macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

[0403979]

Thanks for your answer. I'm aware that HFS+ is the recommended FS for the installation sticks created by Mojave Patcher, but have intentionally used APFS on this single occasion to have confirmation my machine has become capable of booting APFS after its ROM upgrade.



Is that a "I positively know Mojave won't boot from external USB flash storage" or rather an "it's not recommended to …"? - I ask because earlier macOS versions were able to create a bootable OS installation on USB sticks, which were a nice way to perform a few tests with a new major macOS release before deciding whether or not you'd want to early adopt it as the main OS for your machine's internal storage.

You can NOT use APFS on Time Machine disks, Recovery disks, or Installer disks, at all.
macOS SHOULD boot from a flash drive but will run at an EXTREMLY SLOW speed.

 

[zrw2011]

Yeah, those are still present (only in light mode of course). It's unlikely that those light-mode transparency issues will ever be resolved.

there's nothing? its annoying ! Please fix it! I'm begging u lol

 

[0403979]

there's nothing? its annoying ! Please fix it! I'm begging u lol

I think @pkouame is looking for a fix or a workaround, watch the thread and wait.

 

[joelw135]

Strange, both my Mac mini's are able to see/connect to bluetooth devices after swapping cards. Do you have bluetooth available at all in system preferences? It could be one of your antennae connectors (most likely the one by itself) popped off during reassembly

Checked all connections all on, just a bad module. On top of everything one of the connectors broke as the new module is smaller and the wire had too much strain. so I had to solder it on. This was after it wasn't working so it wasn't something I did. Hoping the USB dongle will work. I was told that sometimes a USB Bluetooth dongle won't work if the original Bluetooth shows in the System Report. Then I would have to find the terminal command to make the USB Dongle primary and the damaged one secondary. Now where do I find that command. I am not sure. But I know it exists, as I have seen it mentioned before. Maybe someone here knows what it is.

UPDATE: I think this is the correct Terminal command. Would someone please advise.
sudo nvram bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior=always

 

[highvoltage12v]

Checked all connections all on, just a bad module. On top of everything one of the connectors broke as the new module is smaller and the wire had too much strain. so I had to solder it on. This was after it wasn't working so it wasn't something I did. Hoping the USB dongle will work. I was told that sometimes a USB Bluetooth dongle won't work if the original Bluetooth shows in the System Report. Then I would have to find the terminal command to make the USB Dongle primary and the damaged one secondary. Now where do I find that command. I am not sure. But I know it exists, as I have seen it mentioned before. Maybe someone here knows what it is.

Here is the dongle that I use with my 2009/2010 Mac Pro https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009ZIILLI?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title works with High Sierra, don't see why it won't with Mojave.

 

[joelw135]

Here is the dongle that I use with my 2009/2010 Mac Pro https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009ZIILLI?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title works with High Sierra, don't see why it won't with Mojave.

I already have a 4.0 on the way it is a StarTech. and the terminal command I found so with luck it should work. I also have the IO tools from the developer portal so that might help if I run into problems. The terminal command should do the trick.

 

[Vyzantion]

If I select, on an unsupported Mac, a patch for iMac 10.1, and the iMac is 14.1, lets say, would the system crash? Like, if Mojave is installed on a supported Mac, but it is patched with a a definition for an unsupported Mac, 3 years older?

 

[0403979]

If I select, on an unsupported Mac, a patch for iMac 10.1, and the iMac is 14.1, lets say, would the system crash? Like, if Mojave is installed on a supported Mac, but it is patched with a a definition for an unsupported Mac, 3 years older?

It should work, as far as I know. But why would you apply patches on a supported mac?

 

[TimothyR734]

I think @pkouame is looking for a fix or a workaround, watch the thread and wait.

I been testing pkouame hybrid patch and it is awesome now if we can figure out a automator script

 

[Vyzantion]

It should work, as far as I know. But why would you apply patches on a supported mac?

Because Clover disgueses my Hackintosh into a supported Mac.

 

[L Caputo]

Hi, I have a Mac Pro 3.1 with a ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU in, it runs High Sierra with Dosdudes Patcher, (many thanks) I know it won't run Mojave because it doesn't support Metal, but I am thinking of getting a new GPU, I am thinking a Nvidia Geforce GTX 680 for a Mac, will run Mojave with Dosdudes Patcher ?

Thanks Guys

Just got a GTX680 for an MP 3.1, works fine in El Capitan, Serra and High Sierra if you stay off the Nvidia web drivers. In Mojave, light mode is still not rendering properly and dark mode has various little anomalies, tab bars in Safari not rendering correctly for one. Will see what happens when I download Mojave on Monday.

