Apple’s refreshed M3 MacBook Pro and iMac computers ship with macOS Ventura installed, but some folks can’t seemingly update their machine to macOS Sonoma.
macOS 13 Ventura was released last October, making it an old operating system by Apple’s standards. The new M3-powered MacBook Pro and iMac come with an unreleased build of macOS Ventura 13.5 that has support for the new chips.
But, some people have found it impossible to update their brand spanking new M3 machine to the latest macOS 14 Sonoma software, released last month.
Some M3 MacBook Pros and iMacs won’t install Sonoma
This problem doesn’t seem to affect each and every owner of these machines. People plagued with it are seeing no macOS update listed in System Settings > General > Software Update. For them, macOS 13.5 shows up as the latest version available instead of macOS Sonoma 14.1.
The M3 Pro and M3 Max versions of the MacBook Pro are unaffected.
Because macOS Ventura 13.5 was released in July, MacRumors concluded that Apple probably began stockpiling these M3 Macs a few months ago. Given TSMC’s limited output of 3nm chips, that sounds about right to us (it’s also why Apple didn’t debut the M3 in its most popular Macs first).
Ok, here’s something weird.
Our M3 MacBook Pro shipped with Ventura and can’t seem to update to Sonoma at all. Version not compatible.
Our M3 Pro MacBook Pro shipped with Sonoma.
Did anyone else get an M3 that shipped with Ventura? pic.twitter.com/me0kLZjk6f
— Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) November 7, 2023
A temporary fix
Apple is always working on updates to its current operating systems, so perhaps one of them will fix this annoying problem. Software researcher Nicolás Álvarez has a temporary fix: Download Apple’s Install Assistant that will allow you to manually update your computer to the M3 version of macOS Sonoma 14.1.
Download Install Assistant from Apple
According to 9to5Mac, attempting to download macOS Sonoma 14.1 through the Mac App Store also doesn’t work, with an error message saying this build is unavailable. That’s obviously not true, as the macOS Sonoma installer has been readily available on the App Store since launch.
View macOS Sonoma on the App Store
The App Store version is the full installer. You may want to free up storage space because the Sonoma installer clocks in at circa twelve gigabytes (plus, you need twice as much free storage to actually install Sonoma). Not ready to overwrite your Ventura installation yet? No problem, install macOS Sonoma on a different partition.