MP 1,1-5,1 Mac Pro 3,1 Monterey OpenCore, Walkthrough, Install, Post-install Impressions

[axius]

About 40 mins to go on my Monterey install!

When doing a re-boot during the Monterey install did it loop back to the beginning of the install process again as in https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/BOOT.html ?

On 1.3.0, obviously with the above maneuver with 1.1.0 now, I actually always tried to boot with the Option-key pressed so that I can see what might be happening. Prior to resolving the matter with the graphics - where the system would start, OpenCore visible, being able to also chose either Monterey Installer or Monterey Installer with "grey disk" - the system did not even enter the visible Recovery screen. Once the graphics card was changed, all bootable disks removed/erased, booted again, first then did it actually continue with the actual install process.

However, it did not loop back when it wanted to reboot. After each reboot, it took about 25 minutes to finish, then reboot again, 2-3 times in total. The reason for probably me not experiencing the "loop back" was that I had to reset the NVRAM after each reboot, then be able to select the "Monterey Install with the disk"-icon, not the "Monterey Install"-only icon.

 

[axius]

On 1.3.0, obviously with the above maneuver with 1.1.0 now, I actually always tried to boot with the Option-key pressed so that I can see what might be happening. Prior to resolving the matter with the graphics - where the system would start, OpenCore visible, being able to also chose either Monterey Installer or Monterey Installer with "grey disk" - the system did not even enter the visible Recovery screen. Once the graphics card was changed, all bootable disks removed/erased, booted again, first then did it actually continue with the actual install process.

However, it did not loop back when it wanted to reboot. After each reboot, it took about 25 minutes to finish, then reboot again, 2-3 times in total. The reason for probably me not experiencing the "loop back" was that I had to reset the NVRAM after each reboot, then be able to select the "Monterey Install with the disk"-icon, not the "Monterey Install"-only icon.

Also worth mentioning, during the at least 3 reboots Monterey did, there were 3 visible icons during the boot: EFI (my internal Samsung SSD)-icon, "Monterey Installer"-icon and "Monterey Installer with disks"-icon. I also took preference to always press and hold the Option-key, therefore making sure that I would select the "correct icon". This is what happened when selecting each of the 3 visible - remember there were no other disks/partitions available, meaning there could be other icons depending on your personal system:

1. Selecting the EFI, it did boot with yellow and white verbose text, then halting after a few seconds, displaying that "OpenCore already running"-alike. Reboot had to be done.
2. Selecting the "Monterey Installer"-icon would halt the system, no progress bar or alike visible, Caps Lock would not work, likely illustrating that the system halted somewhere in the process.
3. Selecting "Monterey Installer with disks"-icon, assuming "proper graphics/Metal enabled card" is installed and supported by OpenCore, it took a couple of tries to reconnect the display cables to a proper port to the graphics card and therefore be able to see what is happening on screen. That way, the install could continue, approximately 25 minutes per "progress screen", 3 reboots before being able to see the first "macOS Monterey welcome screen", setup your Mac.

 

[axius]

Which version of Open Core are you using? It says 1.4.0, I'm guessing this is a typeo and should be 1.3.0?

(Typo is edited and corrected to 1.3.0. Thanks for noticing.)

 

[LookToWindward]

I got there finally! I had to select correct volume at least 3 times and it takes forever to boot from a slow USB stick!Why does this happen and how does the PRAM affect it?

 

[LookToWindward]

I have a disk with OC/Sonoma installed on it. It is corrupted and plugging into the system causes OC to freeze even if that drive isn't accessed. I can boot into El Capitan and format it but I'd like to rescue it if possible. Is there any way to remove OC without the drive being mounted?

 

[Tex Tiles]

Well, I've been fighting with my 3,1 for some time now. Successfully installed open core monterey on it and got the drivers working for my firewire interfaces, control surfaces, installed protools, logic, and uad luna.

