On Monday, Apple patched a bug that left Mac Studio M3 Ultra owners unable to install macOS Tahoe, ending weeks of frustration.
When macOS Tahoe launched on September 15, 2025, it landed smoothly on most devices. MacBook Pro models with M3 and M3 Max chips, and even older Intel systems, upgraded without incident.
But the high-end Mac Studio with M3 Ultra stalled at the finish line.
The install looked normal until the operating system ran a validation check on the Apple Neural Engine. Logs showed the check failed, forcing systems back to macOS Sequoia 15.7 with no upgrade applied.
The result was a $4,000 machine that couldn't run Apple's newest software.
Apple's patch in macOS 26.0.1
On September 29, Apple pushed macOS 26.0.1, which includes the fix. The update corrects the Neural Engine validation bug, letting Mac Studio M3 Ultra owners finally install Tahoe.
Apple hasn't offered a detailed explanation, but engineers reportedly identified a mismatch in the build pushed to Mac Studio machines.
Community reports suggested MacBook Pro models downloaded build 25A354, while Mac Studio fetched an older 25A353 release. Some users speculated Apple swapped in a patched build under the same version number, a practice it has used before.
Mac Studio M3 Ultra owners can finally update to macOS Tahoe with 26.0.1, bringing them in line with the rest of the Mac ecosystem.
