MP 1,1-5,1 Mac OS 11.3 has broken support for older Mac Pros

[Muckd]

I Am getting tired of posts claiming everything is ok so long they don't unplug their machine. How are such posts productive to the discussion? Are they bringing any value here or just increase the noise?

There might be others that rarely shutdown their cMP's. 11.4 might be an option for them, if they can get past the install process.
My experience so far has been somewhat positive so that's what I'm sharing, for some of us its not as bleak as others it seems.
Shutting down/rebooting and powering back on has failed for me, so I just don't do it. Pulling the cord and letting it wait before I power back up hasn't failed me yet, my cMP has always done its sleep thing, so powering off has never been a big part of my cycle. Of course it still feels like a lottery every time I boot. So far so good, if it ever goes the other way and I'm struggling to boot, then ill definitely look at 11.2.3. But for now 11.4 performs flawlessly and booting isn't a big issue yet. Soldiering on with 11.4 is the way forward for me.

 

[startergo]

Anyone tried 11.5 beta 6 yet?

 

[imrazor]

I was considering putting OpenCore on my cMP5,1 until I stumbled across this thread. Am I reading correctly that the boot issues are only a problem if you boot off an NVME drive? I also read something implying that add-on PCIe SATA cards could be affected as well. What about the *internal* SATA II bus? Is that safe to boot from? If so, could I then use faster drives for bulk storage?

 

[eVasilis]

I was considering putting OpenCore on my cMP5,1 until I stumbled across this thread. Am I reading correctly that the boot issues are only a problem if you boot off an NVME drive? I also read something implying that add-on PCIe SATA cards could be affected as well. What about the *internal* SATA II bus? Is that safe to boot from? If so, could I then use faster drives for bulk storage?

The boot issues are a problem regardless of your boot drive, be it nvme or sata or anything else.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I'm somewhat intrigued by a number of comments that seem to imply that a simple SMC reset usually solves the issue of reliably booting Big Sur 11.3 and higher on a Mac Pro 5,1. Is this the consensus understanding? Will an SMC reset before restarting the computer normally achieve successful booting? I'm asking because I've NEVER managed to get to the 11.3 or 11.4 desktop, after having tried about one dozen times for each OS.

 

[Syncretic]

I'm somewhat intrigued by a number of comments that seem to imply that a simple SMC reset usually solves the issue of reliably booting Big Sur 11.3 and higher on a Mac Pro 5,1. Is this the consensus understanding? Will an SMC reset before restarting the computer normally achieve successful booting? I'm asking because I've NEVER managed to get to the 11.3 or 11.4 desktop, after having tried about one dozen times for each OS.

I can only speak for myself (a large number of reboots on a single machine): SMC reset seems to improve the probability of a successful boot by a small amount, but it is definitely not a panacea. I suspect (without direct evidence) that resetting the SMC simply creates a slight alteration to the boot timing, which may or may not create favorable conditions for booting, depending on a multitude of other factors.

One thing to keep in mind is that Hackintoshes are experiencing this same problem, so the cause is unlikely to be tied to Apple-specific hardware. (Of course, until we know what "it" is, "unlikely" is about as definitive as we can be.)

 

[startergo]

Normally I can boot after SMC reset. High success rate with this.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

Normally I can boot after SMC reset. High success rate with this.

Perhaps I'm particularly unlucky. Except for my Titan-Ridge Thunderbolt 3 card, I removed everything related to USB and external connections and reset SMC on each of the six attempts to boot 11.4. No dice at all. I wonder if my Mac Pro 5,1, just because it seems to be so utterly incompatible with anything above 11.2.3, might be useful as a diagnostic tool. Be that as it may, I don't have any SSDs, NVME cards or anything that fancy. Only the Thunderbolt card.

 

[Macschrauber]

Anyone tried 11.5 beta 6 yet?

OCLP 0.1.5 / OpenCore 0.69

Edit: Race condition is still there, if I populate the Sata Bays with Disks it stalls on loading Ethernet Drivers, as before.

Could boot with 2 AHCI Blades in. System is on a 3,5" spinner in Sata Bay.

OCLP 0.1.7 is causing kernel panics with Big Sur, booting Monterey is fine.

Lets see if it's better with 0.1.8 and Big Sur.



additional note:

I can populate all my Sata bays, 2 PCI Slots with Apple Blades and 11.5b3 boots.

This time with OCLP 0.1.8, Kernel Panic is gone, thank you guys

But I need to unplug my USB stuff during early boot phase.

The Bluetooth Board on the backplane is unplugged as well.

