macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[TimothyR734]

How do we update our patches and Catalina to pb2?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-15-catalina-on-unsupported-macs.2183772/ create a Catliana Patcher USB, download the latest cat and reboot follow the instructions along the way

 

[avz]

Are you talking about the MacBook 5,1 sometimes you can find them cheap on eBay

I am confident that it is about MacPro 5,1.

 

[DuncanGarp]

If you run the CatalinaAuto in the terminal then go to System/Library/PrivateFrameworks delete the CoreBrightness.Framework or rename it then replace it with the patched one here NightShift is working

Thanks for these as well as to @ASentientBot for the CatalinaAuto plist launchdaemon solution. Also thanks for the reference to NightOwl for resolution to the "Automatic" issue.

Also, did you use the latest version of @pkouame's Hybrid Patches, specially for light mode? Currently, my menu is very gray.

Thanks and Regards.

 

[jackluke]

wow man. Really appreciate the effort put here.Thanks to all the people here n the community and kudos to those like you that keep the info clear for us the average guys.

I'll try the patch on my hd7950 and if this doesn't work properly I'll get one nvid.
I have nothing to loose while trying both ways. (I have a 2017 iMac to deal with work if my MacPro doesn't boot, till I fix it.
[doublepost=1562511176][/doublepost]


ok. here is the AMD output

kextstat | grep AMD

93 2 0xffffff7f82a26000 0x156000 0x156000 com.apple.kext.AMDSupport (1.5.4) 281B3410-FAF8-3340-A512-F66B53DB74AD <92 91 12 11 7 5 4 3 1>

94 0 0xffffff7f8361c000 0x1e2000 0x1e2000 com.apple.kext.AMD7000Controller (1.5.4) 4B7C078B-7B38-3F51-AD2B-D72E96EDEFCD <93 91 12 11 5 4 3 1>

113 0 0xffffff7f82c2a000 0x873000 0x873000 com.apple.AMDRadeonX4000 (1.5.4) 40F37ABD-530F-33C2-AD45-0B2B75308569 <112 111 91 12 7 5 4 3 1>

127 0 0xffffff7f835e1000 0x27000 0x27000 com.apple.kext.AMDFramebuffer (1.5.4) A0EE3F7D-1DA6-39CD-8D3F-9E6DC32FB908 <93 91 12 11 7 5 4 3 1>

on MTL says nothing


BTW I'm on 10.12.6

I was a bit inaccurate, the "MTLDriver" as the "GLDriver" as any other ".bundle" is not showed in "kextstat" or as loaded kext/bundle but almost surely is loaded in your case, hence I still think your AMD Radeon HD 7950 is a full Metal GPU and could work on Mojave and Catalina too.

 

[TimothyR734]

Thanks for these as well as to @ASentientBot for the CatalinaAuto plist launchdaemon solution. Also thanks for the reference to NightOwl for resolution to the "Automatic" issue.

Also, did you use the latest version of @pkouame's Hybrid Patches, specially for light mode? Currently, my menu is very gray.

Thanks and Regards.

Yes I did try but got a kernel cache and prelinked kernel error so ended up reinstalling Cat

 

[producer26]

Great ! Thanx man. As soon as I find the time to try it I will post the results here for anyone else having the same specs with me

 

[pkouame]

Thanks for these as well as to @ASentientBot for the CatalinaAuto plist launchdaemon solution. Also thanks for the reference to NightOwl for resolution to the "Automatic" issue.

Also, did you use the latest version of @pkouame's Hybrid Patches, specially for light mode? Currently, my menu is very gray.

Thanks and Regards.

There should be no need for the Mojave Hybrid patches with @ASentientBot and @testheit tweaks to Mojave SkyLight for Cat. The only outstanding (UI) issue with the SL Cat patches is the top menubar, at least as far as I know of...