The problem I am having now is after about 15-20 minutes into any audio program it freezes and crashes. Protools is the worst, and you have to force quit it. Logic feels pretty stable and you can quit it properly etc until after 15-20 and it freezes and crashes too. Arghhh... Same with Luna

Also after rebooting from monterey after crash the fans go full blast (in 10.6.8 the fans never go full like that) Looking at the temp in MFC after it loads and nothing is overheating.

Any ideas how to address this?

 

[LookToWindward]

When I was using Monterey last night I ran into a couple of problems, for instance, the Brave Browser crashed when trying to log onto my EBay account.....

When I powered on this morning, it Started Up ok, but then ran extremely slowly, it was taking upwards of a minute to open System Preference. I found that Steam had planted a Launch Agent, but even after it had finished downloading or whatever it was doing it still ran slowly, so I restarted.

It booted ok and did now have the slowdown. I trued Brave/Ebay again and now it seems to work!

 

[LookToWindward]

This OCLP option may be of interest:

If set to 0, then it stops the bootloader from auto-booting during installation. When it re-boots, it sometimes restarts and for some reason boots from the wrong OCLP partition, this causes a pause while it boots from the slow USB drive. You then have to re-boot again with the Option key down and select the correct volume. This will stop the auto-boot and allow you to select the correct volume before it boots the USB.

Set this to zero before you build the USB installer, then once it's all done. set it back to 5

 

[MBAir2010]

The last OCLP was a success with installing in September on a MacBook Pro 2012 using Monterey
the experience was ehh, then the drives or something else was installed, I forgot!
then everything worked great until five days later when the OS was not funtioing at all
and the project was over.

the point is these installs need several day to be successful
as in scaling a mountain, one needs to reach the bottom.

 

[axius]

I got there finally! I had to select correct volume at least 3 times and it takes forever to boot from a slow USB stick!Why does this happen and how does the PRAM affect it?

3 reboots sounds like the similar experience here too with manually having to select the "correct icon". Regarding why, it could be general procedure for some, perhaps others are depending on system setup, yet also some online/Youtube videos showcase similar experience for Mac Pro 3,1.

Ref. DMUG (Definitive Mac Upgrade Guide,

).

 

[axius]

I have a disk with OC/Sonoma installed on it. It is corrupted and plugging into the system causes OC to freeze even if that drive isn't accessed. I can boot into El Capitan and format it but I'd like to rescue it if possible. Is there any way to remove OC without the drive being mounted?

Here is a walkthrough: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/UNINSTALL.html

Another way could - not confirmed - to partition the drive, install a Apple legacy OS such as say Mac OS Lion that should also install a "proper" EFI/boot loader. Then, boot into that legacy Mac OS, mount your drive from the partition you would like to "rescue"/Sonoma. At least it might enable you to copy the files from Sonoma to Lion/or similar. You might want to select a "newer" legacy Mac OS to be more sure about being able to read a APFS since older Mac OS only had HFS.

Second alternative is to use a SATA/hard drive adapter, remove the drive and plug it in another system, copy files from there, if your Sonoma-disk is not physically damages/"fully corrupt".

Let us know how it goes.

 

[axius]

Well, I've been fighting with my 3,1 for some time now. Successfully installed open core monterey on it and got the drivers working for my firewire interfaces, control surfaces, installed protools, logic, and uad luna.

The problem I am having now is after about 15-20 minutes into any audio program it freezes and crashes. Protools is the worst, and you have to force quit it. Logic feels pretty stable and you can quit it properly etc until after 15-20 and it freezes and crashes too. Arghhh... Same with Luna

Also after rebooting from monterey after crash the fans go full blast (in 10.6.8 the fans never go full like that) Looking at the temp in MFC after it loads and nothing is overheating.

Any ideas how to address this?

Not having a 100% insight into specific details, a few details come to mind, at least from a computing science engineering perspective.

