Setting a boot argument in a plist is not the same as setting it in NVRAM. It'll persist across NVRAM resets. I think @dosdude1's patcher does this for you.
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macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs
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From the very first beta of macOS Catalina the software update in system preferences has been broken I know Dosdude1 has been trying to find a fix for it but as of now the best way is to create a usb patcher for the updates
I built my patcher in High Sierra. I did another fresh install of Catalina and all is fine. I however still do not have an updat patches app. Is this anything to do with the install patcher built in High Siera?
Can we now build a patcher in Catalina?
Can we now build a patcher in Catalina?
Reporting my experience with 1.1.6 installer:
Used SuperDuper to clone my Mojave 10.4.6 supplemental 3 into secondary partition, booted from that partition to check (everything went ok). Created Catalina installer with Dosdude1 patcher, upgraded Mojave to Catalina, booted ok into system but after first reboot I couldn't go into OS, crashed on boot with kernel panics. During verbose boot I saw some issues with APFS, but not sure if that's the problem. My MacBook Pro 17 8,3 (late 2011) dGPU is broken, so I have to remove AMDRadeonX300.kext from /System/Library/Preferences and make a login hook with
then start daemon with
Also have to disable dGPU in nvram with
Anyone with broken dGPU (AMD Radeon 6770) had success with Catalina?
------------- EDIT WITH NEW RESULTS ----------------
Tried again tonight with fresh installation: erased Catalina partition, SuperDuped my Mojave into another partition, made new installation disk with Dosdude1 patcher, installed Catalina, first boot OK, panic after restart.
Restarted into Catalina patched install USB, ran Post install patches and Panic again. Restarted into Mojave to move AMDRadeonX3000.kext from Catalina's /System/Library/Extensions. Tried to go back to Catalina and Panic.
WORKING SOLUTION:
After removing AMDRadeonX3000.kext from /System/Library/Extensions, I booted into Dosdude1 Catalina Installation USB and ran Post Install Patches UNCHECKING Legacy Video Card Patch. After that I could boot normally into Catalina. Everything seems to be working fine: brightness control, sleep, played some hearthstone to check intel GPU and apparently ran better than Mojave (used better resolution without slowness). I really happy with the outcome so far!
Will keep my Mojave installation until I feel safe with Catalina cause this is my work device. The only thing I miss is my Photoshop extensions. I use 2 plugins for my web dev environment: Dev Rocket and CSS Hat, but when I try to load any of those they instantly close. CPU usage seems to be a little higher but I guess it will get better after indexing and optimizing.
Used SuperDuper to clone my Mojave 10.4.6 supplemental 3 into secondary partition, booted from that partition to check (everything went ok). Created Catalina installer with Dosdude1 patcher, upgraded Mojave to Catalina, booted ok into system but after first reboot I couldn't go into OS, crashed on boot with kernel panics. During verbose boot I saw some issues with APFS, but not sure if that's the problem. My MacBook Pro 17 8,3 (late 2011) dGPU is broken, so I have to remove AMDRadeonX300.kext from /System/Library/Preferences and make a login hook with
Code:
#!/bin/bash
kextload /System/Library/Extensions-off/AMDRadeonX3000.kext
exit 0then start daemon with
Code:
sudo chmod a+x /Library/LoginHook/LoadX3000.sh
sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/LoginHook/LoadX3000.shAlso have to disable dGPU in nvram with
Code:
nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00Anyone with broken dGPU (AMD Radeon 6770) had success with Catalina?
------------- EDIT WITH NEW RESULTS ----------------
Tried again tonight with fresh installation: erased Catalina partition, SuperDuped my Mojave into another partition, made new installation disk with Dosdude1 patcher, installed Catalina, first boot OK, panic after restart.
Restarted into Catalina patched install USB, ran Post install patches and Panic again. Restarted into Mojave to move AMDRadeonX3000.kext from Catalina's /System/Library/Extensions. Tried to go back to Catalina and Panic.
WORKING SOLUTION:
After removing AMDRadeonX3000.kext from /System/Library/Extensions, I booted into Dosdude1 Catalina Installation USB and ran Post Install Patches UNCHECKING Legacy Video Card Patch. After that I could boot normally into Catalina. Everything seems to be working fine: brightness control, sleep, played some hearthstone to check intel GPU and apparently ran better than Mojave (used better resolution without slowness). I really happy with the outcome so far!