 

[Larsvonhier]

Found out a bit more about how to get some things up and running on MB 5,2, Catalina beta 3.
iSight works out of the box, but backlight control and keyboard (function keys) do not.
So I ran the Mojave patch updater and installed _all_ (a pity that there is no patch-installer style selection of single patches).
The outcome is (as to be expected) a mixed bag, but might be interesting to @dosdude1:
- partial keyboard patch does not enable function keys
- night shift is semi-enabled but greyed out in the screen settings
- backlight can now be adjusted in the screen settings, but snaps back to lower illumination (if you´re quick to close the panel before that, the screen stays bright!)
- as reported before, Siri does crash again (as on all(?) other machines without metal gfx)

 

[dosdude1]

Found out a bit more about how to get some things up and running on MB 5,2, Catalina beta 3.
iSight works out of the box, but backlight control and keyboard (function keys) do not.
So I ran the Mojave patch updater and installed _all_ (a pity that there is no patch-installer style selection of single patches).
The outcome is (as to be expected) a mixed bag, but might be interesting to @dosdude1:
- partial keyboard patch does not enable function keys
- night shift is semi-enabled but greyed out in the screen settings
- backlight can now be adjusted in the screen settings, but snaps back to lower illumination (if you´re quick to close the panel before that, the screen stays bright!)
- as reported before, Siri does crash again (as on all(?) other machines without metal gfx)

You do realize that with Patch Updater, you can right-click on a selection of installed patches, and select "Re-install", to re-install only the selected ones.... I wouldn't recommend applying these patches, especially the Night Shift one, as they won't work right in Catalina.

 

[Larsvonhier]

You do realize that with Patch Updater, you can right-click on a selection of installed patches, and select "Re-install", to re-install only the selected ones.... I wouldn't recommend applying these patches, especially the Night Shift one, as they won't work right in Catalina.

Oh, I missed that during Mojave patches. Good hint, thanks, about the right click selection.
I´m fully aware though that these old patches might not work or even worse, corrupt a working setup. It was just an experiment and in case of the partially working backlight might give some clues...

 

[TimothyR734]

Oh, I missed that during Mojave patches. Good hint, thanks, about the right click selection.
I´m fully aware though that these old patches might not work or even worse, corrupt a working setup. It was just an experiment and in case of the partially working backlight might give some clues...

Did you try my post 2726 that might fix the back light well at least I know it does fix Night Shift as temp fix you could try the brightness slider from the App Store its free

 

[flygbuss]

Is there a fix for a pci nvme ssd so that it’s recognised as internal
In Mojave I used lilu + innie (dev kexts)
And my nvme ssd was an internal pci ssd
In Catalina it is recognised as external
Any suggestions ?????

If you're just looking for the optics, changing the HD icon now works again in beta 3.

 

[StratUk]

Does anyone know how to get a dosdude1 or Julian patched USB installer to boot in a Parallels VM? Currently you get the Apple logo then the Forbidden Sign.

The reason I want to do this is to patch a standard Catalina install so that the keyboard and mouse work.

The only way I've been able to do it so far is to image the disk to a USB drive, boot my MacPro 3.1 with the patching USB stick, patch the USB stick and image it back to the drive.

As you can imagine, this is very tedious as you have to do it with each new update.

A VM is currently the only way I've got of testing out my apps for Catalina compatibility.

Just a follow up to this - it occurred to me that it might be possible to run the Post Update Tool in a Recovery Boot where the keyboard and Mouse do work.

And you can - you just have to open the Terminal and run the UNIX executable contained in the MacOS folder in the Contents folder of the "macOS Post Install.app" held in the Applications/Utilities folder on the USB stick.

You'll have to manually select the patches you want, and make sure to rebuild the Caches but it does work.

 

[Shigoroku]

Before I do a whole lot of digging, can anyone tell me if this is a common issue?

Late-2011 Macbook Pro, upgraded with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I used dosdude1's patcher tool to make a Catalina install on a brand-new SD card. It always hangs when I boot to the SD card (after holding OPTION while powering-on). If I boot into the installed Mojave (patched) OS on the HDD and browse the SD card to run the installer, the installer's icon appears in the dock with a dot below it, but the window never appears. The installer appears to be frozen because it presents an option to "Force Quit."

