Boot Screen filled with text following High Sierra update

[bsbeamer]

There apparently is a script available that will disable the APFS "conversion" from HFS+ during install if you're using an SSD, but that was not available at the time of my install (that I was aware of). You could also upgrade to HS with an HDD and that drive would not get converted to APFS.

For my purposes, I keep a backup system SSD in an external case (which has been HFS+). Just updated the clone with CCC, swapped into the machine and everything was fine. Then a week or so later reformatted the APFS drive HFS+ and cloned system back to it for backup. A few added steps, but nothing that was really difficult to work around.

 

[lclev]

The biggest issue I had was getting my 1TD SSD formatted back to HFS+. It seems that is not a choice in Disk Utility. I have read you can just erase the partition but that did not work for me in either HS or Recovery.

Basically I booted from my CCC backup then cloned to an internal 500GB SSD that was already formatted HFS+ because, yes I am that paranoid. Then I booted from the newly cloned 500GB SSD and formatted the 1TB SSD APFS system drive using terminal commands. Opened CCC and had it clone my original 1TB newly HFS+ formatted SSD, changed my start up drive to the 1TB and was up and running.

Lisa
[doublepost=1521065332][/doublepost]My one worry is will the next update in HS or the next version of OS X force APFS on me again.

Lisa

 

[Susurs]

This was psted in the thread I mentioned:

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/t...ll-for-high-sierra-with-hfs-file-system-help/

“You can boot to your High Sierra Installer USB and launch startosinstall from terminal eg

/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/macSSD --converttoapfs NO --applicationpath /Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app

where "macSSD" is the target volume in this example.”

 

[bsbeamer]

The biggest issue I had was getting my 1TD SSD formatted back to HFS+. It seems that is not a choice in Disk Utility. I have read you can just erase the partition but that did not work for me in either HS or Recovery.

Did you enable "SHOW ALL DEVICES"? You should be able to select the physical disk, delete partitions and volumes. This is not default view, for some reason...


[doublepost=1521065921][/doublepost]

My one worry is will the next update in HS or the next version of OS X force APFS on me again.

HS updates should not force APFS once you're already on 10.13.X. Unsure about future. Would assume not (since it was a 10.13 implementation), but suggest having active bootable clones before upgrading OS for situations like that.

 

[Susurs]

Is SSHD converted by default as well?

 

[bsbeamer]

Is SSHD converted by default as well?

Fusion drives and HDDs do not get "upgraded" to APFS automatically. Recommend keeping them HFS+. Actually recommend keeping all drives HFS+ in MacPro5,1 and earlier unless you have Apple-issued SSDs.

 

[Susurs]

I'm not sure. Since my disk is HFS+, I can't really try anything (besides, I am away from my cMP for the next couple of weeks). But if you are feeling adventurous, you could try something like this after modifying apfs.efi:

sudo bless --mount "/Volumes/[Insert name of boot disk here]" --setBoot

Can I do it from terminal when system is normally loaded, or that requires some special boot options?
[doublepost=1521066622][/doublepost]

Fusion drives and HDDs do not get "upgraded" to APFS automatically. Recommend keeping them HFS+. Actually recommend keeping all drives HFS+ in MacPro5,1 and earlier unless you have Apple-issued SSDs.

I do not experience any other issues on Angelbird PX1 + Samsund SM951 except for that ‘stupid’ text on startup...

 

[h9826790]

Fusion drives and HDDs do not get "upgraded" to APFS automatically. Recommend keeping them HFS+. Actually recommend keeping all drives HFS+ in MacPro5,1 and earlier unless you have Apple-issued SSDs.

SSHD is not Fusion drives.

Fusion drive combine SSD with HDD to form a single partition, data either store on SSD or HDD. OS will control which data should store on the SSD.

SSHD is a SSD on top of a HDD to store some cache files for fast read, all data store on the HDD regardless what's inside the SSD. OS has no authority to control which data store on the SSD as cache. It's controlled by the SSHD's onboard controller / firmware.

