forums helped me. Then I did the following:
But I decided not to stop there. I installed Boot Camp. Now everything was just fine. I'm zen. I decided that my time was more valuable. And I don't plan on fixing the bugs that Apple makes. I've been googling a lot to find a solution to this problem. And I'm surprised at how many people have been misled by Apple experts on forums and in service centers. All of these people have paid a lot of money for programmer mistakes and unqualified customer service. They don't even want to admit that they screwed up once again.
i have a massive development guys.
my 2017, 13 inch, 4 tb3 ports laptop is back on business.
i detached the webcam and now all is working fine. no more critical update prompt, nothing. of course i sacrificed the webcam but it's better than nothing. i don't use the webcam frequently anyways. i can live without it.
when laptop disassembled the screen connector is facing north (speakers are south, towards you). webcam cable is on the right side of the screen connector, under the removable 3cm wide metal shield. there is a same connector on the left side of the screen. don't detach it otherwise screen is black. i think it might be screen backlight.
now the laptop went to sleep but it seemed like it slept really deep. i woke the laptop by pressing a button and laptop didn't wake up instantly but with a startup chime, like you put it to sleep for long or restarted the laptop. but it resumed from it slept. now i tried it again but this time it woke up instantly.
i am really happy now and i hope someone can benefit out of it.
edit: out of curiosity i plugged the webcam back. boot up speed significantly reduced. nearly 5minutes. greeted with critical update message. forced the laptop to shutdown by power button.
i plugged off the webcam cable and boot up speed was again same slow, around 3mins this time. i started worry if i caused the magical fix to not effecting anymore but it was all good again after turning on. it took longer to boot because i shut down the pc by power button and os x wanted to do a system check if everything was fine.
turned it back on from shut down by power button and it turned on really fast. guess what touch id, sound, touchbar, all working. so it looks like they all have seperate controllers. i don't remember if there was a backlight on the keyboard but it doesn't work. i don't care about it.
now my guesses are these
-webcam cable cracked and don't have all its pins sending data to motherboard and causing lag and system instability therefore touch bar doesn't work. -a controller chip or sort is failed on the motherboard therefore a new screen replacement may not sort this issue out. this is something i will try in the future when i can invest some money on a replacement screen.
so the infamous embeddedOS wasn't the problem on my case. i spent so much time on it.
please let me know if it helped you too.
I had the same problems today - rebooting on safe mode, then rebooting normally did the trick. I did turn off Nord VPN from running on startup given it appeared that some issues were related accessing apple web site for updates, so not 100% sure that wasn't a factor - but it actually doesn't start the vpn client by default.
Same issue today on MacOS Monterey 12.2.1 MacBook Pro 2017 15in i7
Ditto
The same issue was on macOS Monterey 12.2.1 MacBook Pro 2016 15in i7 this week after restarting the OS while I was working normally.
I have tried:
For now, It still does NOT work :(
Confirm the other answer, got the problem with OS 12 Monterey, left shift safety mode, deleted the applications that I suspected (Unshaky, a software to solve sticky keyboard issue), downloaded the latest version restart and it’s working again
Hey there,
its funny , i tried everything , nothing worked so far until i saw @SensitiveMeatball comment ... i was decided that i will sell it as paper weight or for spare parts, but as last thing to do before i proceed was to check if it will works in case i will unplug webcam cable as @SensitiveMeatball mentioned .... well suprisingly nothing happened when i unpluged webcam cable ... but i decided to not wrap it up right away and i also unplug screen connector, so i started macbook nothing really happened just expected -- i have blacksreen ... then i plug all cables back to board and guess what .. macbook booted up normaly with working touchbar also touch id is working , everything like brand new macbook ... one thing which is not working is webcam even cable is connected to MB... but i really do not care about it as i have finally MacBook which is more or less working nice and smooth..
SO to all of you guys i recommend at least to try this out , I was convinced that it can not be repaired other than by replacing MB ...
Thanks alot @SensitiveMeatball , i dont know if its some magic/fortune/randomness whatever its , my macbook is finally running thanks to your idea with webcam.
My Macbook spec: Macbook pro 2017 15" Model A1707
I am having the same problem, i've pretty much given up at this point. I just can't figure out how to install Windows on my mac now , can someone help me out? I am able to boot into macOS using safemode and from there i tried to use Bootcamp , but bootcamp isn't recognizing the Windows 10 iso file. Can someone guide me how did they install windows?
Okay so I had this problem literally just then.
I have a MacBook Pro (Touch Bar) - 2017, 13-inch. this issue occurred to me bc I uninstalled my Norton Security app as I had not renewed subscription. I noticed other people on this forum also did the same. I then had the ‘critical update required” message and was forced into an endless loop of inputing my internet password then it would take me to the same message again.
from reading other suggestions, I rebooted in safe mode (simply turn off mac then turn back on and hold Left Shift till you see login screen), I was then going to follow the step to disconnect to internet then shut down but noticed in the internet ‘network preferences’ there was a Norton icon with a lock and simply pressed the ‘-‘ at the bottom left next to the ‘+’ which made the Norton icon disappear (I’m assuming deleted it) and then restarted my Mac normally and it was fine.
I hope this suggestion works for someone out there!!