 

[dosdude1]

Before I do a whole lot of digging, can anyone tell me if this is a common issue?

Late-2011 Macbook Pro, upgraded with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I used dosdude1's patcher tool to make a Catalina install on a brand-new SD card. It always hangs when I boot to the SD card (after holding OPTION while powering-on). If I boot into the installed Mojave (patched) OS on the HDD and browse the SD card to run the installer, the installer's icon appears in the dock with a dot below it, but the window never appears. The installer appears to be frozen because it presents an option to "Force Quit."

I'd recommend using a normal USB drive as the installer. An SD card is not suited to boot a copy of macOS. Also, in its current implementation, the installer app cannot be run from an installed system. This will be resolved in a future release of Catalina Patcher, once I implement the "Install to This Machine" option.

 

[Starplayr]

Before I do a whole lot of digging, can anyone tell me if this is a common issue?

Late-2011 Macbook Pro, upgraded with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

I used dosdude1's patcher tool to make a Catalina install on a brand-new SD card. It always hangs when I boot to the SD card (after holding OPTION while powering-on). If I boot into the installed Mojave (patched) OS on the HDD and browse the SD card to run the installer, the installer's icon appears in the dock with a dot below it, but the window never appears. The installer appears to be frozen because it presents an option to "Force Quit."

For your machine, Apple says it's upgradable to 8 GB RAM, but a third party source says it's 16GB. Make sure you buy the right size / type of chips for your Mac and check how many slots you have because you could end up buying the wrong type, amount or size of chips. See Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> Memory tab, for details and installation instructions.

Sources:
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp644?locale=en_US
https://everymac.com/actual-maximum-mac-ram/actual-maximum-macbook-pro-ram-capacity.html

Your box can handle a SATA II 1TB SSD and is user installable along with the RAM. I recommend Samsung brand, but any brand will do. If you can't find a SATA II SSD which would be cheaper, you can use SATA III SSD but it will run at SATA II speeds. You can also use the SATA III disk in a newer computer down the road.
[doublepost=1562550699][/doublepost]

Does anyone know how to get a dosdude1 or Julian patched USB installer to boot in a Parallels VM? Currently you get the Apple logo then the Forbidden Sign.

The reason I want to do this is to patch a standard Catalina install so that the keyboard and mouse work.

The only way I've been able to do it so far is to image the disk to a USB drive, boot my MacPro 3.1 with the patching USB stick, patch the USB stick and image it back to the drive.

As you can imagine, this is very tedious as you have to do it with each new update.

A VM is currently the only way I've got of testing out my apps for Catalina compatibility.

I used Dosdude1's patched installer app to install Catalina Beta 2 on Anka Build VM. You can get a free 30 day trial of Anka Build if you want to play with it. It will not run VMs on Core2Duo or Mac Pro 3,1, but it does run on other unsupported boxes like a 2011 27" iMac 12,1.

Anyways, I am sure Dosdude1's installer app will run on Parallels or VMWare. The experience on those VMs for macOS isn't that great. Anka Build and QEMU both support Apple's Hypervisor.framework are better. Anka is command line but it is easier to setup than QEMU which is also command line, but more complex. I have yet to have enough patience for QEMU, but I would love to get it running a macOS VM on my Mac Pro 3,1 one day.

 

[Starplayr]

@nekton1 - some nice throuput there - sure beats my old OWC Mercury. But is it worth spending $300 and beyond on a box selling for less than a Bengie?

I paid 90 bucks for my Mac Pro 3,1 8 Core 3.2 GHz box that was just sitting there collecting dust at my work. I know in the last year, I spent a lot on it, but it is running like a champ and it's been fun doing the upgrades.

