macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[testaR]

Hi all, I tried the catalina patcher install on my mac mini. It seems that it installs some off the stuff on the main hdd of the mac mini. But, it will not continue the installation process after the reboot.. it boots right into the catalina patcher boot external hdd again and shows the recover menu?
I've attached the log, so maybe one of you guys can see what is happening... thx

Anyone? ;-)

 

[ferologics]

Use Startup Disk preferences panel to select any drive. Then use APFS Boot to check the actual Catalina partition that you want to boot.

Tried that, there are no startup disks available. Only way to go into APFS Boot is to purge NVRAM. And I have no idea how to use it to check the catalina partition.
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Anyone? ;-)

I’m experiencing the same issue ... No install after reboot, goes in to recovery.

 

[telepati]

Try temporary disable "Cut Copy Paste" menus solution (program). Its not system and I think problem caused by this

Remove this Cut Copy Paste and see if that helps. Most likely this is it.

Thank you guys, looks like TotalFinder is causing this problem.

 

[TimothyR734]

No I haven't really been able to utilise it.. but if there's a way to use it to boot in to the installer then it'd be great!

This is the tool I was trying to mention http://dosdude1.com/apps/ it is the APFS Rom Patcher tool like I said it is very risky to use as if you select the wrong boot rom it could brick your mac

 

[ferologics]

This is the tool I was trying to mention http://dosdude1.com/apps/ it is the APFS Rom Patcher tool like I said it is very risky to use as if you select the wrong boot rom it could brick your mac

Oh I understand now. Why isn’t this mentioned in the tutorial that it is mandatory to use this tool?

How do I pick the right ROM for my mac? I will look into it now.
I need a password to open the tool... I assume that I need to run it from the host computer as well.

Either way, it's not a good solution IMO, there are people who installed catalina on their mac pro 3,1 just fine.

 

[TimothyR734]

Oh I understand now. Why isn’t this mentioned in the tutorial that it is mandatory to use this tool?

How do I pick the right ROM for my mac? I will look into it now.
I need a password to open the tool... I assume that I need to run it from the host computer as well.

Either way, it's not a good solution IMO, there are people who installed catalina on their mac pro 3,1 just fine.

DM dodude on how to get APFS working with the Catalina Patcher instead of the APFS Rom Patcher

 

[Yojx21]

Hi guys ! My main familly daily driver Mac is an iMac 20" 2009 which run macOS High Sierra patched two years ago at the very beginning of High Sierra Patcher.
I was wondering, do you think it's a good idea to jump to Catalina ? Will it run smooth on this computer (SSD/6Gb of ram) ? Thanks !

 

[LuisN]

Hi guys ! My main familly daily driver Mac is an iMac 20" 2009 which run macOS High Sierra patched two years ago at the very beginning of High Sierra Patcher.
I was wondering, do you think it's a good idea to jump to Catalina ? Will it run smooth on this computer (SSD/6Gb of ram) ? Thanks !

I don't know about iMac 2009 but it runs very well in iMac 2007. Note that if you use any program that needs metal, like imovie or pixelmator they won't work, you'll need older (pre-metal) versions of those programs. I'd try to install onto an external usb ssd and try it for some time to see if it meets your requirements before replacing your high sierra installation. High Sierra is supported until late 2020 if I'm not mistaken

 

[CsYager]

I installed the newest version of Catalina using @dosdude1's patched installer, and it works beautifully. Even the menu transparency, which had issues on previous installations. Keep up the good work!

 

[TimothyR734]

Hi guys ! My main familly daily driver Mac is an iMac 20" 2009 which run macOS High Sierra patched two years ago at the very beginning of High Sierra Patcher.
I was wondering, do you think it's a good idea to jump to Catalina ? Will it run smooth on this computer (SSD/6Gb of ram) ? Thanks !

I like Catalina on my mid 2009 iMac runs well with 8 gb ram but I have an old hdd in mine but seems to run smoothly

 

[Macbookprodude]

Hello everyone ! Update on the 2012 MacBook Pro I have - took it to 2, yes 2 ASP (Apple service providers) - they concluded that no OS can be installed on it - is this a logic board issue ? Their diagnostics says that the logic board is fine, SATA cable is fine. Memory is 3rd party but fine - what else can it be ?? Have any of you had this happen where your Mac won’t install any OS, including Catalina ?? 2% is the magic number where Catalina fails. Weird !

also, when I do a D on start up I get an EFI error so the AHT can’t boot up which is a known issue when you update firmware to 229.0.0.0 on the 2012, 2011 still is working fine under Catalina and the bootrom Is 85.0.0.0 - weird the mighty 2012 can’t install any OS, while the 2011 is doing fine. Btw, the drive in the 2012 is a new SSD 850EVO by Samsung - could this be the issue ?

