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macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
How do I know if my MacBook Pro 7,1 and my MacMini 3,1 are metal graphics or not? The MacMini Has a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 and the MacBook Pro has a NVIDIA GeForce 320M.
 
Managed to get a MacBookPro8,3 up and running with 10.14.4 DP4 by:
1) placing the unpacked remedy on the 10.14.4 DP3 disk connected to another Mac.
2) Booting the MacBookPro8,3 in Single User. mounting the drive RW, executing install.sh, nothing removed
3) when exiting from Single User the MacBookPro8,3 launches successfully into the OS.
4) Applied 10.14.4 DP4, repeated steps 2) and 3)
5) Reapplied Patches with the Dosdude patcher.

All is well. Thank you dosdude.
 
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TimothyR734 said:
I reinstalled 10.14.3 and checked to see if GeForceTeslaGLDriver.bundle got renamed using command S but it still hung up so I tried safe mode to see if could rename back
Click to expand...

That's really weird, because renaming "GeForceTeslaGLDriver.bundle" doesn't affect or broke nothing in OSX, only disables the OpenGL Acceleration to your iMac, anyway to boot in safe mode one time try this from Terminal:
sudo nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check -x"
(use sudo before the lines if you are at Mojave Desktop, don't use sudo from CMD+S mode)
after you have done, to disable the safe mode at every reboot, re-type: nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check", or reset PRAM as you know.

edit:
I missed the "-x" for safe mode, re-try
 
Last edited:
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Hi all,
Thanks for breathing life into my old early 2008 MacBook Pro 4.1! So far I have installed Mojave, (upgraded to a 256gb SSD too) and I bought a little usb WiFi dongle to fix the unsupported wireless card, it works nicely. The only issue I have is the trackpad touch click, the button works, and I can scroll with the to, but I can’t touch click. Would anyone know how to fix this? Also, I’m assuming that the wireless card also handles Bluetooth, therefore, if I wanted to use a Magic Trackpad to ‘fix it’, I will need a separate Bluetooth dongle? Thanks for all your help, so good to get the Mac running again!
 
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The update on my supported machine (MBP 2012) to 10.14.4 developer beta 4 showed the firmware progress bar again.
I’ll stick to 10.14.3 on my unsupported Mac for a little longer, I think.

81C2C4DF-E07A-415F-83E0-EF9647A5AA5A.jpeg
 
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flygbuss said:
The update on my supported machine (MBP 2012) to 10.14.4 developer beta 4 showed the firmware progress bar again.
I’ll stick to 10.14.3 on my unsupported Mac for a little longer, I think.

View attachment 824972
Click to expand...

Proper sequence:
- update OTA from 10.14.3 to 10.14.4 b4
- let machine reboot but boot to patcher/install USB stick
- re-patch everything
- reboot and wait for progress bar freeze with white spinning symbol
- reboot but go to cmd-s (single user)
- delete your OpenGL driver (according to dosdude1 findings)
- reboot to the Finder
- let dosdude1´s script do the work (or do it manually and fix file attributes/permissions)
- run patch updater and re-install all patches (if patch updater itself has an update, accept that before patching, too)
- reboot
- success / accelerated GPU
 
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hfogel said:
Hi Collin, I'm using a Mac Pro 3,1. It was running El Capitan, but I'm a heavy Adobe user, so needed to update for the latest batch of Creative Cloud updates to install. It has an Nvida Fermi Quadro 4000 for Mac video card installed, and 16 GB of RAM. Booting off a SSD in an OWC PCI card. Followed directions to the letter, but, now I have a system that will only boot a short way, then I get an error message, that the system has encountered an error. If you hit a key, it will start to load, about 1/4-inch on the bar, then shut down with a black screen. It wouldn't allow me to boot into the recovery volume, so I rebooted to my USB drive, selected the Patch the Recovery option, and it now allows me to boot into it. I've also used the option for Legacy Video Card in the Post Install Tool.

