macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[Pinarek]

Cause it´s a link to get into developer program.

@******* that's exactly how it is .. but you also notice everything but first doubt ...
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Very good - that looks like the right way forward for me getting 10.15.4b1 onto my Apple MBP5,2. Thanks!

I've installed Mojave 10.14.6s3 over the 10.15.4b1 on my external SSD. This was slightly foxed anyway, plagued by AMFI, and resisted all attempts to get .4b1 to boot. The last try was resetting nvram (and setting boot-args to -no_compat_check again), but no change.
(Good that I still have all the older USB installers on a disk, the whole dosdude et al success story!)
I observed that while booting Mojave, AMFI was still not quite silenced, complaining about the dyld cache, but caches were remade automatically, and Mojave came up.

This Mojave is good enough for its sole purpose of loading the full 10.15.4b1 installer. Did that and copied it from Applications to my internal SSD which has 10.15.3. I am subscribed to the developer program.
(Meanwhile I have Mojave on a surplus HDD to be prepared for future Catalina betas.)

I also tried to install the loaded 10.15.4b1 directly, without patcher's help, from the running Mojave. But I stopped it when the installation process said that the machine needed a firmware upgrade.

Then made a bootable USB installer from it with patcher 1.3.0. That worked, now trying to execute installation steps carefully to see if AMFI will eventually kick in.

@hvds then please write whether you were able to successfully install the 10.15.4 DP1

 

[Aww Shucks]

i hade the same problem, install first the file from the updater then install this file and then reboot. If you already installed from the updater re-install it.

Tried that but still have same issue. I do notice that I can only actually tap-to click (when I tap twice) when I turn on click lock otherwise nothing. I wonder if there is a way to reset the trackpad prefs? Seems like they are just borked. Thanks for your help!

 

[jackluke]

Very good - that looks like the right way forward for me getting 10.15.4b1 onto my Apple MBP5,2. Thanks!

I've installed Mojave 10.14.6s3 over the 10.15.4b1 on my external SSD. This was slightly foxed anyway, plagued by AMFI, and resisted all attempts to get .4b1 to boot. The last try was resetting nvram (and setting boot-args to -no_compat_check again), but no change.
(Good that I still have all the older USB installers on a disk, the whole dosdude et al success story!)
I observed that while booting Mojave, AMFI was still not quite silenced, complaining about the dyld cache, but caches were remade automatically, and Mojave came up.

This Mojave is good enough for its sole purpose of loading the full 10.15.4b1 installer. Did that and copied it from Applications to my internal SSD which has 10.15.3. I am subscribed to the developer program.
(Meanwhile I have Mojave on a surplus HDD to be prepared for future Catalina betas.)

I also tried to install the loaded 10.15.4b1 directly, without patcher's help, from the running Mojave. But I stopped it when the installation process said that the machine needed a firmware upgrade.

Then made a bootable USB installer from it with patcher 1.3.0. That worked, now trying to execute installation steps carefully to see if AMFI will eventually kick in.

After resetting nvram for refreshing values, to boot the 10.15.4 you need those "amfi strings" anyway, otherwise no GUI boot, the same surely applies to a full 10.15.4 beta installer.

It's a new requirement by apple while before SIP disable was suffice for allowing invalid kext/framework signatures.

If you want to boot 10.15.4 with AMFI enabled you can, but you need these stock unpatched frameworks: OpenGL, GPUSupport, Skylight and CoreDisplay.

 

[Lars B.]

Okay, so I am an idiot... I did not back up my unsupported mac on Time Machine and the Catalina Patch is just not working for me and I want to go back to Mojave. However, the patch doesn't seem to let me erase my hard disk or access the non patch boot drive. when I press command +R at startup, i get an error message and then it just boots to welcome screen. how do I get rid of the patch and install an older version of Mac OSX?

Use Command+Option+R to start the recovery over the internet.

 

[0134168]

Hi all - I am trying this again... Working on a Mac Pro 3,1, installing to a brand new internal SSD, the installer gets to the reboot stage and then it doesn't boot to the target disk, instead back to the one I was installing from. No matter what I try, it doesn't recognize it as a boot disk. I've successfully installed Catalina with the patch to an external drive, which I tried cloning, but this yielded the same result: the correct folders are there but it won't boot from it. Any ideas please? And thanks.

You made the USB with the option to create a partition to boot from an APFS formatted drive, right? Unless you have a patched ROM, its necessary.