 

[chris1111]

If someone is trying to operate a USB WIFI with the Mediatek drivers
Support list: RT3572,RT3072,RT3070,RT3573,MT7610,MT7610,MT7610,
RT5370,RT2870,RT3071,RT2770,RT3573,RT5572,RT3573,RT3573,RT5572,RT3572
I have rebuilt an old program capable of running it from Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.16.8 to macOS Catalina 10.15. It is interesting considering that there is no support 10.15 for Mediatek drivers
The program is available here Wireless-Ralink-Panel-Utility

 

[Pinarek]

It would be awesome if you could use Catalina's latest version 10.15.3 on a single HFS + partition,
but then, with all the features of an APFS installation.

The tool from @crazybird probably goes to HFS + but there are a lot of options
(system icon on desktop cannot be changed and icons on the desktop cannot be moved)
etc. and some apps do not start.

Maybe inventors will find a solution to install it perfectly on HFS +.

 

[0134168]

Hello everyone ! Update on the 2012 MacBook Pro I have - took it to 2, yes 2 ASP (Apple service providers) - they concluded that no OS can be installed on it - is this a logic board issue ? Their diagnostics says that the logic board is fine, SATA cable is fine. Memory is 3rd party but fine - what else can it be ?? Have any of you had this happen where your Mac won’t install any OS, including Catalina ?? 2% is the magic number where Catalina fails. Weird !

also, when I do a D on start up I get an EFI error so the AHT can’t boot up which is a known issue when you update firmware to 229.0.0.0 on the 2012, 2011 still is working fine under Catalina and the bootrom Is 85.0.0.0 - weird the mighty 2012 can’t install any OS, while the 2011 is doing fine. Btw, the drive in the 2012 is a new SSD 850EVO by Samsung - could this be the issue ?

Try a different drive, SSD or mechanical . EVO´s has been reported to fail in certain machines, especially in those with SATA II, not SATA III.
If it works, you will know that all is ok, except the compatibility with the EVO.
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It would be awesome if you could use Catalina's latest version 10.15.3 on a single HFS + partition,
but then, with all the features of an APFS installation.

The tool from @crazybird probably goes to HFS + but there are a lot of options
(system icon on desktop cannot be changed and icons on the desktop cannot be moved)
etc. and some apps do not start.

Maybe inventors will find a solution to install it perfectly on HFS +.

I like APFS. A lot. What I don´t like at all is the partitons scheme from Catalina.

 

[psu7276]

I have an Early 2009 iMac and Catalina 10.5.2 has been working fine.

 

[jklas]

Can anyone please specify the issue(s) with the iMac 12,x thats gonna make it "unuseable" to use? Is there no acceleration at all or does it gonna break the device?

thanks in advance for your answer.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Hi

I start to manage High Sierra (natively), Mojave and Catalina (patched using Dosdudes beautiful work) on my iMac 2011.
Since sleeping is broken and airdrop/continuity needs additional kext I wonder if there is a smart way to add them (and Apples updates??, this covers only High Sierra) before booting in both patched OS just from the booted High Sierra or better booted from external USB device and OS.

Goal: To have the iMac factory ready without touching the OS by creating users etc..

All OS using APFS containers/Volumes on one SSD.

Thanks in advance

I am “Unix command line” experienced user and will write scripts and share them here, is possible.

My current Solution (nobody has answered, so far)

I have an external USB connected SSD (APFS) with three boot containers for Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra with an admin user ready. The admin users folder contain usually all necessary patches, the most recent dosdude patcher and the MacOS Install Image downloaded via the patcher.