Will keep my Mojave installation until I feel safe with Catalina cause this is my work device. The only thing I miss is my Photoshop extensions. I use 2 plugins for my web dev environment: Dev Rocket and CSS Hat, but when I try to load any of those they instantly close. CPU usage seems to be a little higher but I guess it will get better after indexing and optimizing.
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@dosdude1 and everyone that might have a helping hand.
Tried out the Catalina Patcher/Installer.
I have a MBP mid 2010 (shows up in supported list). Installed a brand new Samsung EVO860 SSD then ran to program.
It booted from the USB stick, but now I am in an eternal boot loop (see youtube video - 1min).
I've tried the macOS Post Install, PRAM reset, SMC reset.... nothing working.
Firmware I believe was 97.0.0.0 (can't boot to verify now)
Tried out the Catalina Patcher/Installer.
I have a MBP mid 2010 (shows up in supported list). Installed a brand new Samsung EVO860 SSD then ran to program.
It booted from the USB stick, but now I am in an eternal boot loop (see youtube video - 1min).
I've tried the macOS Post Install, PRAM reset, SMC reset.... nothing working.
Firmware I believe was 97.0.0.0 (can't boot to verify now)
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Location services do not seem to work. What happened? It was really good in the GM version.
I am also experiencing this on my iMac12,2 with Kepler GPU. Patcher works just fine on my 2011 MBP, so it's not the copy of the OS. @Munstergreen if you go into Disk Utility can you mount any APFS volumes? I also was unable to do this.
As an update - I was unable to create this disk using my iMac 8,1 running a Catalina beta. I borrowed a friend's MacBook Pro running Mojave and the disk was prepared successfully. I have now installed Catalina on my iMac and all is working perfectly. Thank you again for all of your hard work!
I got this. The usual advice is to check the date and time are correct on the target machine, it didn't solve my problem despite trying several usb disks and an SSD, so in the end I installed onto the MacPros SSD using my supported MacBook and then stuck the ssd in the MacPro. Providing the nocompatcheck flag is set in nvram I think its fine. Im yet to make Apple Watch unlock work even with my upgraded BT/Airport card. but everything else seems fine.
Didn't see the how-to video....that explained everything. Thanks dosdude1!
Of my four machines, I've upgraded my Mac Mini 4,1 and the Macbook 5,1. I'll deal with the iMac 8,1 next and lastly my Mac Pro 3,1, which is my daily workflow machine. I was a little surprised as to not needing to do a post-install function which goes to show how far all of this has gone with the efforts of dosdude1 and everyone here....it's about as turnkey as it gets.
I'm just posting my experience with the 1.1.6 patcher
Machine Specs:
MacBookPro8,1
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)
2.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
Mercury Electra 6G 1TB SSD with multiple partitions installed where the DVD was
Spinning HD drive in the regular bay
I went from Beta 8 or 9 to the Release
Downloaded the patcher yesterday
Used it to download Catalina
Used it to create a bootable SDXC card on a 16GB SanDisk SDSU16G
Booted up off of it using the option key on boot up and I got an issue:
"Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up."
I had that same issue when trying to install the last beta... hmm...
well...
rebooted back to the beta
rebooted back to the card
and it auto installed onto an empty partition. Weird, but did that, and set it up and it worked.
Then, rebooted back to the card and did the reinstall over the old beta. All seems to work now.
Hoping I'm on the release:
System Version: macOS 10.15 (19A583)
Hope that helps someone.
Thanks dosdude and all.
Machine Specs:
MacBookPro8,1
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)
2.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5
16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
Mercury Electra 6G 1TB SSD with multiple partitions installed where the DVD was
Spinning HD drive in the regular bay
I went from Beta 8 or 9 to the Release
Downloaded the patcher yesterday
Used it to download Catalina
Used it to create a bootable SDXC card on a 16GB SanDisk SDSU16G
Booted up off of it using the option key on boot up and I got an issue:
"Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up."
I had that same issue when trying to install the last beta... hmm...
well...
rebooted back to the beta
rebooted back to the card
and it auto installed onto an empty partition. Weird, but did that, and set it up and it worked.
Then, rebooted back to the card and did the reinstall over the old beta. All seems to work now.
Hoping I'm on the release:
System Version: macOS 10.15 (19A583)
Hope that helps someone.
Thanks dosdude and all.
I am not an expert, but found I couldn't make the Patcher work if I created the patcher on an unsupported Mac. When I created it on a supported Mac I was able to run the patcher from the unsupported mac then install to this machine works every time.
What can I say?
