macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jhowarth]

So I went ahead and swapped the Trackpad.prefPane file from my macOS Mojave install on an older MacBook5,2 that I've been working on. And I've actually have had some success with fixing the Trackpad Preference Pane! After replacing the file I managed to get Trackpad settings to finally open on not only my MacBook5,2 but also my MacPro3,1 I'll have to do some further testing but so far all clear! You can see that there is quiet a difference in size between the previous Trackpad.prefPane and the Catalina one. Thanks @TimothyR734 for directing me in the right direction. I can upload the Mojave Trackpad.prefPane file if anyone would like to test this out themselves. Let me know if it works for you!

Looking at the linkage of the Mojave vs Catalina Trackpad binary, the differences seem to be new linkages on
BezelServices.framework and QTKit.framework. The other thing that should be checked is whether the new Trackpad has any SSE 4,2 opcodes that aren't supported on the older processors. If the stock Catalina Trackpad opens on a MacPro 5,1, that would suggest the latter as the problem.

 

[webg3]

Any news about the waves calling Siri? I'm using that fix that popped in here, and it was before I applied Beta 4, yet she kept Siri running.

 

[TimothyR734]

As far as I know that waves are broke but if you let it go a bit long the Siri logo at the bottom is animated

 

[TTV.STREAMERBTW]

Looking at the linkage of the Mojave vs Catalina Trackpad binary, the differences seem to be new linkages on
BezelServices.framework and QTKit.framework. The other thing that should be checked is whether the new Trackpad has any SSE 4,2 opcodes that aren't supported on the older processors. If the stock Catalina Trackpad opens on a MacPro 5,1, that would suggest the latter as the problem.

I’ll have to test this later I’m not able to check right now. But when I was leaving after a restart I wasn’t able to boot into my Cat Partition which may mean that this might not be a good fix so far.

 

[TimothyR734]

I’ll have to test this later I’m not able to check right now. But when I was leaving after a restart I wasn’t able to boot into my Cat Partition which may mean that this might not be a good fix so far.

just reinstall Cat it should override the trapped preference pane just remember if there is any 32 bit code in the trackpad it could cause Cat to KP

 

[jackluke]

You can get the original widget working instead of using the Accuweather version:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/weather-widget.2175154/page-3#post-27548671

Should have said this earlier. Tiger or Leopard Weather Widget and parser file works up to Sierra. Don't know about High Sierra as I skipped that but L Caputo explains using the Tiger/Leopard Accuweather parser file with the original Mojave Weather Channel/Yahoo widget.

I confirm that method works on Catalina too, infact in Tiger/Leopard apple used as Weather API the AccuWeather (still showed to work using the previous third party widget uploaded), while starting from SnowLeopard they used the Yahoo Weather API (now disabled).

So using the weatherparser.js from Tiger or Leopard will work on the other macOS.

Here is a working example on Catalina, they are all .wdgt converted in .app but got a similar old dashboard effect using a desktop-space, the proof it's Catalina is that I left opened "Find My.app" the new Catalina beta4 app recently released for Mac.

 

[Flacko]

Weird question. Does anyone know how to get trackpad settings open on a Mac Pro or any Mac? For instance on my MacPro 3,1 running the latest Catalina Patcher made by @dosdude1 when I open up System Preferences and attempt to open the Trackpad Preference it keeps giving me an error that says, "The System Preference "Trackpad" could not be opened." Any ideas would be greatly appreciated thanks!

Just checked my mp3.1 and trackpad preferences is working. Using dosdude's latest patcher and B4. After using a spare ssd to successfully check Catalina on the Mac using a clean install I decided to clone my full Mojave drive to a new SSD and installed the latest beta over the top of this. All seems working fine. Have yet to find a problem apart from changing the drive icons on the desktop. Changed them in Mojave and the icons the appeared as I wanted in Catalina. Still early days though!

 

[echophilon]

Everything else is working, even bluetooth. Dosdude1 confirmed that his cMP 5.1 stock card is working with the patch. So I think I got it wrong somehow.

LOL. I found a cheap and easy solution: I'm using a simple wifi extender with lan port. Just connected via wifi to the main router and the MAC via ethernet cable to the extender. No expensive upgrade kit needed. Thanks for all your suggestions and help!