Once Apple - or any other developer - starts dropping support for specific platforms/application versions, usually source code might not be 100% rewritten. It is "easier" to remove libraries, patches and alike than rewriting code and at some point in time make a complete rewrite once the application or alike is considered old/unsupported. In practice, this means that even if an application like Logic actually works on the surface, however starting to use specific functionality that requires a dedicated set of CPU instructions or alike that is compiled by a third party via a new compiler and on a new OS, if that is not supported in a patched macOS, there will be difficulties at some point. It might be difficult to spot at first glance but it will showcase once specific code is called upon at execution.

Here, Apple might not have phased out all functionality for MP 3,1 in for example Logic as you mention, likely due to source code for some applications is not maintained at specific levels, so that specific piece of code "hangs around", making the code actually work for example in Logic. However, third party developers/plugins, might compile their plugins with parameters to support "newer" libraries, operating systems, etc. That way, they can also remove redundant code, deprecate libraries/parts of code, making the plugin more streamlined, save physical space, less libraries/dependencies, etc., yet to only be supported by dedicated systems/applications that the compile flags are set for.

Again, it is more of an educated guesstimate, it might be other issues at hand in this case.

Rebooting from a crash with fans on full blast happened often on my (still in use) Mac Pro 2,1. They would "set" to remain on full blast. I never resolved the issue, it was to some extent resolved but never looked properly into it. Sometime it would be resolved by a NVRAM reset. That was one of the reasons at the time to move over to the new Mac Pro 3,1.

On the "functional" matter of the Mac Pro 3,1 - do you have a functioning "Computer sleep" working ( Menu > Sleep)?

 

[LookToWindward]

The last OCLP was a success with installing in September on a MacBook Pro 2012 using Monterey
the experience was ehh, then the drives or something else was installed, I forgot!
then everything worked great until five days later when the OS was not funtioing at all
and the project was over.

the point is these installs need several day to be successful
as in scaling a mountain, one needs to reach the bottom.

Yes, you actually need to use it for real life things for at least a week before pronouncing it "working". I previously installed Sonoma and after 5 or 6 days it self-destructed and it has taken me 3 days to recover!

 

[Tex Tiles]

Not having a 100% insight into specific details, a few details come to mind, at least from a computing science engineering perspective.

Once Apple - or any other developer - starts dropping support for specific platforms/application versions, usually source code might not be 100% rewritten. It is "easier" to remove libraries, patches and alike than rewriting code and at some point in time make a complete rewrite once the application or alike is considered old/unsupported. In practice, this means that even if an application like Logic actually works on the surface, however starting to use specific functionality that requires a dedicated set of CPU instructions or alike that is compiled by a third party via a new compiler and on a new OS, if that is not supported in a patched macOS, there will be difficulties at some point. It might be difficult to spot at first glance but it will showcase once specific code is called upon at execution.

Here, Apple might not have phased out all functionality for MP 3,1 in for example Logic as you mention, likely due to source code for some applications is not maintained at specific levels, so that specific piece of code "hangs around", making the code actually work for example in Logic. However, third party developers/plugins, might compile their plugins with parameters to support "newer" libraries, operating systems, etc. That way, they can also remove redundant code, deprecate libraries/parts of code, making the plugin more streamlined, save physical space, less libraries/dependencies, etc., yet to only be supported by dedicated systems/applications that the compile flags are set for.

Again, it is more of an educated guesstimate, it might be other issues at hand in this case.

Rebooting from a crash with fans on full blast happened often on my (still in use) Mac Pro 2,1. They would "set" to remain on full blast. I never resolved the issue, it was to some extent resolved but never looked properly into it. Sometime it would be resolved by a NVRAM reset. That was one of the reasons at the time to move over to the new Mac Pro 3,1.

On the "functional" matter of the Mac Pro 3,1 - do you have a functioning "Computer sleep" working ( Menu > Sleep)?

Thanks for the thoughtful and probably spot on reply. I think the audio programs crashing is 3,1 specific as I have oc monterey running on an imac that doesn't do this, and oc catalina on a couple of laptops etc all without this problem.

