macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

Larsvonhier · Jan 27, 2020

Got my 17" MBP 4,1 to 10.15.3 beta 3 also, but only after some minor struggles. Might be time for some @dosdude1 worthy update for the patcher for the next big version for 10.15.3 when it´s finally out for "the rest of us":

I updated from 10.15.3 beta 2 that was still easily patchable in all respects, also graphics acceleration to the beta 3 now (did it on HD3000 graphics machine before, no hassle there. But not so on 8800GT Nvidia!)

After installation and doing the post-install patches for the machine, I could not boot to the login window. Verbose output seemed to suggest some video driver crashes, so I removed the NVDA* kexts and that let me boot to Finder, but without accel, of course. Then tried to patch again (via patchupdater and also boot stick with post-inst. patches). No avail - found that only two of the four NVDA kexts had been re-copied by the patcher(s), so still no accel. Then I re-installed the missing kexts from old patched 10.15.3b2 system (plus kernel-cache rebuild) and did the trick, so this MBP 4,1 is again at the macOS place-2-be ;-)

(Side note: CCFL control does work with 3rd party tools like brightness slider once acceleration is up and running, I did not invest time to retry the 10.14.2 patch by dosdude1 as it failed since a couple of rounds when used with external monitor - login (window services) crashing instead making it to the Finder. Will try to find remedy when 10.15.3 is finally out and things settle a bit).

Bildschirmfoto 2020-01-27 um 20.17.33.jpg

Shivakumar Govindarajapur · Jan 27, 2020

I have a MBP 2009 with dual disks. I have installed Catalina on the second disk and it was working fine when I select the "EFI Boot" option on the Boot Manager screen. I have Ubuntu on this machine and its boot loader is in the ESP of the second disk (EFI/BOOT directory). The Catalina installer also placed "startup.nsh" in the EFI/BOOT directory and also "apfs.efi" one level higher on the second disk.

When I choose the EFI Boot option of the second disk, the EFI shell was started and the startup.nsh loaded the apfs.sys and loaded the boot.efi from the Catalina Partition based on targetUUID that was specified in the "startup.nsh". But yesterday, I see that the EFI shell is not starting and Catalina is not booting.

I tried to use rEFIt and used its EFI Shell, and was able to get EFI shell from rEFIt to startup and run the "startup.nsh", but there were some errors in the "map" command (like -u option not supported) and the script was not able to load the "boot.efi" from the Catalina partition.

I am really curious as to how the EFI Shell worked in the first place, does the Catalina installer load any other EFI programs ? I only saw that apfs.efi and the startup.nsh being added to the ESP. Any help of why the shell is not starting would help a great deal. Thanks in advance

TimothyR734 · Jan 27, 2020

For those who have a mid 2009 macbook 5,2 I can confirm this patch works in mac

Screen Shot 2020-01-27 at 7.32.18 PM.png

OS Catalina it goes in /System/Library/PreferencePanes but first you unzip and right click to rename it and edit out theMB52 part then delete the one in your /System/Library/PreferencePanes and replace it with the new one

joevt · Jan 27, 2020

Shivakumar Govindarajapur said:
I have a MBP 2009 with dual disks. I have installed Catalina on the second disk and it was working fine when I select the "EFI Boot" option on the Boot Manager screen. I have Ubuntu on this machine and its boot loader is in the ESP of the second disk (EFI/BOOT directory). The Catalina installer also placed "startup.nsh" in the EFI/BOOT directory and also "apfs.efi" one level higher on the second disk.

When I choose the EFI Boot option of the second disk, the EFI shell was started and the startup.nsh loaded the apfs.sys and loaded the boot.efi from the Catalina Partition based on targetUUID that was specified in the "startup.nsh". But yesterday, I see that the EFI shell is not starting and Catalina is not booting.

I tried to use rEFIt and used its EFI Shell, and was able to get EFI shell from rEFIt to startup and run the "startup.nsh", but there were some errors in the "map" command (like -u option not supported) and the script was not able to load the "boot.efi" from the Catalina partition.