I am facing this problem for the last few weeks on my MBP 15" 2017
I'm a careful user and I never let my Mac update automatically, I'll check in from time to time and see if there are any important updates. I was still using Mojave at that time, one morning I started the machine and the progess bar was running very slow, and finally came up with the wifi selection screen. And of course, it won't complete the update no matter what network I'm on, mobile or home network.
After searching the internet for a while, I know that I have fallen into the same situation that many users are in on this forum. I tried erasing the drive and reinstalling Mojave with a bootable usb, but the error persists. I tried internet recovery to Monterey, it worked initially but after using it for a while my touchbar didn't show up and when I force restart the machine it gave the same error.
Sometimes, the machine would boot normally with the Touchbar working, like nothing happened and I had to take advantage of that time to install bootcamp on my machine. Currently the temporary solution is to use bootcamp to work and not use the key sequence F1, F2... because the touchbar is not visible. In the case of my device, every time my touchbar has problems, I notice that my keyboard and camera lights don't work properly either. iCloud, Touch ID too. I think they are related hardware group in some way.
I haven't tried disconnecting the camera cable as someone suggested in this but if it doesn't work, can anyone suggest me any other workaround?
I am having the exact same issue.
Class action lawsuit????
Same issue with 2016 15” was on Big Surf, Monterey didn’t help.
Safemode works.
MacBookPro 2017 15" Intel, damned Touchbar, Mojave 10:14:6 Same issue.No proxies. Reading all of the above as well as other numerous discussions on this topic: I backed everything up to an XHD. Started in Safe mode. Attempted to upgrade to Monterey several times. Network connection lost. This is the first Mac in decades of usership that I have ever had so many problems. I have had to send it in for service at least 4 times. This model series seems to be a buggy ol' lemon.
So had the same issue me on 2017 macbook pro. I believe I force shutdown while my mac was doing something and critical update popped up (prob software corruption). I went to safe mode updated everything and then updated to Monterey while in safe mode and still same issue.
Someone suggested earlier to try connecting to wifi 2-3 time it fails then wait around ~3min and try again with charger connected and it WORKED. Installed the update and came back to the login page and logged in fine.
Hopefully that fixes it for most people, also my touch bar was still working cause it lit up during login screen. If your touchbar is not working then its more than a software issue and could be a logic board issue like for some people.
I have the same issue for my 2017 macbook pro with touch bar. I've spent a few days trying all sorts of re-installs to different OSX version, and then updating through the app store to later versions, hoping that one of them would restore the touchbar firmware for me, to no avail.
There's an in-depth write-up about the issue https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/27/the-untouchables-apples-new-os-activation-for-touch-bar-macbook-pros/ and part 2 with a "solution" is https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/30/the-untouchables-pt-2-offline-touchbar-activation-with-a-purged-disk/
Based on those write-ups, it sounds as though if someone who has a working touch bar could take the following steps: https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/30/the-untouchables-pt-2-offline-touchbar-activation-with-a-purged-disk/#baking-the-cake and post a working upload of their EFI partition to share, then those who have this issue could simply place the firmware into their EFI partition and circumvent the Apple downloader, which doesn't seem to connect for most of us.
If someone who has a working macbook touch bar would be willing to post a copy of their EFI partition, I will try it on my 2017 macbook pro and repost back with results.
Encountered same problem today. I believe I solved it.
Bottom line: though my Mac was using Monterey - I prepared an install-disk (USB) for macOS Big Sur (not a mistake !) and installed it on the Mac (may require overwriting the Mac - I actually erased and formatted the disk...) - and all worked fine after that.
The touch-bar worked again, and and is great.
After using Big Sur for an hour, I safely upgraded (via Preferences > Update) to macOS Monterey - and after an addition three hours of work, reboots and all - it's still working great.
Try it - it may help you too...
All the best.
There’s a bypasses but no fix yet. Bypass after receiveing error message allow the MacBook to enter sleep mode after 10+ sec wake MacBook but give it a little time load. And try again it should work.
Same issue here. After replacing a relative's 13" 2017 Touch Bar MacBook Pro battery, not only is the soldered internal SSD not working now, but after getting an external one and installing mac OS, it wont let me past the wifi screen saying that it needs a critical software update and fails to do said update. After doing some research, i think that something with the touchbar's firmware is wrong, but I can't find any instructions on how to reset it. I am really disappointed right now because when I booted an Ubuntu live installer, it worked without asking me for any update, however, the neither the touchbar and the camera are working. I have tried to install Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, and even High Sierra, but they all lead to the same error. Guess my relative will be using linux from now on.
My 2016 13" got stuck on this. Worked through iPhone Hotspot, but refused to work through any other Wifi
Ive run into this several time on machines with failing or failed Touch Bars. It's my understanding the Touch Bar has its OWN operating software and this is what's flagging the problem. I had to replace the top case and even then I got the. message... once, but when I restarted I saw people posting about using Ethernet instead of Wifi. I did that and it worked. Customer had the issue pop up ONCE more for her, but she was able to restart t he computer and it went away
One thing that I tried that seems to work: when it shows the "shut down vs. try again" prompt, wait for five minutes before clicking "try again". Do not click "try again" immediately after it shows up.