I also did an oc install of big sur on the 3,1 to see if it had the same bug and it does exactly the same thing.

At this point on the 3,1 I have quadruple boot! Leopard, Snow Leopard, Big Sur and Monterey. The Snow Leopard drive is a rock solid work drive for pro audio. But I am stuck in 2009 and had hope to access contemporary software updates etc. The machine is full of UAD pcie cards which makes it much more difficult to upgrade machines. Nowdays (15 years after I bought the 3,1) one can buy an equivalent mac on a smaller footprint and pricepoint, but then I lose the UAD cards, and most of their software only runs on their cards.

With the 8 cores and the 3 UAD cards it is enough power to mix large complex sessions.

I am very hesitant to invest in new UAD hardware as it all is boat anchor dongles basically, but their proprietary software is the best. That is one of the reasons I was wanting to get a contemporary OS running on it, as UAD have just started going (partially) native finally. Hell Freezes Over!

On the fans issue, I read somewhere that after a crash the system defaults to full on fans as a protective mechanism until it reboots fully and takes over the fan control again.


I did a test of the sleep function and it is nonfunctional on my 3,1 as well.

Thanks again for your thoughts on this. Pete

 

[Tex Tiles]

So it's not just the audio applications, it's the whole system. I removed all my pcie cards, unplugged the external monitor, all usb and firewire connections except the keyboard, and after a half hour or so it froze and crashed. The only thing I had open was the internet and Apple news. So for me this is unusable for much of anything. Too bad, as I have put a lot of time and effort into trying to get this functional.

Open core does seem to be pretty functional on my laptops and imac, but the 3,1 is where I really needed it to work.

Oh well, back to rock solid Snow Leopard and actually getting some mixing done.

 

[LookToWindward]

Hmmmm, my Mac Pro seems stable, at least it doesn't seem to crash if left running, I'll leave it running today. I can run Steam and RimWorld and get pretty good performance from then, 60+ FPS is better than my MacBook Air. This is running with a GT 8800, it will probably benefit from a better GPU

 

[LookToWindward]

Here is a walkthrough: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/UNINSTALL.html

Another way could - not confirmed - to partition the drive, install a Apple legacy OS such as say Mac OS Lion that should also install a "proper" EFI/boot loader. Then, boot into that legacy Mac OS, mount your drive from the partition you would like to "rescue"/Sonoma. At least it might enable you to copy the files from Sonoma to Lion/or similar. You might want to select a "newer" legacy Mac OS to be more sure about being able to read a APFS since older Mac OS only had HFS.

Second alternative is to use a SATA/hard drive adapter, remove the drive and plug it in another system, copy files from there, if your Sonoma-disk is not physically damages/"fully corrupt".

Let us know how it goes.

I have El Capitan installed, the OC/Sonoma drive doesn't Mount because it's formatted APFS. Can I still follow the OCLP instructions to uninstall on this volume from El Cap? IOW, can I use MountEFI on an APFS formatted drive in El Cap?

 

[LookToWindward]

I have El Capitan installed, the OC/Sonoma drive doesn't Mount because it's formatted APFS. Can I still follow the OCLP instructions to uninstall on this volume from El Cap? IOW, can I use MountEFI on an APFS formatted drive in El Cap?

Just tried it and the answer is NO!

 

[axius]

Update: I acquired a AMD Radeon R9 280X 3 GB, "PC"-version, not Mac flashed". I will revert with my findings, in case another graphics card could help. I wouldn't think it would magically fix the sleep issue but it is worth a try since the R9 280X seems to be one of the more reliable AMD cards in respect to being reliable and compatible. Ref. https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2018/05/07/definitive-mac-proupgrade-guide.html (Section "Flashable to EFI compatible cards" onward.)

 

[sotnas]

Hello fellows,

I have a Mac mini 2012 and had the same problem with OCLP 1.3.0. I left it there for week or so and then turned my attention to it.

