Need to downgrade my laptop to Sequoia 15.0 but I don't have admin

jheirtzler wrote:

My Macbook Pro 2019 upgraded to 15.1.1 and after the reboot, the progress bar is hung after 95%. Poking around, what I suspect is happening is that it's trying to run one of several VPN .plist files that were not removed properly from /Library/LaunchAgents, and that causes the laptop to hang unless I boot into Safe Mode and bypass all that. It's too bad these are not automatically disabled as part of the upgrade process so the customer can later reenable them as needed.

For some reason, Safe Mode is not accepting my administrator password, so disabling these login apps from Settings or removing them from the filesystem is not possible. However, if I could downgrade to Sequoia 15.0 by booting off USB, then I can boot normally, then disable them as myself - but creating the installer image requires either another Intel Mac or an administrator account and I don't have either.

It's a little frustrating that creating a bootable USB drive requires administrator privileges, as this only stops people who don't have another laptop handy.

Any suggestions here? I feel like I've tried the usual keyboard boot keys, like Repair mode, Diagnostics, and Clearing Memory. I am sure the hardware is fine and the filesystem is clean.

If you are stuck force a shutdown and reboot as normal and see where this leaves you—typically it straightens itself out.

You can always force quit a shutdown by holding the power button/TouchID for ~6-10 sec.

Force Shut down your Mac.

Log out, sleep, wake, restart or shut down your Mac

Shut down or restart your Mac - Apple Support

I would shut down reboot into Safe Boot mode and try again your update to 15.1.1

 Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

***if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect the charging cable before booting to Safe Mode. 

This will make it act as a wired keyboard and will result in a successful Safe Boot mode.

if not try reinstalling the macOS on top of your existing macOS.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

I see no advantage of trying to downgrade.

If you boot using Command + Option + Shift + R, then you can boot to the online installer for the version of macOS which originally shipped with the Mac from the factory.