macOS 10.15 Catalina on Unsupported Macs

[jhowarth]

How do I get latest APFS High Sierra firmware and do I need to install same on my catalina hd volume

If you have a spare external drive, just download the High Sierra installer and create a usb installer per Apple's instructions to do the installation.

How to create a bootable installer for macOS

 

[jackluke]

If I do this will I be able to attach usb volume drives without them not showing up

When you plug an usb device from Opencore menu you have to press ESC key to load it quickly.

If you have a flashed EFI GPU Metal ROM yes, but if you hold alt-option key after power-on and after you attach an USB external device does it loads quickly ?

If you have a bootscreen at the apple startup manager (alt-option key after power-on) you can remove OpenCore and do a PRAM reset.

 

[K two]

question - if the Radeon in the 2011 is so bad, then how come the R7 in the 2015 is so much better, though the 2015 natively supports Catalina - just trying to figure out why graphics acceleration can’t work with the Radeon in 2011 ? It works fine on a 2015 and that uses a Radeon ?

The post was based on @dosdude1 "Known Issues", raised the same question previously during Mojave as we have a '10 27" iMac with the dreaded Radeon HD 5xxx GPU - with Mojave installed, the colors were off and there was no acceleration, the image was sharp but too slow to be useful. Dosdude1 gave an answer which cannot be easily located in the 18,272 some odd Mojave posts. Sorry to be of no help, whatsoever.😏 Swapping out GPUs seems to be a bit risky?

 

[tchung5]

I found another glitch. With 1.4, my mid 2009 MacBook Pro fan runs full blast with increased CPU temp (>80C) when idle. Meaning when I'm not doing anything on the computer or when the screen is in sleep mode, fan kicks in. As soon as I resume normal web browsing, document writing, the fan slows down to minimum. Very strange. I reset SMC and PRAM already.

 

[Dannyy]

deleted

 

[K two]

I found another glitch. With 1.4, my mid 2009 MacBook Pro fan runs full blast with increased CPU temp (>80C) when idle. Meaning when I'm not doing anything on the computer or when the screen is in sleep mode, fan kicks in. As soon as I resume normal web browsing, document writing, the fan slows down to minimum. Very strange. I reset SMC and PRAM already.

Look at the Activity Monitor?🧐

 

[Jakob6505]

Did you let it complete the second phase of the install? Normally you will NOT need to apply post-install patches manually, just let it sit until it boots into the OS.

i have installed your patch on several macs, but i keep getting errors on my macbook air 11" mid2011? it shuts down when it says 5 mins left, and then boots into the OSX installmanager ? am i supposed to click on the installer again, and it will continue or??

 

[jhowarth]

Anyone know what the permission changes are in the new Catalina Patcher 1.4.1?

1.4.1 - 4/6/2020

• Fixed an issue where permissions for some third-party applications may not work

Specifically, what commands could be execute from the command line on a 10.15.4 installation done with Catalina Patcher 1.4 to achieve these permission changes without reinstalling? I noticed that nothing has been pushed through Patch Updater to perform these changes. Also, are these permissions for legacy video only?

 

[hobla]

boot into one of your patchers Mojave or Catalina and at the top Apple logo click on that there should be an option to choose start up disk

Thanks, but this doesn't work – this is the standard startup disk selection which doesn't seem to be able to switch between patched installations on the same disk. Can I do the change manually via terminal? I see that APFS Boot Selector mounts the EFI partition, writes something and unmounts it again. It would be very handy to be able to get back to Catalina from Mojave…

 

[TimothyR734]

Thanks, but this doesn't work – this is the standard startup disk selection which doesn't seem to be able to switch between patched installations on the same disk. Can I do the change manually via terminal? I see that APFS Boot Selector mounts the EFI partition, writes something and unmounts it again. It would be very handy to be able to get back to Catalina from Mojave…

What does the startup disk look like in SYSTem Preferences another option is if you have a spare usb at least 512mb I used a 4gb and created the OpenCoreAPFSloader it works to choose a disk to start up

 

[dosdude1]

i have installed your patch on several macs, but i keep getting errors on my macbook air 11" mid2011? it shuts down when it says 5 mins left, and then boots into the OSX installmanager ? am i supposed to click on the installer again, and it will continue or??

Firmware must not be updated. Ensure you install High Sierra first, or apply the necessary firmware update manually, as explained on the webpage.

 

[tchung5]

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Look at the Activity Monitor?🧐

Minimal CPU. Single digit %. So strange.

 

[K two]

[automerge]1586221005[/automerge]

Minimal CPU. Single digit %. So strange.

Look at the accumulated CPU time?