 

[jhowarth]

Just checked my mp3.1 and trackpad preferences is working. Using dosdude's latest patcher and B4. After using a spare ssd to successfully check Catalina on the Mac using a clean install I decided to clone my full Mojave drive to a new SSD and installed the latest beta over the top of this. All seems working fine. Have yet to find a problem apart from changing the drive icons on the desktop. Changed them in Mojave and the icons the appeared as I wanted in Catalina. Still early days though!

I just did a complete clean install with DP4 patched with 1.0b11 on my MacPro 3,1 and the TrackPad panel is still producing the 'Could not load the preference pane' alert. This is with a BCM94360CD with no issues with AirDrop or Handoff. On your MacPro 3,1 which is working, can you check in the system profiler to see if IOBluetoothUSBDFU is also loading as well? Also, just to clarity, did you have the Trackpad preference panel working on a clean install of patched Catalina or only on a upgrade over Mojave?

Also, does anyone know for certain if the Trackpad preference panel was working for patched Catalina in DP3 or earlier? Or did no one think to check?

 

[gyorgy]

I have a weird issue when I am booting from an USB (16GB) patched with DP4 1.0b11 on my MacPro 5.1 (Mojave). It boots from the USB (using startup disk) and from there I am able to choose the internal SSD (APFS formatted before) as target disk to install Catalina on. At first glance it seems to install Catalina just fine till I get a prohibited sign (which means, as far I know, it can't find a valid system folder to start up from) and finally reboots in Mojave.

Do you guys have any idea what I am missing? Thanks.

 

[jhowarth]

Since you are on a MacPro 5,1 and should have native APFS support in your firmware, make sure that you select Disable APFS Boot in the Catalina patcher when creating the patched usb installer. Otherwise you will be install the APFS Boot Patch. I would also mount the s1 partition on your target drive to see the contents of the EFI partition and delete the three apfs.efi related files that are installed (two are in the EFI subdirectory if I recall correctly).

 

[TTV.STREAMERBTW]

just reinstall Cat it should override the trapped preference pane just remember if there is any 32 bit code in the trackpad it could cause Cat to KP

Thanks for the help, apparently when I got a chance to look at it I was able to boot into my Catalina install with no modifications, what had happened was I had selected my High Sierra partition to boot from by accident. I haven’t actually been able to test if I can use a Trackpad 2 with it or not but it looks like it might work.
[doublepost=1563714597][/doublepost]

Just checked my mp3.1 and trackpad preferences is working. Using dosdude's latest patcher and B4. After using a spare ssd to successfully check Catalina on the Mac using a clean install I decided to clone my full Mojave drive to a new SSD and installed the latest beta over the top of this. All seems working fine. Have yet to find a problem apart from changing the drive icons on the desktop. Changed them in Mojave and the icons the appeared as I wanted in Catalina. Still early days though!

That‘s so weird I had to replace the Trackpad.Prefpane from Catalina with my Mojave partition to get it to open the Trackpad settings glad to see it’s working natively for other people, maybe just an odd glitch. I had to do the same thing on my MacBook5,2 even though it won’t pick up the native trackpad but I still couldn’t open Trackpad settings without replacing from Mojave.

 

[jhowarth]

Thanks for the help, apparently when I got a chance to look at it I was able to boot into my Catalina install with no modifications, what had happened was I had selected my High Sierra partition to boot from by accident. I haven’t actually been able to test if I can use a Trackpad 2 with it or not but it looks like it might work.

You don't even need a Trackpad to test against. The current breakage prevents the Trackpad system preference panel from loading at all.

 

[Flacko]

I just did a complete clean install with DP4 patched with 1.0b11 on my MacPro 3,1 and the TrackPad panel is still producing the 'Could not load the preference pane' alert. This is with a BCM94360CD with no issues with AirDrop or Handoff. On your MacPro 3,1 which is working, can you check in the system profiler to see if IOBluetoothUSBDFU is also loading as well? Also, just to clarity, did you have the Trackpad preference panel working on a clean install of patched Catalina or only on a upgrade over Mojave?

Also, does anyone know for certain if the Trackpad preference panel was working for patched Catalina in DP3 or earlier? Or did no one think to check?

