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MP 1,1-5,1 Mac OS 11.3 has broken support for older Mac Pros
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Mac OS 11.3 has broken support for older Mac Pros
I installed macOS 12 Monterey (DP) and it took several hard power cycles to get it to install. It froze several times, and I got the prohibited symbol once. It took ~10 minutes from the time I typed my login password, to see any activity whatsoever. I'm booting from a 1TB HDD, which is normally...
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This is completely off-topic now and sorry for that.
My comment was specifically related to the keynote and I stand that WWDC keynotes are not for developers for at least a decade. This one specifically, was 3/4 sales pitch and 1/4 developer related content or less.
Again, the real WWDC is after the main keynote, the Platforms State of the Union keynote and the sessions are what really matter.
FYI @haralds -- I noticed in few of your comments that you refer to Big Sur as 12.x.x but it is 11.x.x -- Monterey is 12.x.x
Hope, indeed! For what it's worth -- like others in this thread, I am happy to test any new patches or other approach at trying to placate the race condition, even if it means "nuking" the SPI flash memory. I ended up buying a Matt Card as a quick SPI replacement if/when that happens -- just got it today, it took about 2 weeks shipping time from NL to the US with DHL.
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PCB colour changed from black to red, please dump it before flashing your own reconstructed image and PM me it, let's se if it's the same clusterfrunk of BootROM image.Hope, indeed! For what it's worth -- like others in this thread, I am happy to test any new patches or other approach at trying to placate the race condition, even if it means "nuking" the SPI flash memory. I ended up buying a Matt Card as a quick SPI replacement if/when that happens -- just got it today, it took about 2 weeks shipping time from NL to the US with DHL.
I did. There are the same may be harder issues as in 11.3xx. Installation process stopped after 30%. Did it four times with same result. Tried OCLP and µpatcher. Went back to 11.2.3. Maybe off topic but MBP M1 is much more faster than my cMP. Monterey working there without issues. From now on my main machine.
Hello.
I found a blog of someone who hasn't had this problem.
He looks like he's booting Opencore via USB.He is using 11.4 and I wondered and asked. Answer was "it crashed during the update few time but, there is no problem with startup so far".
I am writing in the hope that it will help everyone.
His blog↓（Japanese)
installing Opencore
updating to 11.4
I found a blog of someone who hasn't had this problem.
He looks like he's booting Opencore via USB.He is using 11.4 and I wondered and asked. Answer was "it crashed during the update few time but, there is no problem with startup so far".
I am writing in the hope that it will help everyone.
His blog↓（Japanese)
installing Opencore
updating to 11.4
Last edited:
I'm still watching this thread for updates. Thanks everyone for troubleshooting the issue. In the meantime I've gone back to Catalina and wanted to convey my thanks to everyone in this thread for their assistance.
I guess the only one that never had any boot problems with 11.3 and higher is me, the reason being that the installer never managed to complete the installation. No matter how many forced reboots I went trough, it hung either with the prohibitory symbol or a mere black screen. Even by sheer luck the installer should have completed the installation at least once but not in my case, whatever the installation method or target drive was.
Unfortunately, that's not it. I've tried booting OC from a USB pendrive. That will let me start Big Sur 11.2.3, but not 11.3 or 11.4.
I do not think the physical location of the OC binaries would make any difference.
Did anyone try to reproduce this with a custom compiled kernel and full debug info?
Not sure which XNU version would be the equivalent of 11.4 or 12, but wouldn't that be the best way to nail down the root cause? I am sure I am missing something here, as the thought sounds too obvious to me...
Not sure which XNU version would be the equivalent of 11.4 or 12, but wouldn't that be the best way to nail down the root cause? I am sure I am missing something here, as the thought sounds too obvious to me...
I decided to make the switch from Catalina to 11.3.1 a few weeks ago, on my 4.1-> 5,1. I went with oclp 0.1.5. So I found out about the boot problems by trial and error. Having never used opencore before I was flying blind.
Once I turned verbose mode turned on, impretty much saved me from abandoning the process as it was only stalling in two different parts of the boot. It was still looking bleak. I started pulling the cord at the back. Letting it sit for minutes then plugging back in seemed to get it fully installed.
ive left it in verbose now, it’s like watching a lottery when I boot up.
11.4 was released. I thought it would be good test to see if updates work. Sure enough it updated. But with all the same boot problems. But eventually it got there.
I don’t really shutdown my Mac, it goes to sleep and wakes up without any problems. In the event of having to restart. Ill shut it down. And pull the cord, make a coffee. And start her up. So far I haven’t had any problems booting. But I’ve only booted less than a handful of times. It’s not something I really want to test, given all the dramas that came with installing.
Once I turned verbose mode turned on, impretty much saved me from abandoning the process as it was only stalling in two different parts of the boot. It was still looking bleak. I started pulling the cord at the back. Letting it sit for minutes then plugging back in seemed to get it fully installed.
ive left it in verbose now, it’s like watching a lottery when I boot up.