 

[tchung5]

Look at the accumulated CPU time?

Windowserver and Kernal_task are the longest. Both 6 ish minutes. Thanks

 

[K two]

Anyone know what the permission changes are in the new Catalina Patcher 1.4.1?

1.4.1 - 4/6/2020

• Fixed an issue where permissions for some third-party applications may not work

Specifically, what commands could be execute from the command line on a 10.15.4 installation done with Catalina Patcher 1.4 to achieve these permission changes without reinstalling? I noticed that nothing has been pushed through Patch Updater to perform these changes. Also, are these permissions for legacy video only?

New patch on updater.
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Windowserver and Kernal_task are the longest. Both 6 ish minutes. Thanks

You are correct, definitely strange. We have a MB5,1 and when the battery finally went bad all types of power-related strangeness occurred. Sleep, fan and unexpected shutdowns with charger connected. Replaced the battery with what OWC pushes, no issues since. Same charger, still. Original battery went 8 years, btw.

 

[Dilli]

When you plug an usb device from Opencore menu you have to press ESC key to load it quickly.

If you have a flashed EFI GPU Metal ROM yes, but if you hold alt-option key after power-on and after you attach an USB external device does it loads quickly ?

If you have a bootscreen at the apple startup manager (alt-option key after power-on) you can remove OpenCore and do a PRAM reset.

I know I have written a lot on this issue but now It seems I dont have the opencore white page on startup. This happened by itself. Since you wrote earlier that this opencore app you made is not for non apple efi metal gpu 765M card . So now when I start the imac it boot to black screen and does not take me to login screen. I have to always use option-alt key to select the catalina hd to login. Do you have any solution.?

I will try to install your opencore app on usb as bootable and then use it and check if it helps. Since earlier installing to catalina hdd created issues for my non apple efi metal gpu imac machine. Ok I installed your opencore app on USB stick and then after chime pressing option key booted from opencore that took me to white screen. I selected my HDD to login. However, going to startup disk prefpane I dont see your opencore as startup disk so I guess this too does not work for non apple efi metal gpu machine.
Now I am stuck with major issue that is everytime I need to login I have to press option-alt key. Pressing start button only takes me to black screen with fans on. Need a solution pls.
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Hi! I have exact same problem. I have an iMac 2010 with video card changed to a GTX 765. I have a modified EFI bootroom to enable boot screen and also GTX has VBIOS modified by @Nick [D]vB to enable boot screen.
Before install 10.5.4 I had boot screen. After 3 o 5 seconds after chime sound boot screen appears, but now i get a black screen. If a push "Option key" i get boot selection screen but after restart, black screen again.
I don't understand why? Maybe 10.5.4 change something?

Regards.

So both of us has similar issue. I have to use option key always to go to login screen. Auto startup doesnot help but gives black screen. If you come across any solution please let me know.

 

[RichardBrantree]

I had unbearably high memory consumption only once in 10.15.4, but in a rather special situation using a CCC clone (end of post #9712). Now things are normal.

I have a similar issue with 10.15.4 on my late 2008 macbook pro 15,1 . Everything is as slow as molasses on very simple tasks such as browsing the web on chrome to playing a simple video file.

Anybody have any insight on whats wrong and how to fix this?

 

[Dilli]

This RX480 is a Metal 2 GPU, and I don't included those efi drivers for bootscreen on non-EFI Mac GPU firmware.

What do you had previous as non-EFI GPU bootloader before installing Opencore ? I guess you had a blank screen also before.

Anyway you can easily boot to the desktop if you plug any non-Metal GPU in your MacPro, or plug another SATA disk or SSD disk where you can temporary boot another macOS or just unplug your internal hard disk and plug only an USB Installer that should automatically boot from there just to change the default Startup Disk.

But even if you don't have another GPU or hard disk or USB Installer, it is still recoverable, just try CMD+S and check if it shows the shell, or try enter macOS Recovery CMD+R (wait some minutes) and from there choose another Startup Disk, or try PRAM reset.

If those method don't worked then try to hold alt-option key (for 10 seconds) after power-on chime, then press enter, if after some minutes doesn't boot, repeat alt-option and click right-arrow and press enter (to select the second Volume), repeat and click two times right arrow (to select the third volume), and repeat until you can boot and then from macOS re-select Catalina from Startup Disk prefpane.

And if none of the suggested method worked, there are also other ways to fix your issue.

I face similar issue. Perhaps you canwork on to include drivers for non-efi mac metal gpu. This will really help us to boot to login screen. You mentioned above there are other ways to fix this issue. Already catalina is selected in startup disk prefpane but on startup does not show login screen but black screen only though there is chime of startup.