I am really curious as to how the EFI Shell worked in the first place, does the Catalina installer load any other EFI programs ? I only saw that apfs.efi and the startup.nsh being added to the ESP. Any help of why the shell is not starting would help a great deal. Thanks in advance

The patched Catalina Installer places the EFI Shell in the EFI partition at /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Boot/BootX64.efi or something like that.

If it's still installed, then you should be able to hold option key at boot to get into the Startup Manager and select "EFI Boot".

If you want it to boot automatically, then you need to bless the BootX64.efi program. You could use the post installer in the Patched Catalina Installer to reinstall it. But before trying that, you should try the bless command (after you mount the EFI partition and confirm the BOOTX64.efi file exists and the apfs.efi and startup.nsh files exist):
[/code]
bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot --file /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi --shortform
[/code]

Instead of using the EFI partition, I have a separate HFS+ partition with the necessary files required to boot APFS:

Code:

joevt@Joes-Mac-Pro ~ % sudo find /Volumes/Catalina\ Boot -type f -not \( -path '*.fseventsd*' -or  -path '*.Trashes*' -or -path '*TemporaryItems*' -or -name '.DS_Store' \)
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/.disk_label
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/.disk_label_2x
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/apfs.efi
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/Catalina_Boot.worksheet
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/ShellX64.efi
/Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/startup.nsh

This way I can change the label and icon shown in the Startup Manager.

There's probably a file structure that could be used to make this boot partition show up in the Startup Disk preferences panel...

All my OS partitions have an icon in the Finder, but for some reason, only the Catalina one is showing in the Startup Manager. Maybe they don't have the correct format.

Dilli · Jan 27, 2020

jackluke said:
The OTA installing phase is made by 3-4 automatic steps , I'd say the real OTA installing is the third (attached).

However you should check this:

- If you have a pre-APFS machine (2009 or earlier), you can install the Catalina OTA update only on the internal disks
- If you have an APFS machine you can install the Catalina OTA both on internal and external (usb) disks

However in both cases if you are using or updating the internal SATA or PCI-express disk it should work, retry these steps:

- launch the swupatch and then open the Software Update prefpane ;
- from Software Update click "Update Now" button and when the system asks for "Download, Install and Restart" you pick "Not Now" button ;
- so the OTA update packages will start to download only (without auto-install or restart) ;
- while downloading launch the catalinaswufix3 ;
- after OTA download completes, close and re-open the Software Update prefpane, and click the "Update Now" button, the system should invites you to restart to update (to install the OTA)

Now should follow 2 phases with the apple logo and loading bar, then it should continue as the picture I attached, then there is the 4th phase where you have to re-apply the post-install patches for your machine.

After the .3 beta 3 OTA is completed, installed and post-patched, you can notice from the other picture I attached (OTA updated 19D75a) that relaunching the catalinaswufix3 won't patch any .dist since the Updates folder after OTA update is cleared from apple.

Hello @jackluke . Tks for the guide. Since I am on Catalina 10.15.2 and .3 version is not officially out, can above steps be tried on 10.15.2 or do we have to wait for official version. Since currently swupdate does not work as it is made like this by @dosdude1 patch.

jackluke · Jan 28, 2020

Dilli said:
Hello @jackluke . Tks for the guide. Since I am on Catalina 10.15.2 and .3 version is not officially out, can above steps be tried on 10.15.2 or do we have to wait for official version. Since currently swupdate does not work as it is made like this by @dosdude1 patch.

Yes, you can jump from 10.15.2 to 10.15.3 beta 3 directly, but at this point since the 10.15.3 public release is close, maybe better to wait for final release.

The swupatch.sh that you need to use is the one that contains the com.apple.softwareupdated.plist and SUVMMFaker.dylib compiled for Sierra (or HighSierra), the Mojave ones won't work for Catalina.
[automerge]1580204266[/automerge]

joevt said:
The patched Catalina Installer places the EFI Shell in the EFI partition at /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Boot/BootX64.efi or something like that.

If it's still installed, then you should be able to hold option key at boot to get into the Startup Manager and select "EFI Boot".

