Mac Intel: a bug with the restore does not download macOS Big Sur

There is a bug with the restore of Intel Macs, with the inability to download macOS Big Sur. The recovery feature is supposed to recover this version, but it’s actually macOS Catalina that downloads.

According to MrMacintosh, this bug between Intel Macs and macOS Big Sur download has been around since the beginning of December. Apple would know, but there is no information on the date of a fix. It is possible that the situation will unblock in January, when everyone will be back to work. But that remains to be confirmed.

The macOS recovery feature is performed as soon as the Mac is turned on. You must hold down the Command + R keys when the Mac beeps at startup. A menu appears and allows, among other things, to reinstall macOS. This process will make a request to download the operating system to Apple’s servers. But in this case, the Intel Macs download macOS Catalina, even if the machine is running macOS Big Sur.

It is good to note that this macOS Big Sur bug only affects Intel Macs. But it is however possible to reinstall macOS Catalina and then switch to macOS Big Sur afterwards. As for Apple Silicon Macs with the M1 chip, they have the right to a different process and are not affected by the bug detailed here.