1. Just boot the machine from the external device using your target OS, log in
2. If our internal HD/SSD has not been prepared start "Disk Utility App" and prepare, in most case APFS and GPD these days - this will be you <target drive>
3. Start the patcher, choose the MacOS Install Image, let it patch, choose this machine and your in step 2 prepared <target drive> to install
4. Let the patcher install, you will see the reboots
5. After finishing and before you configure the OS on your <target drive> just switch the computer off and reboot from the external USB drive again.
6. Copy all the kext, private frameworks, etc. in the folder on your <target drive> form step 2 - since this is no boot drive now, it is not mounted read only and there is no need to disable SIP, etc.
7. All the terminal commands must be issued in a way, that the files on your <target drive> are manipulated, NOT on the current boot drive (which is the external USB drive). This is easily done by doing a change directory to the root of the <target drive>. Just search the /Volumes folder where all drives are mounted after boot. I named my <target drive> "MacintoshSSD" and found the drive here /Volumes/MacintoshSSD. So do this

sudo chown -R 0:0 /Volumes/MacintoshSSD/S*/L*/E*/
sudo chmod -R 755 /Volumes/MacintoshSSD/S*/L*/E*/
sudo kextcache -i /Volumes/MacintoshSSD
sudo cp /Volumes/MacintoshSSD/Library/Apple/System/Library/PrelinkedKernels/prelinkedkernel /Volumes/MacintoshSSD/System/Library/PrelinkedKernels

The command kextcache is used from the started boot drive. The clean way may be to use it from the "target drive"

sudo /Volumes/MacintoshSSD/usr/sbin/kextcache -i /Volumes/MacintoshSSD

I can even do an upgrade in exactly this way for all machines in my family without ever logging in. The normal admin user just finds out that he has to login into iCloud, again.

Any ideas about this. Is there a way to accelerate step 3? I assume one should simply build a patched disk image an reuse this. This does not work with encrypted internal drives unless you know the password, I assume.

P.S.: If just found out how to delete a user and to setup the primary apple install screen. So one could use a "install" user to do all modifications from inside and later delete this user entirely:

mount -uw /
cd /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/
rm install.plist
rm -rf /Users/install
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -h now

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Can anyone please specify the issue(s) with the iMac 12,x thats gonna make it "unuseable" to use? Is there no acceleration at all or does it gonna break the device?

thanks in advance for your answer.

It is the non metal graphics adapter which makes it really unusable. Window redraw is sluggish and moving things on the desktop creates traces on the screen which vanish only after screen redraw. You will not try this, believe me. It does not break the device, you will be able to reinstall High Sierra.

 

[dmkpoznan]

Catalina 10.15.2 @ Early 2009 iMac 24". Everything is working fine, expect external monitor. I tried adding external monitor using DisplayPort and using external USB Graphics. Both of them are working fine on login screen (I see wallpaper, cursor is moving etc.), but after trying to login (or plugging it in when user is logged in) WindowServer crashes, as below:

Process:               WindowServer [639]
Path:                  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Versions/A/Resources/WindowServer
Identifier:            WindowServer
Version:               600.00 (450.1)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        launchd [1]
Responsible:           WindowServer [639]
User ID:               88

Date/Time:             2020-01-08 18:42:48.536 +0100
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.15.2 (19C57)
Report Version:        12
Anonymous UUID:        32E329D6-BF68-4B8B-8122-9BD8965DDDD4


Time Awake Since Boot: 260 seconds

System Integrity Protection: disabled

Crashed Thread:        4  Dispatch queue: DisplayServicesSerializationQueue

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
Assertion failed: (!CGSRunningInServer()), function SLSGetOnlineDisplayList, file /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/SkyLight/SkyLight-340.54/SkyLight/Services/Display/CGSDisplay.cc, line 983.
 
StartTime:2020-01-08 18:41:44
GPU:
MetalDevice for accelerator(0x38a3): 0x0 (MTLDevice: 0x0)
IOService:/AppleACPIPlatformExpert/PCI0@0/AppleACPIPCI/IXVE@10/IOPP/IGPU@0/NVDA,Display-A@0/NVDATesla

(...)

Any idea why?

 

[Selsk]

Hi

I start to manage High Sierra (natively), Mojave and Catalina (patched using Dosdudes beautiful work) on my iMac 2011.
Since sleeping is broken and airdrop/continuity needs additional kext I wonder if there is a smart way to add them - and Apples updates” before booting in both patched OS just from the booted High Sierra or better booted from external USB device and OS.

Goal: To have the iMac factory ready without touching the OS by creating users etc..

