macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[avz]

I couldn't update from 10.15.2 to 10.15.3 in place.
So I updated from USB boot, then works fine.

mac mini server ( mac mini Mid 2011, Macmini5,3) Intel Core i7, Intel HD Graphics 3000

what I did

1. Put CatalinaAutoMountWritable.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons
2. Reboot
3. run swupatch.sh
4. Open software update in System Pref.
5. Click “update”. then download start.
6. run catalinaswufix3.command
7. reboot

then installing ….
then rebooting …
then during reboot, kernel panic, forever loop.

You seem to have missed a very important step.

8. Boot into the patcher and apply the post install patches with force cache rebuild.

 

[zfrogman]

Hello all,
Updated to 10.15.3 via USB on MBP 8,2 (early 2011). All good and smooth. Noticed however that transparency no longer visible (just grey) when choosing "Light" Appearance in System Preference as was the case when having installed 10.15.2 (without having to execute manual install process). Any ideas? thanks

 

[jeffhalmos]

No go for me still. Stuck on 10.15.1 as Patcher 1.3 won't install 10.15.2 or 10.15.3. It just reboots. And the USB option gives me an error upon install.

I got fed up—and GAVE up—on the Dosdude method. Not the patcher's fault; was probably some corrupted or superfluously added code that was keeping it and other things from working as designed. So I went with the tsialex method. Bought an m.2 external case from Amazon and hooked it up to my daughter's 2013 MacBook Pro and did the install of 10.15.3 from there. Worked well. First time I've redone my system from scratch in over a decade. You don't get Night Shift this way so that's the last hurdle.

 

[Zetton]

You seem to have missed a very important step.

8. Boot into the patcher and apply the post install patches with force cache rebuild.

thanks. the mac had the kernel panic during boot at step 7, I can't go to step 8.
I did post install with Boot usb that I booted the mac with, after several kernel panics, but I can't remember if I did cache rebuild.
Reading #8064 carefully again, should I apply the patch at step 6?
(the Boot USB I used was created with 10.15.2 (previous update one) )

So having the latest Boot USB, I did boot-install from the USB memory.

 

[reneroeten]

This should work:

cd /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/Plugins/
sudo mount -uw /
sudo mv AppleUSBCardReader.kext AppleUSBCardReader.bak

yes this is working finally I have no crash issues anymore when the mbp is in sleep

again many thanks

 

[Larsvonhier]

Never had such a repair. Only time I put it in someone else's hands was when the NVIDIA GPU failed and I brought it to Apple Genius bar and they just told me I had to replace the entire logic board.
So no thank you, I took it home and cooked it back to life myself (twice now).

Fact is, other MacBook Pro 4,1 are not affected as yours is, so either it´s a HW issue or some patch did not work right. Side note: Does the two-finger gesture for summoning the right side panel work (two fingers off-trackpad first, the move onto pad from right to left)? This is also a method to see if you got the older 3,1 hardware.

 

[jackluke]

thanks. the mac had the kernel panic during boot at step 7, I can't go to step 8.
I did post install with Boot usb that I booted the mac with, after several kernel panics, but I can't remember if I did cache rebuild.
Reading #8064 carefully again, should I apply the patch at step 6?
(the Boot USB I used was created with 10.15.2 (previous update one) )

So having the latest Boot USB, I did boot-install from the USB memory.

It's very important to use and reapply the "force cache rebuild".

But in this catalina OTA scenario the post-patches should be applied at step 9)

I mean, after catalinaswufix3, reboot normally, and should follow 4 phases, two with apple logo and loading bar (OTA preparing) , and the 3th with a Catalina logo and installing bar, then autoreboot, and letting system boot normally (unpatched) because there is a kind of 4th OTA postscripts.

Only then after the first kp you have to reapply the post-patches. However it's really weird because typically on unsupported mac the kps occurs for these reasons :

telemetry plugin (only for Penryn core2duo)
IOUSB legacy kext (only for pre-2009 machines)
IOSurface.kext (only when gpu legacy kext are copied)
Sometimes also wifi kext

In your case an i7 cpu and sandy bridge you don't need any post-install patches after the post-OTA, at least at the first login. You need them later just for enabling video acceleration and other few things.