 

[pkouame]

there's nothing? its annoying ! Please fix it! I'm begging u lol

At this point Apple for sure will never fix this. They've asked for additional info on many of my radar bug reports, but no additional follow up. Not only are our old machines and gpus unsupported but some technologies like OpenGL/OpenCL are now deprecated (and some may even disappear in upcoming releases). It's up to us.
Some promising workarounds and fixes are afoot. Hopefully Mojave GM releases on schedule this Monday so the official code base stabilizes.
Currently the approaches (from me and others) range from system settings, scripts to very invasive patching of core frameworks with various degrees of success. The latter needs to be developed and tested with care as it may rely on deep code injection techniques - very hackish stuff - updates will be posted periodically. Search previous posts for "light mode" or "glitch' for the latest... it will give you more insights. Meanwhile enjoy Mojave...
[doublepost=1537652234][/doublepost]

Just got a GTX680 for an MP 3.1, works fine in El Capitan, Serra and High Sierra if you stay off the Nvidia web drivers. In Mojave, light mode is still not rendering properly and dark mode has various little anomalies, tab bars in Safari not rendering correctly for one. Will see what happens when I download Mojave on Monday.

Light mode works great on my pro 3.1 + GTX 680 - what glitches are you experiencing? What card do you have (and configuration). This can provide some additional clues. Thanks.

 

[jhowarth]

Just got a GTX680 for an MP 3.1, works fine in El Capitan, Serra and High Sierra if you stay off the Nvidia web drivers. In Mojave, light mode is still not rendering properly and dark mode has various little anomalies, tab bars in Safari not rendering correctly for one. Will see what happens when I download Mojave on Monday.

If you installed the legacy video patch on patched Mojave before upgrading to the GTX 680, you'll probably need to reinstall patched Mojave without the legacy video patch to make sure it isn't replacing any common frameworks.

 

[Starplayr]

At this point Apple for sure will never fix this. They've asked for additional info on many of my radar bug reports, but no additional follow up. Not only are our old machines and gpus unsupported but some technologies like OpenGL/OpenCL are now deprecated (and some may even disappear in upcoming releases). It's up to us.
Some promising workarounds and fixes are afoot. Hopefully Mojave GM releases on schedule this Monday so the official code base stabilizes.
Currently the approaches (from me and others) range from system settings, scripts to very invasive patching of core frameworks with various degrees of success. The latter needs to be developed and tested with care as it may rely on deep code injection techniques - very hackish stuff - updates will be posted periodically. Search previous posts for "light mode" or "glitch' for the latest... it will give you more insights. Meanwhile enjoy Mojave...
[doublepost=1537652234][/doublepost]
Light mode works great on my pro 3.1 + GTX 680 - what glitches are you experiencing? What card do you have (and configuration). This can provide some additional clues. Thanks.

I believe if you are fortunate to have Metal working Light mode works fine. There is some transparency but other than that it looks ok (see screenshot #1 and #3). Exceptions: the light menu bar because of its transparency starts to look bad, in my opinion, is when you use a dark background (see screenshot #2).

This is on a Mac Pro 3,1 with Metal. I will check my 2012 Mac mini and see if it behaves the same. If so this more on Apple than anything else. The Menu bar on light not doesn't need to have transparency and I think several users on her have provided a workaround for this.

Now where this all gets worse if if you don't have a new display. My Dell DVI-D is much more dimmer than my new ASUS. And you are gonna suffer more there with light mode than with dark mode enabled.

Also the menu bar on dark mode works because it has much less transparency applied to it.

If light mode and that important and things like reduce transparency or other workarounds don't work, then you could stay on High Sierra longer. Apple has literally minified Mojave's features. It seemed to way more pronounced with the screenshot tools in the first beta to where the GM is now. It either that or I hardly notice what features we are getting beside dark mode. lol. I do like dark mode though and that is my biggest reason besides staying current to use it.

A graphical alternative to getting light mode to work:
By the way since the menu bar shows the background you could make a background image that has a white layer on top of the background image. This would be another workaround for light mode and it would not require swapping frameworks or kexts. I could make a photoshop action that does this or possibly make a webpage in javascript that could do this as well. This would just kill dynamic backgrounds unless there is a way to make these with the menu bar area fixed in the dynamic background.