3TB SSD total storage space, 8 TB total HD space, 4k display, logi HD cam, Steel Series head phones, iMac Pro style Magic 2 Keyboard and Magic 2 track pad, USB 3.0, Two PCIe SATA III expansion cards. One USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card. New in Box Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 2 GB PCIe graphics card. New 802.11ac and BT4 coming soon. Original Internal SuperDrive. It had two. I removed one and added a SSD there. A couple USB Audio adapters. One I use for headphones / Mic. Also have a Samsung sound bar with analog, digital, BT, USB, and HDMI outputs. Two additional displays that I had lying around. One is the TV that I won and another was from my MAME station.

It is nice having 9 USB ports (4 USB 3.0, 5 USB 2.0)

Every slot is filed in this box. I finally had to put the side cover back on to keep it cool.

 

[nekton1]

That's a nicely tricked-out MP3,1. Mine is similar but I'm waiting for MP 5,1 prices to fall for my next "upgrade". Sadly, the MP2019 is so expensive that it's not going to result in many 5,1 units released into the S/H market; post-production offices with a budget and an "old" MP2016 cylinder will likely go for it, but not individuals without a trust fund.

I paid 90 bucks for my Mac Pro 3,1 8 Core 3.2 GHz box that was just sitting there collecting dust at my work. I know in the last year, I spent a lot on it, but it is running like a champ and it's been fun doing the upgrades.

3TB SSD total storage space, 8 TB total HD space, 4k display, logi HD cam, Steel Series head phones, iMac Pro style Magic 2 Keyboard and Magic 2 track pad, USB 3.0, Two PCIe SATA III expansion cards. One USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card. New in Box Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 2 GB PCIe graphics card. New 802.11ac and BT4 coming soon. Original Internal SuperDrive. It had two. I removed one and added a SSD there. A couple USB Audio adapters. One I use for headphones / Mic. Also have a Samsung sound bar with analog, digital, BT, USB, and HDMI outputs. Two additional displays that I had lying around. One is the TV that I won and another was from my MAME station.

It is nice having 9 USB ports (4 USB 3.0, 5 USB 2.0)

Every slot is filed in this box. I finally had to put the side cover back on to keep it cool.

 

[0134168]

I was a bit inaccurate, the "MTLDriver" as the "GLDriver" as any other ".bundle" is not showed in "kextstat" or as loaded kext/bundle but almost surely is loaded in your case, hence I still think your AMD Radeon HD 7950 is a full Metal GPU and could work on Mojave and Catalina too.

I have one of those. Full metal GPU.

 

[0134168]

I paid 90 bucks for my Mac Pro 3,1 8 Core 3.2 GHz box that was just sitting there collecting dust at my work. I know in the last year, I spent a lot on it, but it is running like a champ and it's been fun doing the upgrades.

3TB SSD total storage space, 8 TB total HD space, 4k display, logi HD cam, Steel Series head phones, iMac Pro style Magic 2 Keyboard and Magic 2 track pad, USB 3.0, Two PCIe SATA III expansion cards. One USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card. New in Box Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 2 GB PCIe graphics card. New 802.11ac and BT4 coming soon. Original Internal SuperDrive. It had two. I removed one and added a SSD there. A couple USB Audio adapters. One I use for headphones / Mic. Also have a Samsung sound bar with analog, digital, BT, USB, and HDMI outputs. Two additional displays that I had lying around. One is the TV that I won and another was from my MAME station.

It is nice having 9 USB ports (4 USB 3.0, 5 USB 2.0)

Every slot is filed in this box. I finally had to put the side cover back on to keep it cool.

I also have a 3.1 running Mojave, and it´s a great machine. Similar in geekbench to my Macbook Pro late 2011. An AHCI, a CalDigit FASTA-6GU3 and a BCM94360CD make it a very satisfactory computer. 24/365 on during years and never failured.
[doublepost=1562556673][/doublepost]

That's a nicely tricked-out MP3,1. Mine is similar but I'm waiting for MP 5,1 prices to fall for my next "upgrade". Sadly, the MP2019 is so expensive that it's not going to result in many 5,1 units released into the S/H market; post-production offices with a budget and an "old" MP2016 cylinder will likely go for it, but not individuals without a trust fund.