All OS using APFS containers/Volumes on one SSD.

Thanks in advance

I am “Unix command line” experienced user and will write scripts and share them here, is possible.

Thinking about installing Catalina on my 2011 iMac too! I'll be watching this thread for any updates from you. Airdrop has not been working for me at all in High Sierra and I miss it dearly in my office.

 

[finch13]

Hi all, and @dosdude1

Firstly thanks for your work on the macOS catalina patcher - I've successfully used it on a 2010 macbook pro. I have a problem with another computer: I'm trying to get it working on a 2008 Mac Pro 3,1.

I can install from USB, it goes through the whole process (the black screen install), then after reboot to the grey progress bar only loads to ~80/90% and stalls out. I can't see anything via verbose mode, when the grey screen is loading. I even tried a fresh install to a blank drive (reformatted) - nothing working: do you have any tips for me to investigate the problem? I appreciate any input.

Spec wise I have: GTX 780 and the original graphics card in there too so I can see a boot screen, 24GB of Ram, upgrade to handoff capable Wifi/Bluetooth hardware, a bunch of hard drives in there (including one IDE drive I had laying around and SSD for boot) and a BluRay drive. Also a USB3 PCIe card.

I should mention that I tried with Mojave as well - same problem. Previously I had High Sierra Working (I think from @dosdude1 software too, but I can't remember how I did it. Any clues???
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Have not done this for Catalina but this works for Mojave so give it a try. First find the name of your efi partition. In terminal use:

sudo diskutil list

You will be asked for your password then get a full list of all the drives. Find the efi one, for example mine is disk0s1 - yours may be different. Then mount this disk so it appears on your desktop. In terminal use :

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

You may need to replace my example disk name with yours. After a moment the efi drive should appear on your desktop. You can then use finder to delete the following: apfs.efi, /BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and startup.nsh.

I have tried this in Catalina and it does bring up the disk onto the desktop. However, I have no files to delete (using APFS ROM) so have not actually deleted anything to see if it works fully. Catalina's system drive is now read only so I do not know if this will effect mounted efi drive. If you find that you are not allowed to delete the files inside the efi drive then try this command first to make the system drive read/write (SIP disabled):

sudo mount -uw /

@Flacko , for your mac pro 3,1: did you have to mess with EFI fixes, etc? and the APFS ROM Patcher? I have a lot of experience making hackintoshes and boot EFI, but I never had to mess with it on a real mac: I posted earlier that Catalina and Mojave don't work post install: I get through the black install screen, then on the grey loading bar after reboot, it's stuck at ~90%.

I'm not too clear on what exactly to do, and my cursory checks don't confirm my issue is related to EFI boot, etc. Thanks for any input.

 

[BigSmileMan]

Have a question to @dosdude1 or someone else who can explain this strange thing...
Today launched SilentKnight to check for updates of core modules like MRT, etc... like on screenshot included.
After program notified me that I have updates available, just in same time native system updater notified me about available updates too! And I successfully install update by system updater. So its working but in some strange way or what? Or system updater can update all except system? Please explain some who can, thanks!

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Thinking about installing Catalina on my 2011 iMac too! I'll be watching this thread for any updates from you. Airdrop has not been working for me at all in High Sierra and I miss it dearly in my office.

There are two blocks on your road to Catalina with AirDrop etc, first the bluetooth device

iMac Mid 2011 Bluetooth 4.0 internal upgrade

Unlock with Watch will not work with the 802.11n version, because the required capability (time of flight) introduced with 802.11ac devices. Thats why unlock with Watch requires a Mac from 2013. I don't know which any other handoff/continuity things that are requires the newer standard.

forums.macrumors.com

and second the metal compatible graphics adapter

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

iMac 2009 to 2011 MXM3 graphics card upgrade (Lastest update 10/13/2023 - this is the official documentation page - you found it finally!) This is the single and only documentation post. During the last years we constantly updated this post to reflect the lastet development of vBIOS and OCLP...

forums.macrumors.com

The second block I have removed successfully, the first is still ahead ... solution is flying in these days.

All software work has been done in the past, following me is following a follower

 

[Macbookprodude]

Hello, can bad memory cause Catalina or any other OS to not install ?

 

[Dilli]

Hello, can bad memory cause Catalina or any other OS to not install ?

Yes it is possible.