AFAIK, in OS point of view, SSHD is just a HDD. There is no auto conversion, but I believe SSHD can be converted to APFS manually, just virtually no benefit (or even make the SSHD run slower).

But Fusion drive still cannot convert to APFS officially.

 

[bsbeamer]

The Samsung SM951 was technically issued by Apple for MBP at one point. Unsure if that makes a difference or not. If you ever run into speed issues, APFS would be the first place I'd recommend to troubleshoot.
[doublepost=1521067324][/doublepost]Yes, you are 100% correct on SSHD ≠ Fusion. Unsure how they mount in macOS. Have never used them. See no benefit for my usage.

 

[cdf]

Can I do it from terminal when system is normally loaded, or that requires some special boot options?

I think you can do it from the normally started system. You may need to disable SIP before modifying the driver, however.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Sorry for a stupid question: You can not install HS without it converting the drive to APFS automatically, but you can clone it to a HFS+, or persuade to install without converting? Something like this?:

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/t...ll-for-high-sierra-with-hfs-file-system-help/

Yes, I always do it this way.

 

[Susurs]

Does the FW update has some effect on this?

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...3-4-mas-full-installer-mp51-0085-b00.2112641/

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

I did the firmware update on my 2 Mac Pro's 5,1 and I use HFS+ on my SSDs without a problem.

 

[cdf]

I did the firmware update. The verbosity is still there for APFS disks; however, the text now disappears very quickly (in less than half a second, I'd say), so the issue becomes rather moot. I'm giving APFS another shot on my cMP with this update.

 

[Susurs]

The text is there with 10.13.4 and updated FW +GTX980...It is present for me both, on APFS (longer and laggier) or Journaled (shows up for a split second and in smaller window) and also both, on PCI-E SSD or Seagate Firecuda SSHD as well.

I dont know whether something changed with 10.13.4 or FW or something else caused it but on APFS the text was gone faster previously. Yesterday when I tested my system it somehow started to appear for quite some long time and seemet to be laggy (Same as system without GPU drivers, for example). Previously it had dissapeared quite fast even on AFPS.
[doublepost=1523094207][/doublepost]So to my understanding the issue with text showing up as such soes not depend on HFS+, APFS in my case.

And in APFS variant I get the text for longer time now for some reason.

Filesystem just changes the time how long it is displayed.

I haven’t been able to read what the text says in HFS+ case as it dissapears to quickly to be read or for any picure to be taken.

 

[cdf]

Here's an update on my earlier suggestion (in post 43). Although the original apfs.efi can be reloaded, the bless command triggers an error with the modified driver:

VerifyPeCoff() [396]: Error: Verification Error
Could not embed APFS driver in disk1 - error #49174

Well, at least we know bless can be used to embed the driver. But because we've changed things in the apparently PECOFF-formated file, it can't be loaded. Would anybody know how to work around this error?

 

[Susurs]

This is what I am getting with HFS+ 10.13.4. ...Not related to APFS...

 

[zozomester]

I do not have text for 10.12.6.- HFS+ and new Firmware installed.

 

[freqrider]

Question. Does anyone suffer from the verbose, EFI jibberish that DOES NOT have a MacVidCard flashed GPU installed? Did you flash it yourself with a D/l’d rom? This is a flashed, video card issue, not an APFS one. This is a known issue with MVC. There are old/experimental, MVC roms circulating the interwebz.

 

[cdf]

Question. Does anyone suffer from the verbose, EFI jibberish that DOES NOT have a MacVidCard flashed GPU installed? Did you flash it yourself with a D/l’d rom? This is a flashed, video card issue, not an APFS one. This is a known issue with MVC. There are old/experimental, MVC roms circulating the interwebz.

This would be interesting to know. By the way, hackintoshes also suffer from the verbosity bug, and interestingly enough, MVC roms apparently borrow some code from Clover.