Mac Pro 2019 plays in another league. Above the usual "Pro". Not too much people needs such power, in my opinion.

 

[Shigoroku]

For your machine, Apple says it's upgradable to 8 GB RAM, but a third party source says it's 16GB. Make sure you buy the right size / type of chips for your Mac and check how many slots you have because you could end up buying the wrong type, amount or size of chips. See Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> Memory tab, for details and installation instructions.

Sources:
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp644?locale=en_US
https://everymac.com/actual-maximum-mac-ram/actual-maximum-macbook-pro-ram-capacity.html

Yeah. It looked like lots of people had upgraded this one to 16GB and I tested first with 16GB borrowed from a family member's old Alienware M11x r3. The 16GB (2x8GB) G.SKILL RAM modules seem to work fine.

Your box can handle a SATA II 1TB SSD and is user installable along with the RAM. I recommend Samsung brand, but any brand will do. If you can't find a SATA II SSD which would be cheaper, you can use SATA III SSD but it will run at SATA II speeds. You can also use the SATA III disk in a newer computer down the road.

It's a Samsung EVO 1TB, purchased from Best Buy during Black Friday sale last November.

 

[Starplayr]

I have disk to disk cloning working. I revamped its logic for HFS and APFS volumes: will be going back to catch the other two schemes up which are disk to image and image to disk.

Then I will be doing a good bit of my own testing making corrections along the way, and then I’l start looking for a few key members first to test it and get their feedback.

The goal is gonna be to have it ready for the public when Catalina reaches GM.

 

[gt2416]

@dosdude1 Hey just wanted to know how much of the graphics acceleration works at this point ?
I know transparency and desktop acceleration works but for programs that use h.264 like moonlight streaming it does not use/ detect h.624 hardware. It worked on Mojave and I asked the dev, he says it works on a supported MacBook running beta 3. I never had a problem on Mojave running on my MacBook Pro 8,1.
lastly thanks again for all your work !

 

[pkouame]

I paid 90 bucks for my Mac Pro 3,1 8 Core 3.2 GHz box that was just sitting there collecting dust at my work. I know in the last year, I spent a lot on it, but it is running like a champ and it's been fun doing the upgrades.

3TB SSD total storage space, 8 TB total HD space, 4k display, logi HD cam, Steel Series head phones, iMac Pro style Magic 2 Keyboard and Magic 2 track pad, USB 3.0, Two PCIe SATA III expansion cards. One USB 3.0 PCIe expansion card. New in Box Galaxy Nvidia GeForce 2 GB PCIe graphics card. New 802.11ac and BT4 coming soon. Original Internal SuperDrive. It had two. I removed one and added a SSD there. A couple USB Audio adapters. One I use for headphones / Mic. Also have a Samsung sound bar with analog, digital, BT, USB, and HDMI outputs. Two additional displays that I had lying around. One is the TV that I won and another was from my MAME station.

It is nice having 9 USB ports (4 USB 3.0, 5 USB 2.0)

Every slot is filed in this box. I finally had to put the side cover back on to keep it cool.

nice setup. fully loaded here too but never got around to swapping my original superdrive out. runs like a champ, but those old XEONs are really power hungry and showing their age. sad to say but my largest compiles are easily 3x to 4x faster on a 2018 mbp, hands down - no contest. so relegated to being an external server or testing new unsupported os releases (have metal support with the 680)

 

[pkouame]

That's a nicely tricked-out MP3,1. Mine is similar but I'm waiting for MP 5,1 prices to fall for my next "upgrade". Sadly, the MP2019 is so expensive that it's not going to result in many 5,1 units released into the S/H market; post-production offices with a budget and an "old" MP2016 cylinder will likely go for it, but not individuals without a trust fund.

I hear you. lol - you can buy a small car for the price of a basic MP2019...not exactly the response enthusiasts were waiting for. If anything it will push many more to the hackintosh realm.