IOBluetoothUSBDFU is loaded. This is with the CAT install over my working copy of 14.5 (cloned). Will get back to you with the results of the clean install - just need to swap over the SSD. Unfortunately I cannot 100% remember if it was ok for the earlier betas but I normally have a look at all the system preference options after an install.

Edit: Just changed SSD for you. Clean install of B4 still has IOBluetoothUSBDFU loaded and trackpad preferences working. This is really odd that for some it is not working.

 

[jhowarth]

IOBluetoothUSBDFU is loaded. This is with the CAT install over my working copy of 14.5 (cloned). Will get back to you with the results of the clean install - just need to swap over the SSD. Unfortunately I cannot 100% remember if it was ok for the earlier betas but I normally have a look at all the system preference options after an install.

View attachment 849276

Edit: Just changed SSD for you. Clean install of B4 still has IOBluetoothUSBDFU loaded and trackpad preferences working. This is really odd that for some it is not working.

If a clean install breaks the Trackpad system preference panel, try going back to the upgraded Catalina and create a new user account to test if this breakage can be triggered by forcing the panel to regenerate its preferences.

 

[jhowarth]

Looking at this some more, it appears that 1.0b11 now leaves the original Catalina copy of IO80211Family.kext in place. So the BCM94360CD is now supported without using the Mojave copy (as far as Wifi and BT support for Airdrop/Handoff). I tried replacing the Catalina copy of IO80211Family.kext with that from Mojave and, after a forced rebuilding of the cache, it had no impact on the broken Trackpad system preference panel or the non-loading of IOBluetoothUSBDFU.

It would be nice if the post install patcher could leave an explicit text file logging exactly which kext it replaced during the run.

It would be interesting to hear from Starplayr as to whether his current catwoman patch set exhibits the same breakage in the Trackpad system preference panel.

 

[TimothyR734]

The Accuweather widget works

 

[Flacko]

Looking at this some more, it appears that 1.0b11 now leaves the original Catalina copy of IO80211Family.kext in place. So the BCM94360CD is now supported without using the Mojave copy (as far as Wifi and BT support for Airdrop/Handoff). I tried replacing the Catalina copy of IO80211Family.kext with that from Mojave and, after a forced rebuilding of the cache, it had no impact on the broken Trackpad system preference panel or the non-loading of IOBluetoothUSBDFU.

It would be nice if the post install patcher could leave an explicit text file logging exactly which kext it replaced during the run.

It would be interesting to hear from Starplayr as to whether his current catwoman patch set exhibits the same breakage in the Trackpad system preference panel.

This agrees to what I have experienced. The BCM94360CD works OOB with Catalina. In fact I have found this so since Mojave 14.4. In Cat B4 IO80211Family.kext has a create date of 12 July, Mojave 14.5 a date of 12 March. Also, the Mojave version has the AirportBrcm4331.kext in the plugins. This is missing in the Cat version, so dosdude's patcher did not replace the IO80211Family.kext as far as I can see. I never select any wifi patches post install.

Just guessing here but are all BCM94360CD cards identical? I upgraded to this card several years ago and believe it was what is called a "genuine" Apple Card from an iMac. Are the ones available today exactly the same as this or could there be some variations causing the differing results members are achieving.

As for the breakage of the Trackpad preferences pane. Just to be clear, I have not experienced this in either a clean install or an install over the top of Mojave.

 

[jhowarth]

This agrees to what I have experienced. The BCM94360CD works OOB with Catalina. In fact I have found this so since Mojave 14.4. In Cat B4 IO80211Family.kext has a create date of 12 July, Mojave 14.5 a date of 12 March. Also, the Mojave version has the AirportBrcm4331.kext in the plugins. This is missing in the Cat version, so dosdude's patcher did not replace the IO80211Family.kext as far as I can see. I never select any wifi patches post install.

Just guessing here but are all BCM94360CD cards identical? I upgraded to this card several years ago and believe it was what is called a "genuine" Apple Card from an iMac. Are the ones available today exactly the same as this or could there be some variations causing the differing results members are achieving.

As for the breakage of the Trackpad preferences pane. Just to be clear, I have not experienced this in either a clean install or an install over the top of Mojave.