 

[macinfo]

Fact is, other MacBook Pro 4,1 are not affected as yours is, so either it´s a HW issue or some patch did not work right. Side note: Does the two-finger gesture for summoning the right side panel work (two fingers off-trackpad first, the move onto pad from right to left)? This is also a method to see if you got the older 3,1 hardware.

On my MBP4,1 I have all the multitouch gestures working (pinch to zoom, rotate, etc.), two finger swipe from right edge to the center of the trackpad (to show notifications panel) also works.

But the two-finger-click (for a right mouse click) never worked on newer macos systems after El Capitan.

One thing that also works is to use a two-finger-tap, but I don’t like it, it’s just not in my muscle memory.

 

[borgo1971]

Hi. Even I didn't really need your patcher (I used it only to download macOS installers), I would say that I'm grateful for your software. But now I've a question for which I can't find an answer here or in other place. Is there a way to prepare an external drive to boot with an iMac 8,1, doing all the job on my (2011) MacBook Pro? Can I install High Sierra with normal Apple installer and then apply your post-install patches? Or need I to create a cached installer in any case? I want to prepare a bootable disk for a inexperienced person that leaves far from me, so she can boot from external drive (I hope and guess she can do this), open teamviewr so I remotely import her user to external drive and after I verified she can login, I will clone the disk to internal drive.
I noticed now I wrote in wrong thread (sorry)... admin should remove the post, I'll write it on High Sierra thread.

 

[Alex-Microsmeta]

@dosdude1 @ASentientBot Could you please release a Clover bootloader version of macOS Patcher? I really do not have money to buy a new expensive mac with soldered CPUs and SSDs, keyboards and display often defectives, and my brother has just given me his 9 years old Core i7-860 Asus P7P55D with Nvidia Quadro 2000, to replace my old Mac mini 2010. I'm sure that it would work much better than the other 3 customMacs that I have tried. I can't even write their Clover Installer on the same pendrives that I succesfully always use for your wonderful ever-working macOS Mojave & Catalina Patchers

EDIT: @TimothyR734 I have a Mac mini 2010, an iMac 2013, an iPhone 5 and a BROKEN iPhone 3GS. Old devices were much better than the actual ones. The components were not soldered on the motherboard and they were less expensives. 2016-2018 Macbook Pros have problems with keyboard and often also the display has problems. So I'm waiting for a new expandable unit for an honest price or I will buy a refurbished mac mini or iMac when my Mac mini 2010 will be no more compatible with next mac OS.

 

[jhowarth]

I am finding that my MacPro 3,1 with GTX 680 has been exhibiting a problem occasionally waking on mouse clicks from sleep mode since installing patched macOS 10.15.3. Clicking the usb mouse doesn't wake the display. Unplugging and replugging the monitor's usb connector doesn't solve this problem and I have to force a reboot. Currently I am exploring whether removing AAAMouSSE.kext (which frankly shouldn't even be installed for this configuration) and rebuilding the kernel cache solves the problem. Sigh.

Just in case I have to drop back to 10.15.2 in order to eliminate this problem, I am trying to download that full installer which I stupidly deleted from my drive. Any idea why this isn't working under 10.15.3?

% sudo softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.15.2
Downloading and installing 10.15.2 installer
Install failed with error: Update not found

 

[shadow_999]

Hi there,

Many thanks for the patch. I've updated my Mac Pro 5,1 from 10.14.6 to 10.15.3 smoothly. That's a wonderful work.

I still have a minor issue. Every x minutes the patch updater popup and proposes me to install patches even if everything is running well (so I guess I don't need them). Is there a way to tell it to not warn me for this patches ?

Thanks

 

[jhowarth]

Hi there,

Many thanks for the patch. I've updated my Mac Pro 5,1 from 10.14.6 to 10.15.3 smoothly. That's a wonderful work.