But it still won't boot past that 1/4 inch into the progress bar. There doesn't seem to be any FAQ or explanation of what the legacy patch tool options do, or when to use them. So, any help would be great. I'm wondering if the issue is the OWC Accelsior S card (https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL6G.S/)? I'm assuming that since the system will boot off the USB drive, that things like the video card, RAM, etc. all are working fine, so whatever is happening, happens almost immediately. I've been unplugging external drives, etc., to rule that out.

I read the note about the archive, but not quite sure how to install, but will give it a whirl. Love a short video tutorial.
Click to expand...

You will need to apply the legacy video patch for any non-Metal card like the Nvidia Fermi Quadro 4000. If you have a backup of your previous El Captain volume, your best bet is to reformat the current system SSD as APFS and install patched Mojave 10.14.3 with migration from the backup volume for your other files.
 
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I am far from an expert, and have had no luck getting 10.14.4 to work on my non metal devices. Is there an easy way or a script to do this. I have tried at least 5 times no luck.
 
jhowarth said:
You will need to apply the legacy video patch for any non-Metal card like the Nvidia Fermi Quadro 4000. If you have a backup of your previous El Captain volume, your best bet is to reformat the current system SSD as APFS and install patched Mojave 10.14.3 with migration from the backup volume for your other files.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Ok, a bit of an update. More to come later. After numerous tries, installing Mojave as an update to the existing El Cap system, but ending up with a computer that crashed at startup, and reinstalling, etc. to no avail, I tried a different tack. I installed an empty drive in one of the bays of my MacPro 3,1 formatted and partitioned it, installed Mojave on it. And voila, it booted fine, the Nvidia Quadro Fermi 4000 card worked fine, and all was well. That was until I used Migration Assistant to transfer data, settings, etc.. and upon restart, same error and crash at Startup.

So, I installed again, used Migration Assistant to only transfer settings and users, and all is well. I don't know if there is a way to tell if Graphics Acceleration is working. It seems that the problem is with something in my existing system that is crashing the system. The challenge is how to transfer over data and apps on a selective basis. The moral is, as it always has been, start with a clean install.
 
Thanks to @dosdude1 & all for their work - great place here ! Its working now and thus I share my success and a question here:
> Maybe some SSD Models are not compatible / seen by the EFI Bootloade when they are formatted with APFS?

What I did:

1st try with the macOS Mojave Patcher on MacMini4,1 on a Samsung SSD 850 Evo (2nd Drive with HDD , data only):
- freshly reformatted the SSD with APFS
- installed Mojave and the Patches - didn't boot on it
- freshly reformatted the SSD with HFS+ installed Mojave - worked

The second try after zapping P-RAM, fully partitining / reformatting the SSD again with APFS
- freshly reformatted the SSD with APFS
- installed Mojave and the Patches -> and still the SSD didn't want to boot and didn't show up in the StartUPDisks
- rebotted with USB and the Mojave Patch Tool and applied the APFS Patch (as for MacMini3)
-> now an EFI Volume is seen as a startup Disk, it boots after showing a single screen of text (not scrolling).

From what I read the macMini4,1 should be able to boot APFS without the APFS ROM patch or the APFS Patch from the Mojave Patcher - but it seems this is not always the case?
 
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hfogel said:
Thanks. Ok, a bit of an update. More to come later. After numerous tries, installing Mojave as an update to the existing El Cap system, but ending up with a computer that crashed at startup, and reinstalling, etc. to no avail, I tried a different tack. I installed an empty drive in one of the bays of my MacPro 3,1 formatted and partitioned it, installed Mojave on it. And voila, it booted fine, the Nvidia Quadro Fermi 4000 card worked fine, and all was well. That was until I used Migration Assistant to transfer data, settings, etc.. and upon restart, same error and crash at Startup.