If you want it to boot automatically, then you need to bless the BootX64.efi program. You could use the post installer in the Patched Catalina Installer to reinstall it. But before trying that, you should try the bless command (after you mount the EFI partition and confirm the BOOTX64.efi file exists and the apfs.efi and startup.nsh files exist):
[/code]
bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot --file /Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi --shortform
[/code]

Instead of using the EFI partition, I have a separate HFS+ partition with the necessary files required to boot APFS:

Code:

joevt@Joes-Mac-Pro ~ % sudo find /Volumes/Catalina\ Boot -type f -not $ -path '*.fseventsd*' -or -path '*.Trashes*' -or -path '*TemporaryItems*' -or -name '.DS_Store' $ /Volumes/Catalina Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/.disk_label /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/.disk_label_2x /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/apfs.efi /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/Catalina_Boot.worksheet /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/ShellX64.efi /Volumes/Catalina Boot/macOSCatalinaPatcher/startup.nsh

This way I can change the label and icon shown in the Startup Manager.
View attachment 890976

There's probably a file structure that could be used to make this boot partition show up in the Startup Disk preferences panel...

All my OS partitions have an icon in the Finder, but for some reason, only the Catalina one is showing in the Startup Manager. Maybe they don't have the correct format.

Only the Catalina VolumeIcons show in the startup manager because apple for the first time only starting from Catalina have unlocked their Catalina .VolumeIcons.icns at EFI level, I have discovered that if you reuse and (picture) edit the VolumeIcons.icns taken from Catalina you can settle them as any bootloader icon, the icns contain 10 pictures, the 6th is one that apple uses for their EFI bootloader, here is a working experiment I did:

Catalina VolumeIcons for apple startup manager
Mojave VolumeIcons for apple startup manager

mwakious · Jan 28, 2020

TimothyR734 said:
For those who have a mid 2009 macbook 5,2 I can confirm this patch works in macView attachment 890967OS Catalina it goes in /System/Library/PreferencePanes but first you unzip and right click to rename it and edit out theMB52 part then delete the one in your /System/Library/PreferencePanes and replace it with the new one

Hi thanks for this file!
only one thing,what do you mean “rename it and edit out theMB52”? Thank

edit: lool i found out what it was....
now other problem, how you install prefpane? it wont let me..

TimothyR734 · Jan 28, 2020

mwakious said:
Hi thanks for this file!
only one thing,what do you mean “rename it and edit out theMB52”? Thank

edit: lool i found out what it was....
now other problem, how you install prefpane? it wont let me..

[automerge]1580230128[/automerge]
unzip this and put this in your /Library/LaunchDaemons folder reboot the try replacing the preferencepane for the trackpad

mwakious · Jan 28, 2020

TimothyR734 said:
[automerge]1580230128[/automerge]
unzip this and put this in your /Library/LaunchDaemons folder reboot the try replacing the preferencepane for the trackpad

finally my mb5,2 has a trackpad!!
Does anyone have the file for the video playback glitch(the one from previous mac os.
Ty

joevt · Jan 28, 2020

jackluke said:
Only the Catalina VolumeIcons show in the startup manager because apple for the first time only starting from Catalina have unlocked their Catalina .VolumeIcons.icns at EFI level, I have discovered that if you reuse and (picture) edit the VolumeIcons.icns taken from Catalina you can settle them as any bootloader icon, the icns contain 10 pictures, the 6th is one that apple uses for their EFI bootloader, here is a working experiment I did:

Catalina VolumeIcons for apple startup manager
Mojave VolumeIcons for apple startup manager

I have a MacPro3,1. The EFI has not changed in forever...

The 6th icon is of type it32 (shown in the "More Info" tab in the Preview.app "Inspector" window). It has a corresponding mask type of t8mk as described at

Apple Icon Image format - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it32 doesn't exist in my other icons.