 

[Zibon]

I see this is an old thread, but I am having an issue with this same text screen upon trying to boot from an external USB to do a restore. Im on the latest High Sierra. 2009 MacPro 5,1. SSD in bay 1.

Im fairly certain I began getting this text screen on bootup after I installed a 980 ti gpu about 2 years ago. Never had any problems. It would just show the text and go to the apple startup screen. But I'm fairly certain that any boot keystrokes would never work after that. IDK if this screen was the first in the chain before it lets you do any recovery functions or what but i could never do any recovery, startup manager, pram zap, etc.

Anyway, I installed an audio plugin that messed with some other plugins and I couldn't get it fixed. I do daily clones of all my drives with CCC including a bootable of my OS onto external USB drives. So i was just going to restore to that morning's clone. I changed the startup disk to my external USB bootable clone of my Mac HD. restarted and then got the verbose text as usual, but then it just stayed there with the question mark folder.

I've contacted CCC and a local MAC repair. They gave me several suggestions all of which I've done with no success. swapped keyboards, removed all peripherals, SMC reset, bootable OS thumb drives. Its as if this text screen is in the chain before it allows anything else like keystrokes or the recovery functions to happen and its just staying there. CCC said if it doesn't find the USB drive I designated, then it should look for any bootable device. My Mac HD is still there as always, IDK why it wouldn't find it. Yes, there is a small chance it suddenly died, but again, I was not having any issues like that when I went to restore. In fact, never a single issue on this machine ever. This SSD is a Samsung EVO Pro, 1 year old, 99% health a week ago. no power surges, lightning ( I also have a big rack power conditioner surge protector). I realize anything is possible, but i'd say improbable. Either way, no luck with any bootable USB drives, both with my bootable clones and the apple downloaded bootable OS on thumb drives. The drives are all smaller than 2tb. They seem to have activity by the light on the drives but I've let them go even overnight and nothing changes...question mark. CCC said it should find the OS drives fairly quickly but it would be the apple progress bar that would take some time. So I can't get to that past this text screen and the question mark.

My screen is virtually the same as the one at the top of this thread. Still says stuff about fusion drives, which I've never owned. Again, I've had this screen for about 2 years with zero problems ever...until i tried to boot from an external USB drive. One reply stated that when they swapped back to their original GT 120 gpu that the text stopped appearing. Mine was bought with an already upgraded Quadro card, that I then upgraded to the GTX 980 TI, which is when I believe I started getting this text and stopped being able to use any boot keystroke functions. Yes, I tried putting the Quadro back in several times, but I kept getting high pitched whine or tone when I would power up so idk what is up with that issue. I've just bought an old gt 120 and I will try that and see if it gets rid of that text and lets me boot up. Just waiting for that to arrive. I feel like I just need to get back in to tell it to just boot like normal from my HD as always...nothing was really wrong except the minor audio plugin issue.

Any thoughts or experience with this issue? In the end, if the 120 doesnt work, I'm thinking about just buying another MacPro with the same basic specs, mainly the CPU and just swap everything over. I have clones from that morning before the plugin issue of all of my drives including 3 of my OS drive.

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[startergo]

This is a well known issue, and it seems to happen depending on the combination of monitor and graphics card if one of the drives (not necessarily the startup disk) is APFS formatted. For me, it occurs with my flashed (MacVidCards) GTX 750 Ti and 4K display, but not with my GT 120 (perhaps because of its struggle with displaying a boot screen on such a display). The issue has been addressed on the hackintosh scene (see this link) by patching APFS.efi, an EFI driver found at /usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi that gets loaded into the APFS container. Perhaps the same fix can be applied to our machines. In my case, I stayed with HFS+. The reports of slow and verbose boots made APFS seem too unpolished.

Regarding really fast flashes of text, there is another issue, which I don't think has been mentioned here, and that is with the Kingston HyperX predator PCIe SSD, which upon boot flashes some unsightly text regarding SATA pass through.

Actually there is no need for patching the APFS.efi from /usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi. Just load it as an efi driver with either RefindPlus, OC or directly:
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