 

[Paul A Jackson]

Does anyone have any experience running the video conference software Zoom on 10.15.2? I have talked with tech support at Zoom because I'm having trouble displaying or annotating video through the program. It still sends my video, but I can't see anyone's video. The closest Zoom support has been able to get is changing some of the graphics acceleration settings to this point. Thanks!

No, but I have the exact same problem as you on 10.14.6, using the Dosdude1 patch tool etc. I didn't get as far as you did with Zoom tech support.

My guess only (as not expert at all) is that Zoom client software sees Mojave in my case, Catalina in yours, assumes that Metal and underlying GPU features and capabilities are installed and supported, and makes Metal compatible calls to our GPUs, which can't run them and fail gracefully, giving us blank screens.

In this case, it would be really useful either for the "hacked" MacOS to be configurable to be able to identify itself to certain apps as High Sierra (which Zoom fully supports according to its website) or (better, but I suspect less likely) for Zoom client to be configurable to assume it's on a High Sierra or lower platform and not call Metal-specific GPU functions.

It is really annoying here in Hong Kong, because everyone has been using Zoom these past couple of weeks as we are discouraged from meeting in person due to Covid-19.

 

[ASentientBot]

No, but I have the exact same problem as you on 10.14.6, using the Dosdude1 patch tool etc. I didn't get as far as you did with Zoom tech support.

My guess only (as not expert at all) is that Zoom client software sees Mojave in my case, Catalina in yours, assumes that Metal and underlying GPU features and capabilities are installed and supported, and makes Metal compatible calls to our GPUs, which can't run them and fail gracefully, giving us blank screens.

In this case, it would be really useful either for the "hacked" MacOS to be configurable to be able to identify itself to certain apps as High Sierra (which Zoom fully supports according to its website) or (better, but I suspect less likely) for Zoom client to be configurable to assume it's on a High Sierra or lower platform and not call Metal-specific GPU functions.

It is really annoying here in Hong Kong, because everyone has been using Zoom these past couple of weeks as we are discouraged from meeting in person due to Covid-19.

Not a proper solution, but I used Zoom on some of the early Cat dev betas about 6-7 months ago and it worked, so you might try installing an old version if you can find one. (I've long since deleted mine, otherwise I'd upload it here.)

 

[jackluke]

@hvds about your 10.15.4 install, regardless of nvram values, after applied all the post-patches, included the ASentientBot .4b1 wrappers, try this attached, unzip and copy (and replace the one) inside these two paths:

/Volumes/Preboot/Your-UUID/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

/Volumes/Catalina Data/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

or /Volumes/Catalina/System/Volumes/Data/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

at next reboot amfi should be disabled.

To mount Preboot you can use this ASentientBot tool: Catalina DiskUtility all roles
Or from another Catalina or Mojave, diskutil list and diskutil mount diskXs1 .

 

[Enthuser]

Probably another silly question but here goes - I have 10.15 on my 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 and want to upgrade to 10.15.3. I have today’s Dosdude1 patcher and it’s associated Catalina on a flash drive but don’t now know how to upgrade rather than clean install? Am I doing the right thing to select reinstall macOS from the utilities screen? Help please!

 

[Larsvonhier]

Probably another silly question but here goes - I have 10.15 on my 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 and want to upgrade to 10.15.3. I have today’s Dosdude1 patcher and it’s associated Catalina on a flash drive but don’t now know how to upgrade rather than clean install? Am I doing the right thing to select reinstall macOS from the utilities screen? Help please!

Yes, just run the installer from the flash drive and do a re-install to your volume with the existing older version of macOS Catalina. It will not modify your settings, data etc. but just "update" the OS.

 

[Enthuser]

Yes, just run the installer from the flash drive and do a re-install to your volume with the existing older version of macOS Catalina. It will not modify your settings, date etc. but just "update" the OS.

Thank you

 

[EDLIU]

Yes, just run the installer from the flash drive and do a re-install to your volume with the existing older version of macOS Catalina. It will not modify your settings, date etc. but just "update" the OS.

I have a silly question too...

If we installed macOS Catalina 10.15, why can't we just update from the Mac with the Cataline? Why do we need a macOS Catalina 12.15.3 flash drive? Should we select the "Software Update Patch", or the "Install Update Patcher"? Will they work?

 

[Jeff1casey]

You made the USB with the option to create a partition to boot from an APFS formatted drive, right? Unless you have a patched ROM, its necessary.

Could you elaborate? The drives are all formated APFS, and I don’t think I did anything differently when I created the successful external drive.

 

[Pinarek]

Yes, just run the installer from the flash drive and do a re-install to your volume with the existing older version of macOS Catalina. It will not modify your settings, data etc. but just "update" the OS.