 

[pkouame]

I believe if you are fortunate to have Metal working Light mode works fine. There is some transparency but other than that it looks ok (see screenshot #1 and #3). Exceptions: the light menu bar because of its transparency starts to look bad, in my opinion, is when you use a dark background (see screenshot #2).

This is on a Mac Pro 3,1 with Metal. I will check my 2012 Mac mini and see if it behaves the same. If so this more on Apple than anything else. The Menu bar on light not doesn't need to have transparency and I think several users on her have provided a workaround for this.

Now where this all gets worse if if you don't have a new display. My Dell DVI-D is much more dimmer than my new ASUS. And you are gonna suffer more there with light mode than with dark mode enabled.

Also the menu bar on dark mode works because it has much less transparency applied to it.

If light mode and that important and things like reduce transparency or other workarounds don't work, then you could stay on High Sierra longer. Apple has literally minified Mojave's features. It seemed to way more pronounced with the screenshot tools in the first beta to where the GM is now. It either that or I hardly notice what features we are getting beside dark mode. lol. I do like dark mode though and that is my biggest reason besides staying current to use it.

A graphical alternative to getting light mode to work:
By the way since the menu bar shows the background you could make a background image that has a white layer on top of the background image. This would be another workaround for light mode and it would not require swapping frameworks or kexts. I could make a photoshop action that does this or possibly make a webpage in javascript that could do this as well. This would just kill dynamic backgrounds unless there is a way to make these with the menu bar area fixed in the dynamic background.

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Thanks for the detail (I like detailed posts that get to the point)

Yes, the system menu bar implements transparency/vibrancy a little differently, That's why I'm able to toggle it OFF without affecting mode vibrancy system wide.

My pro 3.1 has dual monitors and for sure it all looks better on my 4K Dell IPC (even via HDMI) compared to my older (and fading) 24 inch cinema display on DVI. Yours is also a different card as I run a GTX 680 with 2G.

Your desktop background spoof to get around offensive menubar transparency is a cool workaround indeed but it won't "fix" light mode for non-metal cards. Transparency just doesn't work where it should so the background will have no effect.

I think pretty soon we'll find some Mojave UI tweak utilities that will offer finer control on various transparencies for supported metal cards. May give some here ideas about commercializing one...Everyone has different tastes.

I don't think Mojave is simply pretty lipstick on pig. Beyond Dark mode, I like better system performance, much better APFS implementation (HS was admittedly incomplete) , full metal jacket + eGpu (even on older macbooks as some have discovered here), integrated screenshots (may seem minor but I really love their seamless implementation of it0 desktop stacks and many many internal system changes to pave way for future development. Anyway just my two cents...

 

[SpinThis!]

If I select, on an unsupported Mac, a patch for iMac 10.1, and the iMac is 14.1, lets say, would the system crash? Like, if Mojave is installed on a supported Mac, but it is patched with a a definition for an unsupported Mac, 3 years older?

Because Clover disgueses my Hackintosh into a supported Mac.

Disguised or not, does your Hackintosh have hardware that macOS supports? That's really the question you should be asking. If it does, then you're halfway home. The patcher simply replaces (or patches) pieces of software to make the hardware in older Macs work.

Hackintosh is a different story. Being a Hackintosh doesn't automatically make your hardware a real Mac, it just fools the system identifier into thinking it is. Whether it actually has the hardware that Clover says it has, that's really a different story. If you're patching an older Hackintosh that was based on similar hardware from an iMac, then yeh that's a good start.

 

[MGPlatinium]

SOS!

Literally. I used the APFS patch tool on my Mac mini 3,1 (with a MX 12G25L3205DM2I chip, so I looked before flashing) and it appears to have bricked. Now all it does upon boot is 3 short beeps, 3 long beeps, 3 short beeps. (Morse for SOS, kinda funny.) Not a RAM problem, clearly.

Any ideas? I'm afraid I don't have any hardware for external flashing.
Trash can? New logic board?

 

[MightyMN]

@dosdude1 you are a legend and a scholar, sir!

I just updated my 2008 MacBook Pro (MacBookPro5,1) from Sierra (which I also used your patcher to perform a clean install last year; this time I performed an upgrade install) and so far everything is working!

Keyboard, trackpad (multitouch), speakers, screen & keyboard brightness, iSight camera, WiFi & ethernet, App Store, Xcode... it's all there man. This is amazing. I'm able to update my old ass iOS game! =)

 

[highvoltage12v]

SOS!

Literally. I used the APFS patch tool on my Mac mini 3,1 (with a MX 12G25L3205DM2I chip, so I looked before flashing) and it appears to have bricked. Now all it does upon boot is 3 short beeps, 3 long beeps, 3 short beeps. (Morse for SOS, kinda funny.) Not a RAM problem, clearly.