Code:

dumpicns () {
    local theicon="$1"
    local magic="$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 count=4 2> /dev/null)"
    local filelen=$((0x$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=4 count=4 2> /dev/null | xxd -p)))
    #echo "Header:"
    #echo "  Magic:$magic Length:$filelen"
    #echo "Data:"
    local pos=8
    while (( $pos < $filelen )); do
        local datatype="$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=$pos count=4 2> /dev/null)"
        local datalen=$((0x$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=$((pos+4)) count=4 2> /dev/null | xxd -p)))
        #echo -n "  Type:"
        echo -n "$datatype"
        #echo -n " Length:$datalen"
        echo
        ((pos+=datalen))
    done
}

dumpicns /Volumes/Mojave6\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns | sort > /tmp/Mojoveicns.txt
dumpicns /Volumes/Catalina\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns | sort > /tmp/Catalinaicns.txt
diff /tmp/Mojoveicns.txt /tmp/Catalinaicns.txt  

2d1
< ic07
11a11
> it32
13a14
> t8mk

Icon Composer.app doesn't exist anymore.
iconutil doesn't seem to create itl32 type icons. I haven't tested the result yet. There are other tools I haven't tried.

Code:

iconutil -c iconset -o MojaveIcons.iconset /Volumes/Mojave6\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns
iconutil -c icns -o MojaveIcons.icns MojaveIcons.iconset
dumpicns MojaveIcons.icns | sort # | sort > MojaveIcons.list

ic04
ic05
ic07
ic08
ic09
ic10
ic11
ic12
ic13
ic14
info

jackluke · Jan 28, 2020

joevt said:
I have a MacPro3,1. The EFI has not changed in forever...

The 6th icon is of type it32 (shown in the "More Info" tab in the Preview.app "Inspector" window). It has a corresponding mask type of t8mk as described at

Apple Icon Image format - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it32 doesn't exist in my other icons.

Code:

dumpicns () { local theicon="$1" local magic="$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 count=4 2> /dev/null)" local filelen=$((0x$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=4 count=4 2> /dev/null | xxd -p))) #echo "Header:" #echo " Magic:$magic Length:$filelen" #echo "Data:" local pos=8 while (( $pos < $filelen )); do local datatype="$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=$pos count=4 2> /dev/null)" local datalen=$((0x$(dd "if=$theicon" bs=1 skip=$((pos+4)) count=4 2> /dev/null | xxd -p))) #echo -n " Type:" echo -n "$datatype" #echo -n " Length:$datalen" echo ((pos+=datalen)) done } dumpicns /Volumes/Mojave6\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns | sort > /tmp/Mojoveicns.txt dumpicns /Volumes/Catalina\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns | sort > /tmp/Catalinaicns.txt diff /tmp/Mojoveicns.txt /tmp/Catalinaicns.txt 2d1 < ic07 11a11 > it32 13a14 > t8mk

Icon Composer.app doesn't exist anymore.
iconutil doesn't seem to create itl32 type icons. I haven't tested the result yet. There are other tools I haven't tried.

Code:

iconutil -c iconset -o MojaveIcons.iconset /Volumes/Mojave6\ Boot/.VolumeIcon.icns iconutil -c icns -o MojaveIcons.icns MojaveIcons.iconset dumpicns MojaveIcons.icns | sort # | sort > MojaveIcons.list ic04 ic05 ic07 ic08 ic09 ic10 ic11 ic12 ic13 ic14 info

I didn't meant that EFI is changed, I only meant at "EFI level" as the apple bootloader startup manager (and this change also reflects/overrides to Refind bootloader icons).

Infact, it32 icon (and some others) are new "Catalina" encoded icons, that's why you need to use the stock Catalina icns that I attached in previous post, that is contained also in the stock "createinstallmedia" Catalina Installer.app , avoid any third-party app to edit apple icns files that won't work in this scope, just use the best Image Editor : Preview.app (Catalina or Mojave version)

You don't need to extract or dump the entire iconset, just edit the 6th icon graphically/visually from the Preview.app , save and then set it as root .VolumeIcons.icns . At reboot in the apple startup manager you'll notice your custom icon.

macsba · Jan 28, 2020

I think soon dosdude1 will be coming out with an updated Catalina patcher since macOS Catalina 10.15.3 update has been released.

mwakious · Jan 28, 2020

I forgot before to say that i installed the patch that arrived from patch installer but didn’t change anything, manually patch worked. Tryed it on 2 mb5,2

TimothyR734 · Jan 28, 2020

mwakious said:
finally my mb5,2 has a trackpad!!
Does anyone have the file for the video playback glitch(the one from previous mac os.
Ty

replace this from macOS Mojave in System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleGVA.framework/Versions/A folder this seem to work for me

dosdude1 · Jan 28, 2020

macsba said:
I think soon dosdude1 will be coming out with an updated Catalina patcher since macOS Catalina 10.15.3 update has been released.