11.4 was released. I thought it would be good test to see if updates work. Sure enough it updated. But with all the same boot problems. But eventually it got there.
I don’t really shutdown my Mac, it goes to sleep and wakes up without any problems. In the event of having to restart. Ill shut it down. And pull the cord, make a coffee. And start her up. So far I haven’t had any problems booting. But I’ve only booted less than a handful of times. It’s not something I really want to test, given all the dramas that came with installing.
I also bought a matt card, just to be sure and on the safe side (plan on replace the SPI some time soon, but not much time on my hands at the moment). I already have a ROM dump of my Mac, is it just as straight forward as in my mind that I can flash the ROM dump of the SPI onto the matt card as a failsafe without the hassle and problems of wrong SN and stuff like that?Hope, indeed! For what it's worth -- like others in this thread, I am happy to test any new patches or other approach at trying to placate the race condition, even if it means "nuking" the SPI flash memory. I ended up buying a Matt Card as a quick SPI replacement if/when that happens -- just got it today, it took about 2 weeks shipping time from NL to the US with DHL.
Yes, you can flash the MATT card externally or install it and then subsequently flash your own Mac Pro BootROM image, but please note that it's not just NAND cell failure that bricks Mac Pros, in a lot of cases the failure is caused by volume corruption and the SPI flash in itself is still working, but the content of it is now corrupt.
Always check if your garbage collection is really working, flashing a problematic dump to a MATT card won't solve your BootROM problem.
Thanks for the fast reply @tsialex. Sounds obvious, but apparently not for everyone? My SPI flash is still perfectly functional, but I would just like to have a failsafe
So my SPI flash is still working properly and the garbage collection fully functional as far as I can tell (used your posts to check earlier).Not sure if this is a silly idea but if the identified XNU race problem is to do with the PCIe ports (I assume their identification and status), would it be possible to create some kind of Kext that work similarly to the kext created for USBport mapping on a Hackintosh? The custom USB port kext I mention (usually produced with a tool called Hackintool) identifies and cuts down on the amount of USB ports available on the system in order for the recognised total to get reduced to 15 ports - maximum macOS currently allows. This usually fixes conflicts between USB ports and set them up properly. Could such kind of kernel applied to PCI ports (identifying them and setting the precise tree and ports from the very start) potentially avoid the race problem when the system is booting up?
Note: I've just used Hackintool on a MBP and easily exported the pcie listing (generated 4 files - dsl + json + plist+ text). Would it be possible to do a post-install tweak on an OC cMP with potentially this precise custom information in mind, again, avoiding the XNU race altogether. A post-install could potentially be another strategy (in the same way as custom USB port mapping usually is. Some food for thought.
Note: I've just used Hackintool on a MBP and easily exported the pcie listing (generated 4 files - dsl + json + plist+ text). Would it be possible to do a post-install tweak on an OC cMP with potentially this precise custom information in mind, again, avoiding the XNU race altogether. A post-install could potentially be another strategy (in the same way as custom USB port mapping usually is. Some food for thought.
There might be any number of solutions to the problem, possibly including what you've outlined. The real issue right now is that we don't really have a handle on what the actual problem is. A lot of us are looking at it; I know I've spent an absurd amount of time (which I really can't spare right now; did someone say "obsessive"?) digging through disassemblies and Apple source code, looking for clues. I've found many potential candidates, but thus far, testing has dismissed each of them. Until we know more or less exactly what's causing the problem, any solutions are just speculation; if someone discovers the real root cause, there may be one or many possible solutions, most or all of which will surely get posted in this thread. (I'm currently thinking we have a deadlock situation, but identifying every possible boot-time deadlock is virtually impossible, so I'm concentrating on events surrounding APFS initialization, which is where most of my hangs occur. In my case, the most frequent hang is after
AppleAPFSContainerScheme::probe() is called, but before AppleAPFSContainer::probe() gets called.)So if I get a Matt card and I find that garbage collection isn’t working, how do I go about fixing it?
I have one on order is why I ask.
If after a 4-times consecutive NVRAM reset (you press CMD-Option-P-R with a wired keyboard and keep the keys pressed until you hear the 5th chime) you still don't have a reasonable main VSS free space, it's time to order a reconstruction service.
I have managed to run 11.4 Mac Pro 5.1 I noticed when I plugged in my Apple keyboard it crashed on bootleg V mode Plus I thought I would do an SM reset pulling the power cord and SMC I've plugged my keyboard into a bus 3.1 dock I'm thinking it's a longshot people haven't thought about this could it be USB that's interfering with the boot drive I'm on my seventh reboot with no problem I definitely think it could be Apple keyboard related other thing I'm trying to think outside the box I'm a big apple fan so and I could probably figure this out maybe
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