@EDLIU if you have macOS e.g. 10.15.3 installed on a Mac or MacBook original, then the new update for 10.15.4 DP1 or Public Beta should come automatically in System Settings - Update. Is there something coming with you?

 

[Tim Thomason]

@EDLIU if you have macOS e.g. 10.15.3 installed on a Mac or MacBook original, then the new update for 10.15.4 DP1 or Public Beta should come automatically in System Settings - Update. Is there something coming with you?

I am having the same issue, all my software update app shows that I have 10.15.3 installed with either dev. or public beta selected.
I use all of the tools issued from here. doesn't matter which way I use them.

 

[Pinarek]

test please my Link hier to Fullinstaller for 10.15.4.DP1

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/macoscatalinadeveloperbeta-dmg-zip.893776/

 

[Sean Udy]

Use Command+Option+R to start the recovery over the internet.

It seems that the patch has disabled that function for me. White screen pops up when I hear the start chime. Then, that code from the patch scrolls up the screen. Then apple logo. Error message. Then it goes to the welcome screen. I don't have the ability to erase my drive from disk utility either.

The reason i wanted to get rid of the patch is because I mainly use this computer for garageband. After I installed the patch and catalina, my playhead in the garageband app has disappeared and when I type, especially in a web browser, there is a huge lag.

I wish i would have just kept the mojave and the patch for that. Things were running great, but I just HAD to get Catalina and Ef my whole week trying to figure out how to get rid of it.

 

[TimothyR734]

It seems that the patch has disabled that function for me. White screen pops up when I hear the start chime. Then, that code from the patch scrolls up the screen. Then apple logo. Error message. Then it goes to the welcome screen. I don't have the ability to erase my drive from disk utility either.

The reason i wanted to get rid of the patch is because I mainly use this computer for garageband. After I installed the patch and catalina, my playhead in the garageband app has disappeared and when I type, especially in a web browser, there is a huge lag.

I wish i would have just kept the mojave and the patch for that. Things were running great, but I just HAD to get Catalina and Ef my whole week trying to figure out how to get rid of it.

You can download the Mojave Patcher then download macOS Mojave Patcher then erase your ssd/hdd and install Mojave
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I am having the same issue, all my software update app shows that I have 10.15.3 installed with either dev. or public beta selected.
I use all of the tools issued from here. doesn't matter which way I use them.

Make sure you have a beta profile installed and try running this in the terminal

 

[Tim Thomason]

test please my Link hier to Fullinstaller for 10.15.4.DP1

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/macoscatalinadeveloperbeta-dmg-zip.893776/

no change in my update status...

 

[kapooo]

I have installed Catalina (10.15) in my iMac 21.5-inch Mid 2010 (iMac11,2) and I have two big problems both with Photo and iMove. I don't know if these issues are caused by Catalina or because my Mac doesn't support natively it. This is a fresh installation.

Photo (version 5.0 (101.15.190)) problem: when I try to open (double click or space button) any photo I see nothing, yet I can perfectly see the photo in thumbnail mode.

iMovie (version 10.1.14) problem: the preview window is always black.

What do you think about these problems?

Thank you!!!

 

[TimothyR734]

I have installed Catalina (10.15) in my iMac 21.5-inch Mid 2010 (iMac11,2) and I have two big problems both with Photo and iMove. I don't know if these issues are caused by Catalina or because my Mac doesn't support natively it. This is a fresh installation.

Photo (version 5.0 (101.15.190)) problem: when I try to open (double click or space button) any photo I see nothing, yet I can perfectly see the photo in thumbnail mode.

iMovie (version 10.1.14) problem: the preview window is always black.

What do you think about these problems?

Thank you!!!

Go to page 251 post#6261 download the older version of iMovie and install the newer versions do not work on unsupported Macs as it requires Metal and as far as photo's you might look for an app ResXtreme and lower your resolution from 10bits to 8 bits see if that helps as a work around than adjust your resolution after your done in photo's

 

[kapooo]

Go to page 251 post#6261 download the older version of iMovie and install the newer versions do not work on unsupported Macs as it requires Metal and as far as photo's you might look for an app ResXtreme and lower your resolution from 10bits to 8 bits see if that helps as a work around than adjust your resolution after your done in photo's

Thank you very much!

 

[hvds]

Very good - that looks like the right way forward for me getting 10.15.4b1 onto my Apple MBP5,2. Thanks!