I still have a minor issue. Every x minutes the patch updater popup and proposes me to install patches even if everything is running well (so I guess I don't need them). Is there a way to tell it to not warn me for this patches ?

Thanks

Isn't there an 'Don't remind me again' button in the dialog that appears?

 

[macarab]

Good afternoon !
I have a problem
When the system patch 1.3.0 works on the flash memory With Catalina 10.15.3 , the installation process stops at the startup screen after the gray bar is complete.
Please note that my device is the MacBook Pro 13 inch late 2011
His current system is Catalina Batcher 10.15.1

I apologize for my bad language

Thank you for your understanding

 

[NielsvdB]

I wanted to see if curiosisty would kill the cat Alina. I carboned copy cloned the internal hard disk of my iMac 10,1 (running macOS 10.4.6 supplemental 2 update) on an external USB hard drive. I then rebooted from this external hard disk and downloaded the installer for macOS 10.15 GM. I used this installer as source for dosdude1's Catalina patcher (version 1.1.5) and proceeded to the installation of macOS 10.15 over my current 10.4.6, directly from the patcher application. The upgrade was successful, my iMac rebooted and showed the Catalina background. As I noticed activity on the external hard drive, I let the system settle about one hour before login. When I eventually logged in I got a window for updating my account settings, and got a notification that the system was optimizing my account and then was prompted to update the Night shift patch. I let the system perform its task before applying the Night shift patch and restarting the machine. The reboot went alright. Have to check now with time if my machine is still working as I expect with my routine applications.
Update:

• Photos application is showing picture pixelized with weird colours in the viewer.
• Music did not recovered all the artwork cover of albums (cover manually added)

Hi Same problem after upgrading to Catalina,

Photo's application showing a "negative" image
see here

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

Hi Balur, reading the blog I found your issue with Photos App after an installation of Catalina on unsupported Mac. Attached you can see what my Photos App is showing when I click on images thumbnails. Colours are messed up and pixelized. Did you somehow sort out the problem with Catalina or...

forums.macrumors.com

Any solution to fix:
installing http://resxtreme.com/ to change to 8bit with AMD 2600 on a early 2008 24"imac

 

[NielsvdB]

I already had the issue with the beta 9.

I have now installed the SwitchResX app (Version 4.9.0), disabled SIP and changed the colors from 1 billion to millions, which has fixed the issue:

View attachment 865559

Currently, 3 people have reported the issue: @iMac-Oldschool probably has a AMD Radeon HD 2400 or 2600, @antony34 has a AMD Radeon HD 4670 and I have a AMD Radeon HD 4850.

3 persons could not reproduce the issue: You (@ASentientBot) have a GeForce 320M, @TimothyR734 has a GeForce 9400M and @vince22 has a metal-compatible video card.

So it's very obvious that the issue only occurs with metal-incompatible AMD video cards.

Maybe others who can reproduce the issue can say which video card they have.

Incidentally, videos that are double-clicked in the Photos app are played correctly (with 1 billion colors).

I noticed something else: If you look at the system info, on High Sierra (the last official macOS for my iMac) the „Framebuffer Depth" is "24-Bit Color (ARGB8888)" (= about 1.67 million colors or 8 bit per channel/sample) and with the Mojave and Catalina patch the „Framebuffer Depth" is "30-Bit Color (ARGB2101010)" (= about 1 billion colors or 10 bit per channel/sample).

Therefore, I think that the affected AMD video cards do not support 30-bit color (see also). Or what do you think? @ll

Maybe the above fix/workaround that @ASentientBot has suggested will help some users and developers.

Edit: Because the SwitchResX app is only free for 10 days, I looked for a permanently free alternative and found the ResXtreme app (Version 1.0.1 (6)), which also works well for me (you have to choose your resolution with 8 instead of 10 bit/sample).