I will indeed. Should have it done and tested in a few hours.

stevecc · Jan 28, 2020

dosdude1 said:
I will indeed. Should have it done and tested in a few hours.

Tks Dosdude
[automerge]1580239897[/automerge]

[automerge]1580240004[/automerge]
Looking forward to trying that new code to increase speed on my 24' 2008 imac..ssd..3.06 ghz

eVasilis · Jan 28, 2020

dosdude1 said:
I will indeed. Should have it done and tested in a few hours.

You're the man! Thanks! Just a question, the 1.3.0 version of the patcher downloads 10.15.3. Should I wait for the newer one (patcher) before I install it?

Cheers!

jackluke · Jan 28, 2020

TimothyR734 said:
replace this from macOS Mojave in System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleGVA.framework/Versions/A folder this seem to work for me

AppleGVA should be from HighSierra (that increased the Mojave fps), in any case I guess can't work on Catalina without the extra video acceleration VDA encoder/decoder.

honestone33 · Jan 28, 2020

dosdude1 said:
I will indeed. Should have it done and tested in a few hours.

Cool! Thanks for your support! I want to do a clean, fresh installation of OS 10.15.3 on both of my Macs, and your excellent utility will allow me to do that (contrary to the anal ways of Apple!).

BuffyzDead · Jan 28, 2020

stevecc said:
Tks Dosdude
[automerge]1580239897[/automerge]

[automerge]1580240004[/automerge]
Looking forward to trying that new code to increase speed on my 24' 2008 imac..ssd..3.06 ghz

I have your machine running Catalina 10.15.2 on a 7200 rpm drive and 4GB's memory. It is slow and laggy. I would consider the SSD upgrade and add the 2 extra GB's memory IF it really makes a difference. Based on your comment, I am not sure. Any thoughts or feedback, please? Thank you

honestone33 · Jan 28, 2020

BuffyzDead said:
I have your machine running Catalina 10.15.2 on a 7200 rpm drive and 4GB's memory. It is slow and laggy. I would consider the SSD upgrade and add the 2 extra GB's memory IF it really makes a difference. Based on your comment, I am not sure. Any thoughts or feedback, please? Thank you

An SSD would definitely improve performance. As for a RAM upgrade, "moving" to 8 gig should help also.

ferences · Jan 28, 2020

dosdude1 said:
I will indeed. Should have it done and tested in a few hours.

Thanks. You're the best.

TimothyR734 · Jan 28, 2020

[automerge]1580245628[/automerge]
Successfully installed 10.15.3 Final using the pinarek/jackluke patches I had to apply the post install patches from the Catalina 1.3.0 patcher in groups of 4 and force rebuild I tried installing all at once but they didn't take but the patches are holding

jackluke · Jan 28, 2020

@TimothyR734 is right, the final update shows also from a beta release as an OTA update (enough small around 3 Gb), instead from App Store I read a full installer 10.15.3 only 4,9 gb ? But honestly this time I don't plan to update since the current beta is build 19D75a while final release is 19D76 , I don't expect big changes, maybe is almost the same build.

dosdude1 · Jan 28, 2020

Update: Looks like the current version of Catalina Patcher works just fine with the 10.15.3 installer!

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

macrumors 68000

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68030

Attachments

macrumors 604

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 68040

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68030

Attachments

macrumors newbie

macrumors 604

macrumors 68040

macrumors 6502a

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68030

Attachments

macrumors 68030

macrumors member

macrumors 6502

macrumors 68040

Suspended

macrumors regular

Suspended

macrumors newbie

macrumors 68030

Attachments

macrumors 68040

Attachments

macrumors 68030

Our Staff