I've installed Mojave 10.14.6s3 over the 10.15.4b1 on my external SSD. This was slightly foxed anyway, plagued by AMFI, and resisted all attempts to get .4b1 to boot. The last try was resetting nvram (and setting boot-args to -no_compat_check again), but no change.
(Good that I still have all the older USB installers on a disk, the whole dosdude et al success story!)
I observed that while booting Mojave, AMFI was still not quite silenced, complaining about the dyld cache, but caches were remade automatically, and Mojave came up.

This Mojave is good enough for its sole purpose of loading the full 10.15.4b1 installer. Did that and copied it from Applications to my internal SSD which has 10.15.3. I am subscribed to the developer program.
(Meanwhile I have Mojave on a surplus HDD to be prepared for future Catalina betas.)

I also tried to install the loaded 10.15.4b1 directly, without patcher's help, from the running Mojave. But I stopped it when the installation process said that the machine needed a firmware upgrade.

Then made a bootable USB installer from it with patcher 1.3.0. That worked, now trying to execute installation steps carefully to see if AMFI will eventually kick in.

Sorry jackluke and Pinarek, for answering late - Mac and myself were busy with other things. I answer to my own message to maintain the context. And sorry for the long post - others have achieved that already but I wanted to watch the necessary steps in detail.


In short: success! 10.15.4b1 installed fine the orthodox way with Dosdude's patcher 1.3.0, with the only deviations of the additional amfi_get_out_of_my_way=1 in boot-args, and of using ASentientBot's new wrappers. - Writing this now from 10.15.4b1.


So I made a bootable USB installer with 10.15.4b1 (full installer 8.78GB on disk, 8.22GB indicated during load, version 15.4.00, loaded using Mojave) and dosdude patcher 1.3.0. Using patcher options Disable APFS Booter and Don't Auto-Apply Post Installer Patches.

Starting without any AMFI tranquilizers - boot-args just is -no_compat_check.

0) Erased my external SSD and re-cloned the internal SSD with 10.15.3 to it with CCC.
Clone boots fine. First examined what update Catalina would load: size 2.93GB, with no intention to load it (ran swupatch.sh to get the update).
Looked at the disk structure on my system before doing any changes to the clone (photo 1).

1) Booted into the USB installer to install 10.15.4b1 over 10.15.3 on the clone. Installation went smooth (photos 2,3,4 - the short phase with black-on-white progress bar between 3 and 4 I missed).
The resulting system won't boot because I didn't apply any patches yet (photo 5), i.e. boot never ended. When watching the verbose output during boot: no signs of AMFI.
Also looked at the disk structure at that point: is unchanged, SIP unchanged, boot-args unchanged.

2) Booted again into the USB installer to apply the post-install patches manually, choosing all proposed patches except Legacy Video and AFPS (photo 6). Forced chache rebuild.
Still without AMFI options in nvram, the subsequent boot in verbose shows AMFI complaints: about CCC, and SIP being off (photo 7).

3) Set boot-args to -no_compat_check amfi_get_out_of_my_way=1 at that point, leave untouched in Preboot and /Volumes/Catalina Data/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/.
Booted OK (photo 8)! No signs of AMFI in verbose boot.
No acceleration with stock Catalina (or rather cloned patched 10.15.3 ?) graphics so next step...

4) Put ASentientBot's (post #8213/pg329) new CoreDisplay/CoreDisplayOriginal and SkyLight/SkyLightOriginal into clone's /S*/L*/Frameworks/CoreDisplay.framework/Versions/A and /S*/L*/PrivateFrameworks/SkyLight.framework/Versions/A, resp. Then chmod/chown these 4 items. For convenience did that from the booted internal SSD.
Left it to the patcher to rebuild caches (deselect all patches, force cache rebuild).

5) Running fine with transparency achieved (photo 9). Also switched GPU to the 9600M GT (energy saver options, logout/in, reboot) which I normally use.

(MBP5,2 17" mid 2009, 2.8GHz T9600, 8GB, APFS ROM patch applied, Samsung SSD 860 EVO with APFS. Catalina 10.15.4b1.)

 

[Pinarek]

deleted

 

[hvds]

@hvds Please have a look in System Settings in Monitors to see if there are 2 options like "Colors" and "Monitor". For me, the option "monitor" is missing. Strangely, ONLY "colors" can be seen.
I can not explain why "monitor" is missing. You can also see my screenshot on page 332.

Here Link to my screenshots
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/bildschirmfoto-2020-02-09-um-03-57-59-png.893295/

Incidentally, the background picture with the train is the Brockenbahn in the Harz Mountains with the steam locomotive series 99, nice isn't it

In my case it looks normal.

(by the way, is your screen background photo from the Harz?)