This seems like a good thread to drop this off, I had an issue today at work where I ran a security update on a Sierra machine to discover suddenly that there was no webdriver for the build. After a bit of research I managed to work out a solution:
SOLUTION if youre stuck GPUless on Sierra / High Sierra.
As all NVIDIA users may know... NVIDIA's drivers are locked to build numbers of the OS.
If you install an OS update or even so much as a security update, the build number of your machine will change which will force the NVIDIA GPU drivers to revert to OSX default until you update to a compatible driver from NVIDIA.
Unfortunately I just made the mistake up running a security update and NVIDIA has not yet released drivers for my Sierra machine. The result is BLANK SCREEN!
But heres the solution (briefly):
This worked on Sierra, but in High Sierra you must disable SIP before proceeding.
Basically you have to manually change the macOS build number to fool the installer.
- Depending on your situation, remote desktop to your machine or ssh in through Terminal
- You need to know the WebDriver version you currently have and change your macOS build number to match.
So in my case for example, I have Webdrivers for
(16G1818) 378.05.05.25f11 installed.
But my OS build is
16G1918.
And no NVIDIA drivers exist for this version yet (If they ever do).
Easy way to find driver versions and buildnumber is here:
http://www.macvidcards.com/drivers.html
Now the fun part:
I noticed the build numbers listed dont always seem to exactly match (I havent bothered to research why but...), download the driver you have installed.
Type: cd ~/Downloads/
pkgutil --expand WebDriver-378.05.05.25f11.pkg Webdriver/
This will create a folder called Webdriver and place the contents of the package inside it.
cd Webdriver/
cat Distribution | grep supportedOSBuildVer
Look for the line which reads:
var supportedOSBuildVer = "16G1618"; < this is the number you want.
Type:
sudo nano -w /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
Type in your admin password.
Look for the lines:
<key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
<string>16G1918</string>
This is the line you need to change to match the OS version from the Webdriver package distribution file:
Change to:
<key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
<string>16G1618</string>
Type: control+x
and Y to save.
If you get a warning about not being able to save the file, then your SIP is enabled and you need to disable it.
This again depends on your situation, if drivers are already installed and your rolling back the build number, a simple restart will probably do.
Or if remoted in, double click the installer and the package will then run and successfully install.
If you dont have access to your GUI anymore, you can also run something like:
installer -pkg WebDriver-378.05.05.25f11.pkg -target /
