Tjyylli

Co-worker works way more than he should

What is it called when you ride around on your front wheel?

Intern got a job offer for same salary than a long term team member

How to keep bees out of canned beverages?

Is accepting an invalid credit card number a security issue?

Is Diceware more secure than a long passphrase?

Is there metaphorical meaning of "aus der Haft entlassen"?

Multiple options vs single option UI

Mistake in years of experience in resume?

Drawing a german abacus as in the books of Adam Ries

All ASCII characters with a given bit count

What is the term for a person whose job is to place products on shelves in stores?

Did the Roman Empire have penal colonies?

Why do distances seem to matter in the Foundation world?

Has a Nobel Peace laureate ever been accused of war crimes?

How exactly does Hawking radiation decrease the mass of black holes?

Scheduling based problem

Is there really no use for MD5 anymore?

What's the difference between using dependency injection with a container and using a service locator?

Older movie/show about humans on derelict alien warship which refuels by passing through a star

First instead of 1 when referencing

What is /etc/mtab in Linux?

Protagonist's race is hidden - should I reveal it?

As an international instructor, should I openly talk about my accent?

How to recover corrupted MacBook Pro SMC Firmware

.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty{ height:90px;width:728px;box-sizing:border-box;
}

3

I have a MacBook Pro Retina 15" that is no longer bootable due to (as far as I can tell) corrupted SMC firmware. The reason I think this is that SMC resets no longer work, the MagSafe charging light is off and the fans are on full blast.

Since I can't boot into Mac OS my idea was to run an rEFInd shell and try to manually re-flash the firmware as described here and here. The problem is that when trying to execute "SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1" I get the following error message:

Warning (at least one SMC) is not in the expected AppCode mode, but in 'U' mode. To enter AppCode mode run SMCUtil with the '-reset 1' option.

...which seems strange, since I just specified the '-reset 1' option.

My question(s):

1. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?


2. What is the difference between AppCode and 'U' mode?


3. Any other ideas on how to get my MacBook booting again?

Some more background:

About three weeks ago I replaced the notoriously unreplaceable (glued in) battery as well as the network card. Initially there were some issues with the MagSafe light and fan and so I did an SMC reset. Everything was fine for a week or two at which point the machine began self-initiating restarts (popping up a confirmation dialog, asking if I really wanted to restart). This began sporadically, then increased in frequency and eventually got so bad that I couldn't boot at all without a restart being initiated. Then finally, the MagSafe light went off and the fans came fully on.

Since the battery is new I probably still have some charge left, but my concern is that once the battery runs down (since it's not being charged) I will have no way to even attempt to save my machine.

Any help is much appreciated!

boot battery macbook-pro refit magsafe

share|improve this question

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

bumped to the homepage by Community♦ 22 hours ago

This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.

add a comment | 

3

I have a MacBook Pro Retina 15" that is no longer bootable due to (as far as I can tell) corrupted SMC firmware. The reason I think this is that SMC resets no longer work, the MagSafe charging light is off and the fans are on full blast.

Since I can't boot into Mac OS my idea was to run an rEFInd shell and try to manually re-flash the firmware as described here and here. The problem is that when trying to execute "SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1" I get the following error message:

Warning (at least one SMC) is not in the expected AppCode mode, but in 'U' mode. To enter AppCode mode run SMCUtil with the '-reset 1' option.

...which seems strange, since I just specified the '-reset 1' option.

My question(s):

1. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?


2. What is the difference between AppCode and 'U' mode?


3. Any other ideas on how to get my MacBook booting again?

Some more background:

About three weeks ago I replaced the notoriously unreplaceable (glued in) battery as well as the network card. Initially there were some issues with the MagSafe light and fan and so I did an SMC reset. Everything was fine for a week or two at which point the machine began self-initiating restarts (popping up a confirmation dialog, asking if I really wanted to restart). This began sporadically, then increased in frequency and eventually got so bad that I couldn't boot at all without a restart being initiated. Then finally, the MagSafe light went off and the fans came fully on.

Since the battery is new I probably still have some charge left, but my concern is that once the battery runs down (since it's not being charged) I will have no way to even attempt to save my machine.

Any help is much appreciated!

boot battery macbook-pro refit magsafe

share|improve this question

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

bumped to the homepage by Community♦ 22 hours ago

This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed.

add a comment | 

I have a MacBook Pro Retina 15" that is no longer bootable due to (as far as I can tell) corrupted SMC firmware. The reason I think this is that SMC resets no longer work, the MagSafe charging light is off and the fans are on full blast.

