A simple terminal command crashed a developer’s computer for several hours.
An iOS developer using the nickname deeplycuriouss experienced a complete operating system crash after executing a console command suggested by the Claude neural network. An attempt to quickly adjust the clock display for promotional screenshots resulted in the calendar being shifted two thousand years into the future, bricking the device.
Drive failure and black screen
While preparing screenshots for the app catalog, the developer needed to set the correct time in the top line of the interface. The developer turned to the Claude AI assistant, which generated a directive for the terminal:
The script disabled network synchronization and set the system time to September 3, 4026. After executing the command, macOS immediately froze.
On subsequent attempts to turn on the computer, the Apple logo and a loading bar were displayed, after which it went to a black screen with a visible mouse cursor. The operating system stopped detecting the primary drive, and booting into Safe Mode and entering the Recovery menu resulted in a similar freeze.
Recovery via Xcode
Restoring the device took several hours. The developer tried booting from external drives and restoring the firmware via DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode using a second Mac, but the process was interrupted by system error 4042.
A solution was found on a specialized forum. The recovery mode failure was resolved by first installing Xcode on the host computer. After installing the package, the Revive utility was able to correctly update the firmware, and the affected Mac successfully initiated system recovery.
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