Any ideas? I'm afraid I don't have any hardware for external flashing.
Trash can? New logic board?

First before you continue with what I have to recommend, can you pull your drive, plug it into another Mac and navigate to the Documents folder you were logged into while flashing? If so you can find your backed up rom, and open it with Hex feind. To make sure it's not all garbage search for "SSN" your macs serial number will appear. This will tell you the backup was most likely good. Even if it's not the 09 mini doesn't have ME Region (Core I series and later do) meaning a rom can be created from scratch. If the rom is good you need to purchase a ch341a (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I1EU9LG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and SOIC 8 clip (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V9QNAC4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) I swear by mine it has saved me 3 times already. Anyways did your mini freeze while flashing? that happened to mine. I had to reflash it using the ch341a, it took 30 minutes to flash.

 

[TimothyR734]

At this point Apple for sure will never fix this. They've asked for additional info on many of my radar bug reports, but no additional follow up. Not only are our old machines and gpus unsupported but some technologies like OpenGL/OpenCL are now deprecated (and some may even disappear in upcoming releases). It's up to us.
Some promising workarounds and fixes are afoot. Hopefully Mojave GM releases on schedule this Monday so the official code base stabilizes.
Currently the approaches (from me and others) range from system settings, scripts to very invasive patching of core frameworks with various degrees of success. The latter needs to be developed and tested with care as it may rely on deep code injection techniques - very hackish stuff - updates will be posted periodically. Search previous posts for "light mode" or "glitch' for the latest... it will give you more insights. Meanwhile enjoy Mojave...
[doublepost=1537652234][/doublepost]
Light mode works great on my pro 3.1 + GTX 680 - what glitches are you experiencing? What card do you have (and configuration). This can provide some additional clues. Thanks.

If you copy OpenGL, OpenCL from HS it does add more to each so I found the size increases so far no issues when I added those to Mojave

 

[Starplayr]

SOS!

Literally. I used the APFS patch tool on my Mac mini 3,1 (with a MX 12G25L3205DM2I chip, so I looked before flashing) and it appears to have bricked. Now all it does upon boot is 3 short beeps, 3 long beeps, 3 short beeps. (Morse for SOS, kinda funny.) Not a RAM problem, clearly.

Any ideas? I'm afraid I don't have any hardware for external flashing.
Trash can? New logic board?

Try holding down the power button for 10 seconds. And it should do something like a really long beep and it may come back on.

If not, you’re lucky Mac Pro 3,1’s are pretty cheap these days. You should be able to get one under $200, this may be cheaper than looking for a logic board and going threw the mess of all the rewiring and screws.

I saw some decent Mac Pro 5,1s for $500 today and in mint condition.

Prices are fluctuating a bit all the towers mostly due do Mojave and metal ability without breaking the bank.
[doublepost=1537676565][/doublepost]

Thanks for the detail (I like detailed posts that get to the point)

Yes, the system menu bar implements transparency/vibrancy a little differently, That's why I'm able to toggle it OFF without affecting mode vibrancy system wide.

My pro 3.1 has dual monitors and for sure it all looks better on my 4K Dell IPC (even via HDMI) compared to my older (and fading) 24 inch cinema display on DVI. Yours is also a different card as I run a GTX 680 with 2G.

Your desktop background spoof to get around offensive menubar transparency is a cool workaround indeed but it won't "fix" light mode for non-metal cards. Transparency just doesn't work where it should so the background will have no effect.

I think pretty soon we'll find some Mojave UI tweak utilities that will offer finer control on various transparencies for supported metal cards. May give some here ideas about commercializing one...Everyone has different tastes.

I don't think Mojave is simply pretty lipstick on pig. Beyond Dark mode, I like better system performance, much better APFS implementation (HS was admittedly incomplete) , full metal jacket + eGpu (even on older macbooks as some have discovered here), integrated screenshots (may seem minor but I really love their seamless implementation of it0 desktop stacks and many many internal system changes to pave way for future development. Anyway just my two cents...

I think the goal is gonna be Metal on the unsupported Macs. The Mac Pro’s have a huge advantage.

The Thunderbolt capable macs might do well with eGPU’s. The enclosures for those systems might not be cheaper. Thunderbolt is way over priced. My work won’t by anything with Thunderbolt on it and I am even phasing out my Thunderbolt hardware opting for more standard stuff like display port, hdmi and PCIe. It’s a shame the Mac Pro 5,1’s did not get Thunderbolt or sata3. The 2012 Mac mini did.