 

[avz]

As explained by @tsialex you already have the latest iMac firmware, I wrongly guessed because you written that from iMac 2011 holding alt-option key only detected an EFI Boot and not an APFS macOS internally installed, but at this point I guess it's a faulty hard drive.

It is not related to what you guys are discussing but I decided to share with you a fun fact nevertheless.
I am using a FileVault with Mojave SSD on my late 2008 MacBook and I don't see a "ghost EFI Boot" in the boot options that you usually see with a APFS ROM patched machine. I guess using a FileVault makes your unsupported APFS installation even more tidy and clean.

 

[hvds]

Try delete completely OpenCore from your internal EFI disk

sudo mkdir /Volumes/efi
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/efi
sudo rm /Volumes/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi
sudo rm -r /Volumes/efi/EFI/OC/

Then open System Preferences Startup Disk and select your Catalina Volume, this should work.

Deleted BOOTx64.efi (nothing left in BOOT directory, so deleted this as well) and OC directory. Remaining is the EFI/APPLE directory.
I've kept the OpenCore loader on USB media, generated with USBOpenCoreAPFSloader.app, and it works fine from there with the full set of tools.
In the ALT/OPT boot selector there is one EFI left on the internal disk(*) - an unimportant side effect from applying the APFS ROM patch as has been reported on this thread.
Thanks again jackluke!

Edit: *this volume is also there on a supported machine (MBP11,1) seen with diskutil list, with similar contents, just not shown by the boot selector.

 

[gr_ant]

Hi guys,

I noticed that after installing macOS Catalina doesn't work Safe mode and Recovery mode.
With applying "safemodefix" safe mode now works, but how to fix recovery mode (cmd+R after apple logo)??
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....2183772/page-357?post=28286347#post-28286347

Thanks

 

[Dilli]

It seems I have had bad luck for a while. Eve since I took a jump to upgrade catalina from 10.15.2 to .4 all is hell.
I lost 2 ssd disk volumes as suddenly my drive doesnot show up even while pressing option key to boot. I have to format the internal ssd again and load OS.

See images below

I lost My Mojave volume hd as well as Catalina OS Volume.

Now I dont know what to do.

I wonder I should go back to 10.15.3 using Dosdude patch 1.3.1 or back to 10.15.2 which was working ok.

Why has Mojave crashed too I dont know. I have right now installed both High Sierra & Mojave on external drive of which Mojave volume does not show. I see round circle with dash diagonally like a stop sign which means the volume is corrupted. Need to re install mojave too.

 

[jackluke]

@Dilli proceed this way:

1) Do a PRAM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

2) to boot Mojave, plug and boot from any USB Installer (also an HighSierra installer), open a recovery terminal and type:

csrutil disable
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
reboot

3) That refind issue is because you uninstalled OpenCore, so try use this again: OpenCoreAPFSloaderupdate.app.zip

My OpenCore setup configuration can't corrupt any Volume, it's just a coincidence in your case, I guess there some incompatibility with your non-EFI Metal GPU.

From that refind verbose message scanning directory "Catalina HD - Data" this is due to a faulty hard disk or a failed upgrade process from 10.15.2 to 10.15.4 rather than opencore, so I can assure it's not opencore your main issue.

 

[Dilli]

@Dilli proceed this way:

1) Do a PRAM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

2) to boot Mojave, plug and boot from any USB Installer (also an HighSierra installer), open a recovery terminal and type:

csrutil disable
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
reboot

3) That refind issue is because you uninstalled OpenCore, so try use this again: OpenCoreAPFSloaderupdate.app.zip

My OpenCore setup configuration can't corrupt any Volume, it's just a coincidence in your case, I guess there some incompatibility with your non-EFI Metal GPU.

From that refind verbose message scanning directory "Catalina HD - Data" this is due to a faulty hard disk or a failed upgrade process from 10.15.2 to 10.15.4 rather than opencore, so I can assure it's not opencore your main issue.

Tks jackluke . I know you are always there to help. It seems my imac is playing strangely.

1 After all above issues i shut down the imac and was upset for a while thinking what to do. I let the imac cool off and after say about an hour just pressed start button and it took me straight to your while opencore screen. Mind you I dont have it installed neither I had any external drives or usb connected. I saw Catalina listed and clicked on option 3 and here I am writing you this message.

2.Now should I install your opencore app on the catalina volume or I should not.

3. Should I do the Pram test option, PQR still

4. I deleted Mojave volume as it was on external USB drive so I will install again.

Even When I installed opencore on external USB it still doesnot show as startup disk in prefpane startup why?

 

[skiabox]

Does patch 1.4.1 have to do with zoom?