 

[Chung123]

Perhaps I'm particularly unlucky. Except for my Titan-Ridge Thunderbolt 3 card, I removed everything related to USB and external connections and reset SMC on each of the six attempts to boot 11.4. No dice at all. I wonder if my Mac Pro 5,1, just because it seems to be so utterly incompatible with anything above 11.2.3, might be useful as a diagnostic tool. Be that as it may, I don't have any SSDs, NVME cards or anything that fancy. Only the Thunderbolt card.

You are on a standard rotational hard drive? That sounds painful if no SSD at all.

Here is my Stupid Question/Captain Obvious question: Have you tried doing NVRAM reset 3 times in row before trying to boot 11.4?

Update: Of course.. seeing this reply: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/opencore-on-the-mac-pro.2207814/post-30019435
makes me rethink my question above.

 

[PeterHolbrook]

You are on a standard rotational hard drive? That sounds painful if no SSD at all.

Here is my Stupid Question/Captain Obvious question: Have you tried doing NVRAM reset 3 times in row before trying to boot 11.4?

Yes, a spinner all right. And no, no NVRAM reset.

 

[Vvglyy Wzxit]

Sorry to disturb here, I know it's a thread for finding and try to solve issues in > BS 11.2.3.
But, for now I'm stuck to Mojave, and I can't update with every BS version I try to install with OC from Martin, or OCLP.
I read a lot in this thread and others but i even managed to mess up everything.

I was on BS 11.2.3, and didn't know at that time that there were some issues with updating 11.3.
And I tried to update to 11.3, but it failed...
My cMP 5,1 after several reboot I made, not to update, but for normal reason, update itself and I was on 11.3 without knowing it since 2 days ago...

Well I updated OC from Martin to his 0.70 version. Everything was find, and I made the huge mistake to trying to update to 11.4... I didn't read enough, my bad.

Well, for now, maybe I didn't found the BS 11.2.3 image but I can't install any version I find...
I made the change with boot arg no compat check, but when it reboot, I choose BS Installer in OC and then it freeze and reboot.
Then, as it doesn"t seem to work, I try to launch Mojave on my other SSD, and it says you mac is uncompatible blabla...
What can i do to install BS 11.2.3 again here? What did I broke here?
Other thing, I installed a PCIe card for dual SSD. These SSD aren't recognized anymore either on Mojave nor in OC.
Help in much appreciated, I'm kind of lost here.
Thanks in advance.

 

[startergo]

Sorry to disturb here, I know it's a thread for finding and try to solve issues in > BS 11.2.3.
But, for now I'm stuck to Mojave, and I can't update with every BS version I try to install with OC from Martin, or OCLP.
I read a lot in this thread and others but i even managed to mess up everything.

I was on BS 11.2.3, and didn't know at that time that there were some issues with updating 11.3.
And I tried to update to 11.3, but it failed...
My cMP 5,1 after several reboot I made, not to update, but for normal reason, update itself and I was on 11.3 without knowing it since 2 days ago...

Well I updated OC from Martin to his 0.70 version. Everything was find, and I made the huge mistake to trying to update to 11.4... I didn't read enough, my bad.

Well, for now, maybe I didn't found the BS 11.2.3 image but I can't install any version I find...
I made the change with boot arg no compat check, but when it reboot, I choose BS Installer in OC and then it freeze and reboot.
Then, as it doesn"t seem to work, I try to launch Mojave on my other SSD, and it says you mac is uncompatible blabla...
What can i do to install BS 11.2.3 again here? What did I broke here?
Other thing, I installed a PCIe card for dual SSD. These SSD aren't recognized anymore either on Mojave nor in OC.
Help in much appreciated, I'm kind of lost here.
Thanks in advance.

You can't revert back a big sur update unless you have a backup. You will have to install fresh on a new/formatted partition/drive.

 

[Vvglyy Wzxit]

You can't revert back a big sur update unless you have a backup. You will have to install fresh on a new/formatted partition/drive.

Of course, I did fresh installs only, didn't mentionned that earlier, sorry, but it still failed...
I tried on 2 SSDs, still failures.
Maybe someone can give a proper link of a BS 11.2.3 installer that work for him, and I'll try.
Maybe it'll work, or maybe something is broken...
I really don't know what causes these failures...
And even an old BS bootable USB I made, maybe BS 11.1, can't be sure, as I can't verify what version is it (can I?) Just the installer was created 25 aprl 2021...
But for sure, USB pendrive contains an installer, and on Mojave this installer can't be launch and it said damaged...
Plus, the script I used to use, coming from OC thread for older MP, just propse BS 11.4
Well, where find older BS releases?

 

[Muckd]

just gave 0.1.8 a go, and for the first time, I haven't been able to boot, gave up after a couple of tries.
back on 0.1.7 usual trick of pulling the plug and no problems with boot.

there's a real one guys trash is another guys treasure situation.