Same issue here with an early 2008 imac 24" with AMD video card

 

[deeveedee]

@dosdude1 @ASentientBot Could you please release a Clover bootloader version of macOS Patcher? I really do not have money to buy a new expensive mac with soldered CPUs and SSDs, keyboards and display often defectives, and my brother has just given me his 9 years old Core i7-860 Asus P7P55D with Nvidia Quadro 2000, to replace my old Mac mini 2010. I'm sure that it would work much better than the other 3 customMacs that I have tried. I can't even write their Clover Installer on the same pendrives that I succesfully always use for your wonderful ever-working macOS Mojave & Catalina Patchers

You don't need a "Clover bootloader version" for this system. Google 'Mojave Biostar 1156' and you'll find my thread for installing Mojave on a socket 1156 system. Read the thread very carefully to see how you can install Mojave with a "vanilla" macOS installer (no patcher). You won't have accelerated graphics, but you can apply the patches after you have macOS running. Post your hackintosh questions in that thread.

 

[Pinarek]

Hi Same problem after upgrading to Catalina,

Photo's application showing a "negative" image
see here

macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

Hi Balur, reading the blog I found your issue with Photos App after an installation of Catalina on unsupported Mac. Attached you can see what my Photos App is showing when I click on images thumbnails. Colours are messed up and pixelized. Did you somehow sort out the problem with Catalina or...

forums.macrumors.com

Any solution to fix:
installing http://resxtreme.com/ to change to 8bit with AMD 2600 on a early 2008 24"imac

@NielsvdB you Tool "resXtreme" is a great wonderfull Tool. Is better and simple as "SwitchResX".

 

[shadow_999]

Isn't there an 'Don't remind me again' button in the dialog that appears?

No :-(

 

[olrik77]

Bonsoir,

Update to 10.15.3 on my MP 3,1 with @dosdude1 patcher and "install to this machine" : just fine !

Merci beaucoup,

Serviteur,
[automerge]1580586295[/automerge]
I have a question :

Looking at "about this Mac", I find on my three internal disks the "efi" partition with a system file " : MS DOS FAT32 !!!

Weird !

Is there an explanation ?

Merci,

Serviteur

 

[applCore]

It may be worth noting that on a 2010 Mac Pro (5,1) integrated audio no longer works after the 10.15.3 update. I assume we need a patch from someone. (@dosdude1 seen this yet?)

 

[shadow_999]

It may be worth noting that on a 2010 Mac Pro (5,1) integrated audio no longer works after the 10.15.3 update. I assume we need a patch from someone. (@dosdude1 seen this yet?)

I'm on a 2012 macpro. Sound is working properly without that patch (I'm on 10.15.3).

 

[applCore]

I'm on a 2012 macpro. Sound is working properly without that patch (I'm on 10.15.3).

Wow, well that's great to hear from your end. I'm really disappointed .3 b0rked it on my end. Scratching my head right now as to how to get it loading up again.

I noticed it is not even initializing at all since there's electrical noise (static-like) coming in the line as it normally does when the computer is completely powered off and just before macOS loads the proper kexts. That simply indicates that the sound output device onboard is not at all being initialized by the OS.

 

[Vyzantion]

@dosdude1 @ASentientBot Could you please release a Clover bootloader version of macOS Patcher? I really do not have money to buy a new expensive mac with soldered CPUs and SSDs, keyboards and display often defectives, and my brother has just given me his 9 years old Core i7-860 Asus P7P55D with Nvidia Quadro 2000, to replace my old Mac mini 2010. I'm sure that it would work much better than the other 3 customMacs that I have tried. I can't even write their Clover Installer on the same pendrives that I succesfully always use for your wonderful ever-working macOS Mojave & Catalina Patchers

The dosdude1 patch and Clover can work together fairly well. On my machine they do. You just need to create the pen drive using the dosdude1 app on a working macOS installation (on a supported Mac or unsupported Mac or Hackintosh), then install Clover, FakeSMC and the rest. You just need to combine the methods described on InsanelyMac with the one from here, like I did. I have an even older Hackintosh hardware and it works.

 

[Macbookprodude]

Though I have 10.15.3 on my 2011 Mac Book Pro, I also read that mechanical hard drives don’t support APFS, or it does but it’s not a great idea. Is it recommended to get an SSD if I plan to keep Catalina running on my system ?