So, after reading and some trial and error, here's what I did:

I had a MacBook Pro that I used to create USB for 1.3.0 OCLP and to proceed with the installation of Ventura last release.

It took me a few times before I figured out that if I chose to install Ventura I would get into the recovery macOS and there I would have access to the terminal. I had tried to install Ventura but it stopped because the system considered it to be an earlier version and so it would be impossible to continue.

But when I saw that I could access the terminal things changed for the best. I used the instructions in the chapter "Stuck on boot after root patching" and followed it.

So basically I unpatched the graphics kext file and the system booted again.

Now, I've made a few mistakes afterwards. Namely, I tried to install the latest Ventura version but OCLP 1.3.0 had other ideas and it seemed impossible to do it via the software update function within macOS.

So, I downloaded 1.2.1 (which the version I had) again and made it to the EFi. Then, another mistake and I root patched right away which enabled another boot stuck. Repeated the process to unpatch.

Booted again, installed 1.2.1 to the EFI and rebooted. Only after that did I root patch and rebooted. Things went smoothly.

After doing all this, I went to the software update and updated ventura to its newest release. I noticed that in the time the update didn't progress the size of it was under a Gb. And after getting 1.2.1 again, the update size was over 13Gb (which is the standard for patched machines).

Updated and afterwards I installed 1.3.0, rebooted, then root patched and now everything seems fine with 1.3.0 installed and the root patching on place.

 

[LookToWindward]

You know OCLP versions > 1.1.0 has a bug with recovery?

 

[sotnas]

Yes, I am aware. Later I will try to print screen and I’ll post them here. Maybe I’m using a wrong terminology.

Edit: here go the photographs. I used a MacBook Pro with Monterey and the usb pen drive with Ventura I used to recover my pc.

So I hit space to get all options seeable. If you chose the self called Recovery 12.7.2 Dmg that is useless since 1.2.0.

But if you choose to install (in this case) Ventura you will be taken into a Recovery Mode. In there you can choose terminal from utilities in the top bar. And then you can follow the instructions to unpatch. This way you won’t have to reinstall the os.

 

[axius]

Update: I acquired a AMD Radeon R9 280X 3 GB, "PC"-version, not Mac flashed". I will revert with my findings, in case another graphics card could help. I wouldn't think it would magically fix the sleep issue but it is worth a try since the R9 280X seems to be one of the more reliable AMD cards in respect to being reliable and compatible. Ref. https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2018/05/07/definitive-mac-proupgrade-guide.html (Section "Flashable to EFI compatible cards" onward.)

Update: I installed the Radeon RX 280X in the test-Mac Pro 3,1 and the system (Monterey) identifies it correctly. The system might feel slightly "snappier", yet it is not put under any means of pressure (being a test machine), yet the sleep-"error" is still present. The system dims the screen when selecting  > Sleep, after 15 seconds, the screen "wakes up" again without any interference (pressing a key on the keyboard or mouse movement).

Also, I took the liberty to install Catalina (via Dosdude Patcher) and Big Sur. I wanted to trickle down and check if the behavior is somehow connected to any of the macOS:s covered in this thread and the "sleep" failure. The same applies to both Catalina and Big Sur - sleep is not working.

It leads me to think that the graphics cards, regardless of being a "perfect fit" or "best recommendation" or not like i.e. RX580, could be the culprit. Either one choses to Mac-flash the GPU and "hope for the best", however it might lead to other issues such as display-out/ports not mapping correctly. Perhaps somebody else could confirm/share experience with this.

For the interested ones, Big Sur does feel more responsive (same test system) rather than Monterey. So for those who plan to use any of the "newer" macOS:s and really don't have to be on the most recent version/s, i.e. Ventura, Sonoma, perhaps Big Sur is the "best fit" - having a somehow 'modern OS', (still) supported and not made "vintage" by Apple. Perhaps somebody else can confirm.