So, I installed again, used Migration Assistant to only transfer settings and users, and all is well. I don't know if there is a way to tell if Graphics Acceleration is working. It seems that the problem is with something in my existing system that is crashing the system. The challenge is how to transfer over data and apps on a selective basis. The moral is, as it always has been, start with a clean install.
Click to expand...
If you have transparency of any kind then acceleration is working. Your issue is probably caused by an old application but not just the app file. There are potentially other files made by the app that are causing the issue. I would suggest to try booting in safe mode by holding the shift key on startup.
 
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dosdude1 said:
[doublepost=1551799896][/doublepost]
That seems to happen on some machine, for some odd reason. I thought it was due to AMD GPUs initially, but now I'm not sure. I may just remove this patch until I figure it out (however, I have been unable to replicate the issue on any of my machines).
Click to expand...
I can confirm this issue on my iMac7,1. I did the update using the patcher tool after detecting modified backlight, and reloaded mojave and was bricked when doing the backlight with patcher tool again. I tried loading some backlight kexts from earlier in the thread which unbricks, but it seems to be running poorly.
 
jackluke said:
This is a great news, because I expect that the same method will be valid also for the future 10.15 on fall 2019.
[doublepost=1551774075][/doublepost]

Once again, great insight about those legacy frameworks.
Click to expand...

Serious??? This is true? :)
[doublepost=1551903551][/doublepost]
dosdude1 said:
Alright, got everything figured out! To get acceleration working under 10.14.4 with a non-Metal GPU, just download this archive, extract it, cd into the extracted directory using Terminal, and then run ./install.sh. Please ensure you have the Legacy Video Card Patch installed properly (you can re-apply it with the post-install patch, or re-install it using Patch Updater after running the script just to be sure). After rebooting, you should now have full graphics acceleration!

View attachment 824764
Click to expand...

Can I use this on Radeon 6750 in an iMac 2011? If so ill reformat at once. Can @dosdude1 please confirm?
 
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Well, I need to give a HUGE thanks to @parrotgeek1, who figured out this amazing solution... Broadcom BCM94321 WiFi cards are now WORKING under Mojave! If you'd like to test, just download the attached ZIP, extract it, cd into the extracted directory using Terminal, and then run ./install.sh. This should get WiFi working on ALL machines with BCM94321 WiFi chipsets, including the MacMini3,1, MacBookAir2,1, MacBookPro4,1, iMac8,1, and more. Please post results!

Screen Shot 2019-03-06 at 3.24.48 PM.png
 

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  • BCM4321fix.zip
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dosdude1 said:
Well, I need to give a HUGE thanks to @parrotgeek1, who figured out this amazing solution... Broadcom BCM94321 WiFi cards are now WORKING under Mojave! If you'd like to test, just download the attached ZIP, extract it, cd into the extracted directory using Terminal, and then run ./install.sh. This should get WiFi working on ALL machines with BCM94321 WiFi chipsets, including the MacMini3,1, MacBookAir2,1, MacBookPro4,1, iMac8,1, and more. Please post results!

View attachment 825032
Click to expand...

Can try everything if I just can get confirmed Radeon 6750 will be able to use gfx acc.
 
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dosdude1 said:
No... The GPU support will remain the same as it's always been. Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx series will still not work.
Click to expand...

There my hope died.. actually thought "non-metal support" meant those cards as well. Don't think we will ever see support. Better to upgrade gpu?
 
jackluke said:
That's really weird, because renaming "GeForceTeslaGLDriver.bundle" doesn't affect or broke nothing in OSX, only disables the OpenGL Acceleration to your iMac, anyway to boot in safe mode one time try this from Terminal:
sudo nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check -x"
(use sudo before the lines if you are at Mojave Desktop, don't use sudo from CMD+S mode)
after you have done, to disable the safe mode at every reboot, re-type: nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check", or reset PRAM as you know.

edit:
I missed the "-x" for safe mode, re-try
Click to expand...
I tried safe mode and used in the terminal sudo nvram boot args=-x to enable it from the Mojave patcher no luck tried renaming OpenGL, removed GeForceTesla.kext, renamed GeForceTeslaGLDriver nothing from command s
 
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