Biggest Kudos to dosdude1 !!! Donation sent! and well deserved
MacBook Pro 17 inch Mid 2009 5,2 17" already running Mojave courtesy of the previous version.
Please note that the Finder "weird greys" do appear if you install Catalina from scratch by my upgrade from 10.14.6 to 10.15 does keep the correct whites perfect, proof below.
First I upgraded the APFS to native capable booting machine :
*selected the 2nd option based on my chip
Had to look for it but it's there... if you are growing old you'll find issues reading the code lol:
The APFS patcher took 10 very tense minutes to upgrade the firmware, but it did the job!!!
Now, booting without the need of the APFS patch and Finder's colours correct:
Quick tip, after you start the computer holding the Option for the list of drives and then release, if you click and hold "ctrl" the icon will change and it will remember to boot from that drive, used that to skip the APFS patcher / helper at all.
Thanks!
PS EDIT 2023: To undo this Firmware update to enable FileVault in BigSur with OCLP follow the steps:
Biggest Kudos to dosdude1 !!! Donation sent! and well deserved
MacBook Pro 17 inch Mid 2009 5,2 17" already running Mojave courtesy of the previous version.
Please note that the Finder "weird greys" do appear if you install Catalina from scratch by my upgrade from 10.14.6 to 10.15 does keep the correct whites perfect, proof below.
First I upgraded the APFS to native capable booting machine :
*selected the 2nd option based on my chip
Had to look for it but it's there... if you are growing old you'll find issues reading the code lol:
The APFS patcher took 10 very tense minutes to upgrade the firmware, but it did the job!!!
Now, booting without the need of the APFS patch and Finder's colours correct:
Quick tip, after you start the computer holding the Option for the list of drives and then release, if you click and hold "ctrl" the icon will change and it will remember to boot from that drive, used that to skip the APFS patcher / helper at all.
Thanks!
PS EDIT 2023: To undo this Firmware update to enable FileVault in BigSur with OCLP follow the steps:
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Perhaps spoke too soon... it works all ok but FileVault doesn’t start. Is FileVault supported under Catalina APFS? . I had this working ok with Mojave and HFS without problem
[UPDATE]
Testing with patcher 1.1.7 seems it has not resolved the issue
[UPDATE]
Testing with patcher 1.1.7 seems it has not resolved the issue
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I'm having the exact same problem. I have a MP 5.1 with a RX 580 GPU currently running Mojave. I've re-downloaded Catalina several times using DosDude's patcher v1.16 to my hard drive then erasing and using a USB stick for the install. I've watched the video about 10 times but don't see what I'm missing. I keep getting the same error after booting to the USB stick then selecting "reinstall macOS" from the macOS Utilities menu.
Any ideas?
Attachments
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try using the install to this Machine method if you having issues with the USB patcher
curious how you launched the firmware updater?
I ran then, it installed a pkg, but I never saw my firmware version increment.
I'm used to my Mac Pro where I hold the power button in for 10-15sec after power down for a long set of beeps and I know its upgrading the firmware.
I'm a little lost on the MBP procedure to upgrade the firmware.
Thank you for providing an answer.
I don't understand the suggestion about clearing web browser history. Which web browser? I have several. All of them? Clearing history? Cache? The Catalina Installer download is done with Patcher, not a browser. I have the right version of Patcher. Browser cache is disabled in the browser I used to download patcher. What is the connection to browser on this?
Power off the computer. Wait 15 secs.
Then press and hold the power button until the computer comes up. It might take 15 seconds pressing.
Thanks, I will give this a try but I have a few concerns before I select "install to this machine." The error message seems to imply the downloaded application file has the problem. If this is true, won't it still be the same file only loaded from my hard disk, rather than the USB stick? Before I start, will it give me the option to choose what internal drive it will be installed on?
I don't know how these things work but I tied downloading Catalina final both with patcher version 1.1.5 and 1.1.6 got the same one you did then I cleared my browser history and cleared my caches and tried again and it downloaded 15.0.32
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when you install to this machine it patches as it goes there has been any issues with people using the patcher since Cat dev beta 8 I tried all the way up to the Catalina final and had no issues I even forgot to install the post install patches and still got to my desktop without them installed by the usb patcher
Had same issue until I put usb Installer in one of the bays and it worked fine...
So when you select "install to this machine," after you select "start" and it asks for your password, Will it give the option to select a drive to patch or will it immediately start patching your current boot drive? I don't want to overwrite or modify my current boot drive...
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Is your ssd/hdd your trying to Install Catalina on external