 

[JackLeBoul]

Just a FYI,

I am running OC 0.69 & BS 11.4 on two Mac Mini Mid 2012 and on two MacBook Pro Mid 2012.
Smooth as butter with no issues for a few days. No such luck on my MP 5,1.

 

[plunger]

Of course, I did fresh installs only, didn't mentionned that earlier, sorry, but it still failed...
I tried on 2 SSDs, still failures.
Maybe someone can give a proper link of a BS 11.2.3 installer that work for him, and I'll try.
Maybe it'll work, or maybe something is broken...
I really don't know what causes these failures...
And even an old BS bootable USB I made, maybe BS 11.1, can't be sure, as I can't verify what version is it (can I?) Just the installer was created 25 aprl 2021...
But for sure, USB pendrive contains an installer, and on Mojave this installer can't be launch and it said damaged...
Plus, the script I used to use, coming from OC thread for older MP, just propse BS 11.4
Well, where find older BS releases?

Maybe best to go back to a fresh install of Mojave and come forward again with OC on a second SSD as per the instructions on this forum. Keep the Mojave SSD as a backup. Search for gibMacOS and use it to download whatever version of macOS you're after.

 

[Stex]

Well, where find older BS releases?

an image of 11.2.3 uploaded by @khronokernel, more here:

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

For those of you who need the MacOS 11.2.3 Installer, you can find in the link pasted below. And yes, as @haralds stated, good idea to create a USB installer for future troubleshooting etc. https://archive.org/details/install-mac-os-11.2.3-20-d-91

forums.macrumors.com

 

[tsialex]

11.2.3 (20D91) is still downloadable from Apple.

InstallAssistant:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/12/32/071-14766-A_Q2H6ELXGVG/zx8saim8tei7fezrmvu4vuab80m0e8a5ll/InstallAssistant.pkg

If you like to use installinstallmacos.py, this is the catalogurl:

https://swscan.apple.com/content/catalogs/others/index-11-10.15-10.14-10.13-10.12-10.11-10.10-10.9-mountainlion-lion-snowleopard-leopard.merged-1.sucatalog

 

[JohnD]

Anyone tried 11.5 beta 6 yet?

Getting a little ahead of yourself there startergo?

 

[eVasilis]

Getting a little ahead of yourself there startergo?

That is fine. Didn't someone post success with 12.4?

 

[KevinClark]

Is there a future with OPLC 1.7 and New Mac OS

 

[jgleigh]

Is there a future with OPLC 1.7 and New Mac OS

macOS 12 Monterey on Unsupported Macs Thread

This thread will be dedicated to the discussion of running macOS 12.0 on unsupported Macs At the time of writing, WWDC has wrapped up and Developer Seeds have been sent out. We're eagerly awaiting for all our community developers and enthusiasts to test out the new version of macOS We will...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[PeterHolbrook]

I'm not sure how to interpret the relatively scarce information about OCLP that has been provided so far. The following questions sum up my ignorance on this issue.

• Contrary to "vanilla" OpenCore, can the latest version of OCLP reliably boot Big Sur 11.3 and higher on the Mac Pro 5,1?
• Can the latest version of OCLP reliably boot the current beta of macOS Monterey on the Mac Pro 5,1?
• The notion that OCLP is a "patch" sounds somewhat scary. What does it patch, if anything?
• If OCLP has truly succeeded in booting versions of macOS later than 11.2.3, can whatever its developers have devised be easily transferred to the "vanilla" OpenCore?
• Whether the answer to the previous question is affirmative or negative, should Mac Pro 5,1 owners be moving to OCLP and forgetting about regular OpenCore?

 

[khronokernel]

Contrary to "vanilla" OpenCore

Well not sure why people say OpenCore Legacy patcher is not vanilla, we use the exact same public binaries and document what version each of our binaries are at in our changelog

The notion that OCLP is a "patch" sounds somewhat scary. What does it patch, if anything?

OpenCore Legacy Patcher only "patches" when a non-Metal GPU is present. And all that does is install Graphics acceleration for OpenGL cards such as Nvidia's Tesla series or AMD's TeraScale 1/2 series. A post recently made was on a MacPro3,1 with the TeraScale 2 patches for example:

macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

Hi, I thought that the ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card ended its era with the releases of new macOS and I just lay there, even I forgot about it. I just admire you who created "OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher" to experience human creativity, intelligence, programming and more , the most important thing is...

forums.macrumors.com

Can the latest version of OCLP reliably boot the current beta of macOS Monterey on the Mac Pro 5,1?

Reliably? Unfortunately not, same issue applies to all scripts or guides that use OpenCore. However many are still booting Monterey with OpenCore Legacy Patcher on MacPro5,1's with some trial and error on boot hangs