Since I can't boot into Mac OS my idea was to run an rEFInd shell and try to manually re-flash the firmware as described here and here. The problem is that when trying to execute "SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1" I get the following error message:

Warning (at least one SMC) is not in the expected AppCode mode, but in 'U' mode. To enter AppCode mode run SMCUtil with the '-reset 1' option.

...which seems strange, since I just specified the '-reset 1' option.

My question(s):

1. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?


2. What is the difference between AppCode and 'U' mode?


3. Any other ideas on how to get my MacBook booting again?

Some more background:

About three weeks ago I replaced the notoriously unreplaceable (glued in) battery as well as the network card. Initially there were some issues with the MagSafe light and fan and so I did an SMC reset. Everything was fine for a week or two at which point the machine began self-initiating restarts (popping up a confirmation dialog, asking if I really wanted to restart). This began sporadically, then increased in frequency and eventually got so bad that I couldn't boot at all without a restart being initiated. Then finally, the MagSafe light went off and the fans came fully on.

Since the battery is new I probably still have some charge left, but my concern is that once the battery runs down (since it's not being charged) I will have no way to even attempt to save my machine.

Any help is much appreciated!

boot battery macbook-pro refit magsafe

share|improve this question

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

share|improve this question

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

share|improve this question

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

edited Nov 18 '18 at 17:11

JakeGould

33k10100142

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

asked Sep 16 '15 at 8:09

JohnJohn

1612

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

0

It seems you are not using the right program : you said you are using

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

But the error message mentions SMCUtil, I don't know where you can find it though.

Also, have you tried the solution mentioned here.

SmcFlasher.efi -force -update <filename.smc>

To force reflash your firmware ?

share|improve this answer

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Thanks for your answer. As the link you pointed me to mentions, SmcFlasher and SmcUtil are apparently synonymous (perhaps SmcUtil is the older name that never got updated in the error message?). The force update command returns the same error message plus some additional output (don't have at hand right now). I presume that the SmcFlasher binary from Apple should work; or is there something special about the binary posted under that link?
  
  – John
  Sep 17 '15 at 15:41
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  No, I don't think there's anything specific about the binary posted there.
  
  – Antoine Reversat
  Sep 18 '15 at 16:34
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

Your Answer

StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "3"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});

function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});


}
});

draft saved

draft discarded

Sign up or log in

StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});

Sign up using Google

Sign up using Facebook

Sign up using Email and Password

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fsuperuser.com%2fquestions%2f973693%2fhow-to-recover-corrupted-macbook-pro-smc-firmware%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);

Post as a guest

Name

Email

Required, but never shown

0

It seems you are not using the right program : you said you are using

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

But the error message mentions SMCUtil, I don't know where you can find it though.

Also, have you tried the solution mentioned here.

SmcFlasher.efi -force -update <filename.smc>

To force reflash your firmware ?

share|improve this answer

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Thanks for your answer. As the link you pointed me to mentions, SmcFlasher and SmcUtil are apparently synonymous (perhaps SmcUtil is the older name that never got updated in the error message?). The force update command returns the same error message plus some additional output (don't have at hand right now). I presume that the SmcFlasher binary from Apple should work; or is there something special about the binary posted under that link?
  
  – John
  Sep 17 '15 at 15:41
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  No, I don't think there's anything specific about the binary posted there.
  
  – Antoine Reversat
  Sep 18 '15 at 16:34
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

0

It seems you are not using the right program : you said you are using

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

But the error message mentions SMCUtil, I don't know where you can find it though.

Also, have you tried the solution mentioned here.

SmcFlasher.efi -force -update <filename.smc>

To force reflash your firmware ?

share|improve this answer

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  Thanks for your answer. As the link you pointed me to mentions, SmcFlasher and SmcUtil are apparently synonymous (perhaps SmcUtil is the older name that never got updated in the error message?). The force update command returns the same error message plus some additional output (don't have at hand right now). I presume that the SmcFlasher binary from Apple should work; or is there something special about the binary posted under that link?
  
  – John
  Sep 17 '15 at 15:41
  
  
  

  
  
  
  


• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  No, I don't think there's anything specific about the binary posted there.
  
  – Antoine Reversat
  Sep 18 '15 at 16:34
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

It seems you are not using the right program : you said you are using

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

But the error message mentions SMCUtil, I don't know where you can find it though.

Also, have you tried the solution mentioned here.

SmcFlasher.efi -force -update <filename.smc>

To force reflash your firmware ?

share|improve this answer

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

SmcFlasher.efi -reset 1

SmcFlasher.efi -force -update <filename.smc>

share|improve this answer

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

edited Sep 17 '15 at 16:30

nKn

4,63052434

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101

answered Sep 17 '15 at 15:04

Antoine ReversatAntoine Reversat

101