In system profiler under Bluetooth and Wifi, I get exactly the same numbers reported here as being for an official Apple BCM94360CD...

https://www.osxwifi.com/product/apple-broadcom-bcm94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-0/

Bluetooth
Vendor ID: 0x05AC
Product ID: 0x828D
Manufacturer: Broadcom
Chipset: 20702B0
Firmware Version: v150 c9317

Wifi
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x111)

As I mentioned before, AirDrop and Handoff work fine.

Bluetooth Low Energy Supported: Yes
Handoff Supported: Yes
Instant Hot Spot Supported: Yes
Bluetooth Core Spec: 4.0 (0x6)

AirDrop: Supported
AirDrop Channel: 149

The only regression, aside from the Trackpad system preference panel, is the IOBluetoothUSBDFU not loading under Catalina. FYI, this card is mounted on a V3 miniPCIe adapter card...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-PCI-E...303760?hash=item362c781f10:g:t4QAAOSwofxUbzDF

 

[Flacko]

In system profiler under Bluetooth and Wifi, I get exactly the same numbers reported here as being for an official Apple BCM94360CD...

https://www.osxwifi.com/product/apple-broadcom-bcm94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-0/

Bluetooth
Vendor ID: 0x05AC
Product ID: 0x828D
Manufacturer: Broadcom
Chipset: 20702B0
Firmware Version: v150 c9317

Wifi
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x111)

As I mentioned before, AirDrop and Handoff work fine.

Bluetooth Low Energy Supported: Yes
Handoff Supported: Yes
Instant Hot Spot Supported: Yes
Bluetooth Core Spec: 4.0 (0x6)

AirDrop: Supported
AirDrop Channel: 149

The only regression, aside from the Trackpad system preference panel, is the IOBluetoothUSBDFU not loading under Catalina. FYI, this card is mounted on a V3 miniPCIe adapter card...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-PCI-E...303760?hash=item362c781f10:g:t4QAAOSwofxUbzDF

Yes this is a puzzle. I think it is worth exploring why my system loads IOBluetoothUSBDFU and yours does not. We have a similar set up. Hopefully someone may pick this up as it is beyond my skill set.

 

[jhowarth]

Yes this is a puzzle. I think it is worth exploring why my system loads IOBluetoothUSBDFU and yours does not. We have a similar set up. Hopefully someone may pick this up as it is beyond my skill set.

What do you have for the Bluetooth fields...

Chipset: 20702B0
Firmware Version: v150 c9317

If there really is a difference at play here, we should see a pattern on those values for the ones that are working.

 

[0403979]

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 4 has now been released. This is the description from the macOS Patcher releases page:

"This is the fourth beta of macOS Patcher 3.0, the first version of macOS Patcher to support macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Release notes for macOS Patcher beta 4:

• Add 10.15 beta 4 system and installer support
• Add APFS installer patch for older devices
• Add latest acceleration patches
• Remove NVRAM boot-args changes

Important notes:
This is a beta release of macOS Patcher with support for a beta release of macOS. If you discover an issue, please make sure it’s an issue with macOS Patcher 3.0 and not with macOS 10.15 Catalina. If your issue is with the macOS Patcher 3.0, then contact us on Discord or MacRumors Forums, or create an issue on the macOS Patcher GitHub page.

You have to run macOS Patcher with the -legacy-prelinkedkernel flag when creating a patched installer for the MacBook4,1.

You can read about the removal of the integrated utilities, and the future of macOS Patcher here."

macOS Patcher 3.0 beta 4 is available here.

 

[nekton1]

So beta 5 tomorrow—or another 8 days? Beta 4 sure needs a LOT of work.

 

[TimothyR734]

I have got some issues don't know if its caused by widgets or something else but I tried to unzip a download the built in one is not working so I was going to look online but Safari just bounced on the dock and quit rebooted my iMac but got the spinning circle the my mouse pointer appeared then the spinning circle had to shut it down reboot could get to my boot screen spinning circle and mouse pointer

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

3th part developers will release ONLY Metal graphic apps (when running on official MacOS 10.15) or limitations will be only related to Cat native applications? Because we can easily survive without Apple Maps and Apple Photo. Google alternatives are much better ;-)