 

[pkouame]

If you copy OpenGL, OpenCL from HS it does add more to each so I found the size increases so far no issues when I added those to Mojave

But Light mode is still dysfunctional with the HS frameworks - right?
I also think Apple just trimmed the frameworks (32/64 bit) Just need to check.
[doublepost=1537684249][/doublepost]

T

I think the goal is gonna be Metal on the unsupported Macs. The Mac Pro’s have a huge advantage.

That will never happen on unsupported built-in gpus. Metal is very hardware dependent.

The Thunderbolt capable macs might do well with eGPU’s. The enclosures for those systems might not be cheaper. Thunderbolt is way boer priced. My work won’t by anything with Thunderbolt on it and I am even phasing out my Thunderbolt hardware opting for more standard stuff like display port, hdmi and PCIe. It’s a shame the Mac Pro 5,1’s did not get Thunderbolt or sata3. The 2012 Mac mini did.

Apple's solution is pricey and constrained. Over time the price for the better expandable solutions will drop. No better solutions for laptops. IMHO.
[doublepost=1537684345][/doublepost]

If not, you’re lucky Mac Pro 3,1’s are pretty cheap these days. You should be able to get one under $200, this may be cheaper than looking for a logic board and going threw the mess of all the rewiring and screws.

I saw some decent Mac Pro 5,1s for $500 today and in mint condition.

Prices are fluctuating a bit all the towers mostly due do Mojave and metal ability without breaking the bank.

Up vote for that option. I'm looking for a cheap 5.1 myself.

 

[L Caputo]

At this point Apple for sure will never fix this. They've asked for additional info on many of my radar bug reports, but no additional follow up. Not only are our old machines and gpus unsupported but some technologies like OpenGL/OpenCL are now deprecated (and some may even disappear in upcoming releases). It's up to us.
Some promising workarounds and fixes are afoot. Hopefully Mojave GM releases on schedule this Monday so the official code base stabilizes.
Currently the approaches (from me and others) range from system settings, scripts to very invasive patching of core frameworks with various degrees of success. The latter needs to be developed and tested with care as it may rely on deep code injection techniques - very hackish stuff - updates will be posted periodically. Search previous posts for "light mode" or "glitch' for the latest... it will give you more insights. Meanwhile enjoy Mojave...
[doublepost=1537652234][/doublepost]
Light mode works great on my pro 3.1 + GTX 680 - what glitches are you experiencing? What card do you have (and configuration). This can provide some additional clues. Thanks.

[doublepost=1537684815][/doublepost]Ok so just installed a fresh new installation of Mojave on this old slugger of mine and now I am not experiencing any graphics glitches, previously the Mojave that I was using had had the legacy video patcher installed, so that was my issue.
And the GTX is now reporting that Metal is supported in the System Information. Now to Night Shift, the Patch Updater app is not reporting the Night Shift patcher is installed, so what are people using to get Night Shift on their Macs.
Thanks.
[doublepost=1537684973][/doublepost]

If you installed the legacy video patch on patched Mojave before upgrading to the GTX 680, you'll probably need to reinstall patched Mojave without the legacy video patch to make sure it isn't replacing any common frameworks.

Thanks very much, that was indeed the case, have now installed a clean version of Mojave and the graphics glitches have gone. Just now looking into how to get Night Shift functioning.

 

[Vyzantion]

Disguised or not, does your Hackintosh have hardware that macOS supports? That's really the question you should be asking. If it does, then you're halfway home. The patcher simply replaces (or patches) pieces of software to make the hardware in older Macs work.

Hackintosh is a different story. Being a Hackintosh doesn't automatically make your hardware a real Mac, it just fools the system identifier into thinking it is. Whether it actually has the hardware that Clover says it has, that's really a different story. If you're patching an older Hackintosh that was based on similar hardware from an iMac, then yeh that's a good start.

It is a Hackintosh with Intel Core 2 Duo, with and Asus motherboard from 2008. The Mojave beta, patched, it works. The question is how shall I download the final version on Monday or Thursday, without proper System Definition, to trick the App Store to let me download it. On High Sierra, it was easy, I changed system definitions in Clover. If I do the same in here, I am afraid the Dosdude1 patch shall no longer work, after reboot.

 

[zrw2011]

I been testing pkouame hybrid patch and it is awesome now if we can figure out a automator script

im new tho this stuff is it easy to test a patch? can u give it ito me?